Tekoa Café changes format

Tekoa’s Café Artisan halted its regular business hours at the first of the year and is now two months into its new business model, opening only for special events.

“We didn’t close, we just completely changed our concept,” said Amber Giebeler, who owns the business.

The café in downtown Tekoa now opens for meals on certain holidays and on nights when there are shows at the Tekoa Empire Theater. The restaurant also serves specialty meals for events like business luncheons.

Another show will be at the Empire March 26 and the café will open for a dinner that evening. They will also have a breakfast May 8 for Mothers Day and a dinner for Easter. They opened to serve a meal for Valentine’s Day last month.

To have the café host a meal for a special event, Giebeler said people can call the café or look up the website.

Giebeler said she closed the café’s normal hours because she was running the place alone. She became burned out from the excessive hours, up to 72 a week.

“It was just nonstop. I was tired of beating myself up and never receiving a paycheck,” she said.

Amber’s husband Klaus owns Soft Design, another downtown business in Tekoa. The couple has lived in Tekoa for the past four and a half years and moved to the town from Oregon.