A change in ownership won’t change The Maltby Cafe

MALTBY — One of Snohomish County’s most beloved restaurants, The Maltby Cafe, is getting a new co-owner, but Keesha Laws says don’t expect any major changes.

The lines outside the door of the humble restaurant in rural Maltby tell her that the right move is the status quo.

“The restaurant is successful for a reason,” she said. “So keeping my mom’s vision of great food, great atmosphere and great service is what has made the Maltby,” she said.

Laws said she wants to continue her mom Tana Baumler’s winning formula that has kept the breakfast and lunch restaurant in unincorporated Maltby open for 37 years.

Still Laws, the restaurant’s manager, said she is thrilled that her mom is making her a partner.

“It’s an exciting new chapter in my life to be with my mom as co-owner,” she said at lunch on Friday as servers brought customers one of the restaurant’s specialties, The Maltby Club. One of their signature dishes, the club has slices of turkey and ham roasted daily, served on fresh toasted bread with thick, smokey Daily’s bacon from Missoula, Montana.

Even though it was 2:30 p.m. the omelets were still being served. One specialty popular at lunchtime, The Maltby New York Steak Omelette, was packed with strip steak, black olives, sauteed mushrooms, onions, tomatoes and two types of cheese: Jarlsberg Swiss Cheese and Tillamook cheddar cheese.

Other customers were having dessert, munching on the cinnamon rolls, a house specialty for decades.

Laws knows the restaurant well.

“My mom stuffed me in her backpack when she opened,” she joked. “I was two years old.”

For the last five years, she had worked alongside her mom as manager, but it hasn’t been all front of the house. She said she’s cooked, washed dishes, cleaned — you name it.

“My mom knows what she is doing and, if I can successfully continue her legacy, that is the goal,” Laws said.

Baumler, 70, said she’s not a techie person and that her daughter will be able to take charge of the restaurant’s computer system and update things as needed.

“She’s able to work on those things that we need nowadays to survive,” Baumler said.

And maybe, just maybe, she will be able to take longer vacations, she said.

The new ownership partnership will be formally agreed to by the end of the year, but Baumler said she plans to continue to be involved in the restaurant’s operations with her daughter.

To Baumler, The Maltby Cafe is more than a restaurant. She said it’s the community center of rural, unincorporated Maltby, just 4.2 miles from the border of Woodinville.

It’s easy to understand why.

The customers and the staff all know each other, and everyone is having a good time at the basement space of the former school house annex built in 1937.

“It’s almost like a church, like an anchor of the community,” Baumler said.

The restaurant started after Baumler met Barbara Peter and Sandra Albright in 1980 when they all joined a community women’s soccer team.

Baumler said the three would seek out good places to have breakfast after the game and discovered The Maltby Cafe.

The cafe became a regular stop and one day after two years of breakfasts they noticed a sign that the restaurant was for sale. The three decided to buy the establishment.

Baumler has ran the restaurant for almost four decades.

“We have a history here,” she said. “I knew kids that were in their mom’s belly and then they came in to the restaurant with their college friends, and now they’re bringing their wife and children,” she said.

Baumler said she formally bought out her two partners in 2004, though she has been the sole member of the original trio operating the restaurant for the last five years.

Business was strong at the restaurant for countless years until COVID-19 almost wiped it out.

When then Washington Governor Jay Inslee ordered a third shutdown for indoor dining in late November 2020, The Maltby Cafe saw sales drop by 90 percent.

Baumler said the restaurant was about to be shut down until a local businessman organized a GoFundMe to save The Maltby Cafe. She said she was initially opposed because she didn’t want anyone’s charity.

“I was kind of mad and humiliated,” she said.

In a matter of days, $120,000 was raised. Customers lined outside the door for take-out. The campaign saved the restaurant, and Baumler said she realized she was wrong to oppose the help.

“It wasn’t about me, it was about the community and all the memories people had of the restaurant,” she said.

At the same time as the fundraising campaign, Baumler developed the “Miracle on Maltby Street,” a socially distanced, holiday-themed outdoor event on the restaurant’s patio that funded a $10,000 payment to cover employees’ medical insurance until the end of that year.

Many of the employees at the Maltby Cafe have worked there for years, but none travel as far to work as Teresa Correa. Her retired husband got the Arizona bug and the couple moved to Scottsdale two years ago. But every month she flies back for two weeks at a time to work at the restaurant and see family members that still live in the area.

Correa handles a variety of positions at the restaurant, from waitress to hosting to helping out in the kitchen — whatever is needed of her that day.

“I love the people. I love working here,” she said.

It’s also a family affair. Her daughter Jennifer also works at the restaurant. In fact, she said they operate as one person, rotating shifts when Teresa is in Arizona.

Waitress Sarah Calvo has been working at the restaurant for 19 years. Not only is her boss Tana Baumler amazing, she said her customers can light up her day.

“If you work at a place where you’re having a hard time or something and you get blessed by your customers, that just doesn’t happen too often. And we have that here,” she said.

Her brother Rod Diller also works at the restaurant rotating positions.

“Everyone here is like a family or real close,” he said. “A lot of the customers have been coming here for years and they are like family, too.”

Chandra Kelley of Snohomish thoroughly enjoyed her omelet with spinach, cheese, bacon and onions on Friday but she said she remembers the restaurant for its special touches.

“It’s a fun spot to come in,” she said.

Last year, she went for her birthday brunch and they put a candle in her Bloody Mary — a special thing she said still sticks in her mind.

October will be among the busiest months for The Maltby Cafe. It’s Oktoberfest.

Every day from Oct. 21-27, a second special menu of German specialities plus beer and wine specials will be offered. A German sampler plate will also be offered each day for $21.95, consisting of two bratwursts, hot German potato salad, red cabbage sauerkraut and German rye bread.

Baumler says its a yearly tradition, but its hard work cooking specialties for the next day after the restaurant closes at 3 p.m.

She said her daughter is hard at work cooking each night, one of the reasons she deserves to be an owner.

Outside the restaurant, a high-rise sign reads Maltby Cafe is Here to Stay.”

It was erected after the restaurant almost closed.

Tana Baumler said that would have been sad. She said that she began to realize during COVID-19 that “the customers come here for connection along with the food.”

Baumler said she would have missed the joy of work at The Maltby Cafe if it closed.

“There’s nothing like coming to work and getting hugs from the people you love,” she said.

Randy Diamond: 425-339-3097; randy.diamond@heraldnet.com.