Serving Whitman County since 1877
Serving Whitman County since 1877
Kreos
Kreos owners Rod Farrington and Dave Schrecongost.
Kreos has staked a claim in Uniontown.
The new restaurant, located in the former Farmers State Bank building, opened a month ago and so far all checks are clearing.
“I never dreamed we’d be as busy as we are,” said Rod Farrington, a co-owner with longtime associate Deve Schrecongost, both of Lewiston.
Serving a menu of pizza, salads, hamburgers and fries – with seven homemade sauces – they combined long experience in the restaurant business to open their first venture.
Both graduates of Lewis-Clark State College, Farrington and Schrecongost rented the space last October after a long search.
“For what we wanted to pay, this is half or a third of the cost to rent in L-C, Pullman or Moscow,” said Farrington.
The pair was looking for a certain kind of place too.
“We wanted character,” Farrington said.
After signing an agreement on the 1907 building, they installed a full kitchen, including flat grill, deep fryer, sauté unit and two 1,600-pound pizza ovens. All equipment was bought used, much of it shipped from Michigan.
The two then built their own tables for seating up to 25 in the front of the former Fidelity Bank, the building’s last financial tenant which closed in the early ‘90s.
In 2012-13 the Vineyard Vault, a beer and wine specialty store, occupied the space.
There are no employees for the restaurant. Farrington and Schrecongost get sometime help from wives and children.
“But as busy as we’ve been, we may have to re-think that,” Farrington said.
Before deciding on Uniontown, the pair did research to find that 7,000 cars per day pass through the town.
Named for a Greek word for “Creation,” the restaurant features a simple system for ordering burgers, pizza and light appetizers.
“You build it from the ground up,” Farrington said. “You get to create your own food.”
In the fall, they hope to debut a butternut squash ravioli.
Farrington and Schrecongost decided on the menu after asking around, appearing at a Uniontown Community Development Association meeting and informal polling.
“Your customer is usually the one you’re working for,” Farrington said.
Now Kreos serves its seven-hour marinara and a four-cheese pizza blend for patrons four days per week, Thursday to Sunday from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m.
“It’s a really nice addition to town,” said Dale Miller, President of the Uniontown Community Development Association. “They’ve really used the space about as effectively as you can.”
Farrington grew up around a restaurant his parents owned in the ‘70s in Lewiston, then built a career as a chef and manager, later running Jazzy’s jazz club in Lewiston for five years.
He returned to LCSC in 2012 to get an additional degree in hospitality.
In July, Kreo’s was nominated for “Best Burger” and “Best Pizza” by Inland 360, the weekly arts & entertainment insert of the Moscow-Pullman Daily News and Lewiston Tribune.
They didn’t win.
“Next year,” said Schrecongost.
Garth Meyer is a former Whitman County Gazette reporter.
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