East Idaho Eats: North Hi-Way Cafe serving traditional meals for 82 years

IDAHO FALLS – The longest running café in the Gem State is based right here in Idaho Falls.

Owner Roxanne Smith said the North Hi-Way Café has been serving the community for nearly 82 years.

She said it’s been around so long because of its customers.

“There’s always somebody unique coming in, and they’ve come here for years and years,” Smith said.

Smith said she and her husband fell in love with the deep history of North Hi-Way Café. They have owned the restaurant for 14 years.

Everything they make stays true to the recipes the café was founded on, she said.

“It’s just old-time recipes and old-fashion cooking. It just works that way for us,” Smith said.

Smith said between front-door customers and catering, the café turns nearly 4,000 meals a day.

“It’s all from scratch, and when I say ‘scratch,’ we start baking from 3:30 a.m. We start rolling out the noodles at 3:30 a.m., start the mashed potatoes. Just everything starts real early in the morning, and it goes until closing each day,” Smith said.

Customers Paul and Ofilia Tremblay say they’ve been coming together to the restaurant for 30 years, and Paul Tremblay for 20 years prior to that.

“The people (are) very nice and they treat you like family,” Ofilia Tremblay said.

Paul Tremblay said if you’ve never been the restaurant before, start with breakfast.

“The (breakfast) menu is amazing, they range from omelets, bacon and pancakes,” he said.

Another customer, Lance Macfarlane, said he and his wife have been coming every week for two years. He said sometimes he orders roast beef, and other times it’s a seafood day.

“The shrimp salad is the best in town,” Macfarlane said.

Smith said they’ve perfected a lot of recipes, but the most requested is the rare-beef sandwich.

“We take the roast and we slice it very thin, (and) put it on the homemade bun,” Smith said. “A lot of people think it’s similar to a super-sized old fashioned French dip.”

They’ve also received a lot of attention for their Chicken Noodle Soup Wednesdays.

“We’ve gotten infamous on our homemade chicken noodle soup, we say it’s the cure for the common cold,” Smith said.

Regardless of what’s ordered, Smith can attest it’s the customers that make serving at North Hi-Way Café worthwhile.

“It’s all because of the good folks here in Idaho Falls. That’s what makes this place fun to own and operate,” Smith said.

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