VANTAGE – At 1:40 p.m. on a recent Saturday outside the Vantage Vista Shell station on Main Street, it was nearly 90 degrees, with searing blue skies.
Inside the station convenience store, manager Dan Medrano faced customers lined up all the way from the cash register to the back-wall beer coolers.
“This is how it is on the weekends when there’s a sellout crowd at the Gorge,” said Medrano with a smile as he made change for a young man buying several six-packs of beer. “The summer rush is upon us. It’s hard work and really hectic, but in Vantage we depend on it.”
Vantage, 27 miles east of Ellensburg, is perched on a bluff that overlooks the Columbia River, the Vantage Bridge across the river and basalt cliffs along both sides.
I-90 cuts through the unincorporated community, which at a distance looks like a green oasis in the desert. During the summer, oasis is a fitting description.
Folk-rock singer Jack Johnson was at the Gorge Amphitheatre near George recently, and concertgoers flooded Vantage businesses on their way through. The crowd at the Gorge was later estimated at 22,000.
Medrano, 49, said Vantage businesses, about 15 minutes from the Gorge, go strangely quiet when concerts begin at 7 p.m.
“But you can be sure the crowd will be back through again starting around 10 o’clock, and we’ll be selling gas and food again until 3 a.m.,” Medrano said.
Outside, in the shade under the station’s pump-island roof, cars were backed up for gas, and others were parked around the perimeter of the station. Some made the station a place to rendezvous with friends and stop and have a cold beer.
John Mayer, 25, of Yelm sipped a Corona outside the station with two carloads of friends who waited for others to catch up to them from Western Washington. They sat on a blanket on gravel on the side of the station.
They all traveled I-90 that day to make the concert.
“This is definitely where you have to come when you go to the Gorge,” Mayer said. “I guess we’re helping the local economy.”
As proof, Mayer pointed to the six-pack of beer he had just bought. He also purchased a red sun visor from the Vantage General Store for $9.99. It had the word “Vantage” written on it.
He said he stops at Vantage every time he goes to the Gorge, which is about twice a year.
Billy Given, 27, of Seattle leaned against his car nearby and quietly watched Mayer’s group, which included several young women. He and his two friends, members of the Old Puget Sound Beach Rugby Club, were also meeting up with another group from across the mountains. The concert was their destination, too.
“We’re all drinking buddies,” Given said with a laugh. “This is where we meet. Always. It’s just the right spot.”
The group later headed for the boat launch operated by Kittitas County and Grant County PUD. They ate and drank on the grass near the river until it was time to drive to the Gorge.
Down the street at the Vantage General Store, employee Jim Harwell faced a long line of customers mostly in their late 20s and early 30s. He was about to open another cash register to handle the load.
“We’re busy like crazy, and then it’s so calm we could close the doors when the concerts start and go home,” Harwell, 24, said.
Every concert brings a different crowd to Vantage, he said. The Jack Johnson concert crowd was mellow, he said, compared with the younger, louder crew attending the KUBE Summer Jam in July.
He said it the Dave Matthews Band’s three-day gig the next weekend would stretch services to the max.
Summer work is interesting, Harwell said. He remembered when a drummer for the Dave Matthews Band once stayed at the Riverstone Resort campground.
“Once in a while, we gas up some of the artists’ big buses on their way from the Gorge,” he said. “That’s kind of neat.”
At Blustery’s restaurant on Main Street, owner Jeff Stellick worked the kitchen, and said the lunchtime rush was about over.
“A little while ago, I had the grill covered with patties,” Stellick, 34, said as he wiped his forehead. “Sometimes these concert weekends are just beyond hectic. That’s when we only get a breather from 2 a.m. to 5 a.m.”
Business is pretty slow in Vantage from December through mid-February, and then starts to pick up, he said.
“Once during that real quiet time, I followed a lone customer out the door after he ate and kept talking to him as he got in his car,” Stellick said. “I guess I really wanted some customer contact.”
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