Perkins in Pocatello closing its doors after 26 years

POCATELLO — Perkins Restaurant and Bakery in Pocatello is packing up its muffins and pies for the last time this weekend.

“When we close the doors this Sunday, we will be done,” co-owner and manager Stan Hales told EastIdahoNews.com.

Stan Hales and his co-ownership team purchased the property at the corner of Pocatello Creek Road and Olympus Drive with the hope of running the business for 20 years, then selling. Twenty-six years later, Hales says it’s finally time to move on.

“Father time catches up with us all,” he said. “I’m 73 years old and it’s time to retire.”

The property was actually sold in May, Hales explained, but part of the sales agreement was that he and his team would lease the property for six months allowing time for the new owner to decide how he planned to use it.

“We had been trying to sell (for a while),” Hales said. “We were hoping that we could continue on as a Perkins with somebody else, but the new owner decided that he wanted to go in another direction.”

Hales isn’t sure what the new owner is planning to do with the property.

Hales, who was part-owner of an office products supply store prior to this venture, joked that if he had been asked 27 years ago if he thought he would ever work in the foodservice industry, he would have laughed.

And after more than a quarter-century in the industry, of working or being on-call seven days a week, for 17 hours a day, he is not even sure what is next.

Going against what he had been told was protocol for the industry, he informed his staff of the closing this week, giving them time to make their plans going forward.

“We did something that we were kinda told not to,” he said. “They always tell you the thing to do is close and then tell the employees when they come to work the next day. We just didn’t want to do that. We’ve been fortunate to have good employees and we didn’t think that was fair to them.”