By VERNON ROBISON
Moapa Valley Progress
A local favorite Overton eatery has made some significant changes to its dining area. The Inside Scoop was closed for three days last week for some much needed renovations. The store closed on Monday night and re-opened again on Friday morning.
At first glance, the changes are a bit hard to notice. The dining area is actually quite similar to the way that it always was. But that was done by design, according to restaurant owner/operator Tish Cook. She wanted to keep the restaurant looking like the same small-town, family business that it always has been.
“I love keeping this place and having it in the family,” Cook said. “We have kept it vintage on purpose, and have kept mainly all of the same decorations in here as were always here. So the changes we have made are kind of subtle. Just sprucing things up a little.”
A brand new wood flooring in the dining area is probably the most noticeable change. The tables and chairs are still the same furniture; but have been freshened up with a new coat of paint. And the booth seating has been re-upholstered.
One of the two matching vintage ice cream freezers had to be removed because it was broken beyond repair. This was a particular heartbreaker for the owners.
“Those ice cream freezers have to be around 70 years old,” said store owner, and Tish’s mother, Joyce Spencer. “We have had them forever and they kept working much better than the new freezers do.”
The dining area renovation is part of a series of updates that have been made to Inside Scoop over the past several years. During that time, the Scoop has seen a major overhaul in its kitchen area, a face lift to the outside business front, and now a dining room update.
In the process of the improvements the family has found interesting bits of history from the unique past of the building. In its oldest part, the structure was purportedly constructed in the 1940s. So stripping the dining room floor down to the sub-flooring was a journey into the past. Various layers were discovered showing the many different functions that the building has served over the years.
“This building has been a restaurant, a school, a church, a hardware store and even a meat market,” said Cook.
That last function was revealed for the first time a few years ago when the front of the building was getting a new paint job, Cook said. They hired someone to sandblast the old paint layers off. As they did, large lettering reading “Meat Market” appeared which had once been painted across the building front.
In addition to the dining area renovations, the family is also celebrating their 25th anniversary of owning and operating the Scoop. Joyce and her late husband Ralph Spencer purchased the business in the summer of 1992 from Heber Tobler, owner of Home Hardware and Variety store which was next door (now True Value). The Spencers had just sold their cattle ranch in Gunnison, Utah where they had been ranching since 1977. They decided to settle in Overton and live in their home out at Stewart’s Point.
“A lot has happened since we opened, and a lot has changed,” said Joyce. “But it has been good and I wouldn’t want anything different. Having the kids close by and the family involved has been wonderful.”
The restaurant currently employs 16 people, and nine of those are family members.
“The rest of our employers we consider to be family members anyway,” said Tish. “So it is a family business in the truest sense of the word.”
Tish especially recognized all of the family and friends from the community who came forward to help in this latest renovation. It turned out to be quite a project, she said.
“During those three days we were getting here at 7 am and working through until 11 pm!” Tish said. “We ran into a lot of things along the way that slowed us down. But we had people who came to help that were not even asked to help. They just could see we needed a hand and pitched in. It would never have been possible without the family and friends that helped us out.”
As it was, the family worked feverishly right up until the opening on Friday morning, finishing up the details.
“It was close but we got open on time,” Tish said. “And we are pretty happy with the way that it looks now.”
