Market opens June 19 at future Truby's restaurant site

Truby's Wood Fired Pizza, a favorite of Whitefish diners that closed in 2006, will reopen its doors in Columbia Falls next spring.

But until then, a farmers market will occupy the future Truby's site, at the corner of First Avenue West and Seventh Street.

Truby's owner Kristin Voisin bought the land in Columbia Falls with visions of developing it into the First and Seventh Street Market, which would include the restaurant, open-air booths, perhaps office space - whatever evolves along with the community's needs.

The farmers market is a long-held dream of the First Best Place Task Force. The group is working to invigorate Columbia Falls through restoring the uptown shopping district, linking riverside trails to the city's pedestrian path system, building a Glacier Discovery Center in the heart of town and carrying out an array of other citywide initiatives.

Voisin, a Whitefish native, is moving Truby's from its old digs on Central Avenue in Whitefish to the historic uptown district of Columbia Falls. Her three adjoining lots at the top of the First Avenue West hill also will be home base, starting this summer, for a mobile unit that will fire up Truby's pizza on site wherever events take it.

She's excited about the new potential in her adopted town.

"I've fallen in love with Columbia Falls," Voisin said. She still lives with her four children in Whitefish, but "as I drive this way, there's just something about it. It's magical."

That magic goes beyond Teakettle and Columbia mountains that tower over Columbia Falls to the northeast and, Voisin said, have captured her heart.

It goes beyond the people who love their town enough to power into the task force's broad-based revitalization effort and draw Voisin into working on the Historic Uptown Neighborhood committee.

It goes beyond the city's status as the gateway to Glacier National Park and the stream of visitors who pass through every year on their way there.

"I'm getting more involved in the community," she said. "We're trying to get people to turn to Columbia Falls."

Thus, she said, Truby's has found the perfect new home.

IN THE meantime, her land will get a good warm-up at the Thursday night farmers market beginning June 19. It's a refreshed effort, after another Columbia Falls farmers market ran for a season a few years back.

From 4 to 7:30 p.m. this summer, vegetables, baked goods, plants, flowers, handcrafts, coffee and pretty much whatever else locals want to offer can be found in booths that will cluster at the top of the First Avenue West hill. Live music is on tap. There will be wood-fired pizza. More will be added as opportunities arise.

"It's a work in progress," said Mimi Moser, Voisin's marketing partner.

What it won't be, though, is a retooled version of Kalispell and Whitefish farmers markets. Voisin and Moser have gotten enough local vendor commitments to ensure this will have a uniquely hometown flavor.

Those vendors will keep coming back every Thursday until the season runs out - Sept. 18 is the closing date.

Anyone who would like to be part of the market is invited to call Moser at 312-533-8853.

Moser works with Voisin on the Historic Uptown Neighborhood committee. Other committee members, including Sally Petersen, Barb Jenkins, Cindy Shaw, Eileen McDowell and others, have been working to bring a farmers market to the city for some time now. When Voisin offered to host it on her land, the timing was right and the market was set.

A house at the corner of Voisin's three lots, which landlord Leonard Knutson has been renting out to families over the years, will become Voisin's new office after June 15. A garage there will be torn down to make way for the market.

Parking will be allowed in the former Columbia Falls Army-Navy store lot down the hill and along adjacent city streets, but not in front of the Three Rivers Emergency Medical Service or fire station across Seventh Street to the north.

"WE HOPE to bring people to town, have them come to the farmers market and then wander up through the shops," Voisin said.

With the market's hours starting at 4 p.m. the uptown shops still will be open, and may even have a few items in the market booths.

And with the market's closing time set for 7:30 p.m., it will give the people an opportunity to head for the 8 p.m. music concerts just down the road at Marantette Park every Thursday of the summer.

"It's a day to spend in Columbia Falls," Moser said.

The farmers market will be good for the town and eventually good for bringing traffic to Truby's when the restaurant opens its doors. Troy Denman of Denman Construction, a founder of the Flathead Green Building Guild, plans to start digging this fall and incorporate eco-friendly aspects into every phase of the project.

Voisin is a new member of the Alternative Energy Resources Organization and plans to hold to its sustainable principles, offering organic and vegetarian fare as an option at the restaurant.

"We're evolving to that level and that's where our world and economy are going," she said. It's about "our [energy] crisis. It's bringing us back to our community."

Voisin's family will be a major part of the plan at First and Seventh Street Market. Her four children range from age 17 to 9-year-old twins.

"They are truly my life. Part of doing this is for them. They'll be very much a part of this," she said, pointing to their individual cooking and business inclinations. "It's in their genes, they grew up with it."

Her own "genetic" inclinations include hotels, restaurants and hard work. The Whitefish High School graduate worked at the old Orpheum Theater when she was 10, and later at the original Rocky Mountain Lodge, Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant by the viaduct, Brothers Corral on Central Avenue, and dozens more later in life. She served in the Navy four years, went to airline school, and finally settled back in Whitefish with her family in 1992.

That move gave birth to Truby's Wood Fired Pizza Fine Dining and Spirits.

"I believe in Truby's," Voisin said. "I'm very passionate about it. It's what I built over 12 years and I'll bring that to Columbia Falls."

She plans to be part of a growing population in the city who are adding their energy and ideas to a revitalized community and economic climate.

"It depends on how it all evolves," Voisin said. "The restaurant is first."

Reporter Nancy Kimball can be reached at 758-4483 or by e-mail at nkimball@dailyinterlake.com