Running Wasatch Bagel & Café the last three years, Kreg Van Stralen has had to hold back a bit.
A veteran of 17 restaurant endeavors since 1989, just serving breakfast and bagel sandwiches utilized only a portion of his experience and expertise.
No more, he said. The time is right for Wasatch Bagel to offer its customers more. It is now Wasatch Bagel & Grill.
This fall Van Stralen and his daughter Chelsea invested $50,000 in a new kitchen to serve three meals a day in their restaurant at Snow Creek Plaza.
“It’s a low-priced, high-quality menu so people rich and poor will want to eat here frequently,” he said.
Because providing 95 percent of the bagels purchased at the three ski resorts takes a lot of time from his staff in the evenings, Wasatch Bagel will grow its dinner business slowly, he said. Right now, it is only available through Speedy Fernandez Delivery at parkcitydelivery.com.
But without much promotion or advertising, lunch business is already up 10 to 20 percent, he added.
“We quietly and slowly will build unique quality and reasonable prices,” he added.
Signature burgers include garlic, avocado and salami. The meat, buns and cooking style he’s using were perfected in hamburger stands he ran in the 1990s. About 10 different varieties are available. The French Dip recipe offered is the one used by Phillippe’s in Los Angeles the purported originator of the sandwich.
The lunch and dinner menu is an amalgamation of the most popular items he’s sold in the past 20 years.
“It’s an upgrade from our competitors,’ he said.
The new kitchen has also allowed Wasatch Bagel to expand and improve its breakfast offerings. Waffles, pancakes, hashbrowns, four-egg omelets and more are now sold. Eggs for bagel sandwiches are cooked in a pan instead of a microwave, he added.
The changes have elicited a great response already and are improving business organically, he said. If they try to change too much too fast he’s afraid they’ll compromise on quality.
To complete the menu expansion, Wasatch Bagel is also offering ice cream from Yellow Snow Creamery.
“We owed it to our customers to put money into the place and round out the menu,” he said.
Wasatch Bagel has been in business a long time under multiple owners. What keeps it in business is the loyal clientele, he said. It’s a gathering place for people. It has regulars like a neighborhood café. It was important to him to expand, but not change, what the café means to people, Van Stralen said.
To give back to customers, Wasatch Bagel opens 365 days a year, he said. Tourists don’t all have kitchens and still need to eat no matter the day. Staying open also extends an open door to full-time residents with no place to go.
That’s also possible because of his hard-working staff, he said. In three years, no one has ever left and no one new has ever been needed. The team is tight-knit and enjoys working together, he added.
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