Boston Invades Spokane Restaurant Chain Set To Open First Of Five Inland Northwest Eateries

Sherry Bowerson is having trouble remembering her lines.

“O.M.L.,” she yells, adding shakily, “I think.”

But she’s right. OML stands for open-faced meatloaf, one of the hot sandwiches served at the new Boston Market restaurant at Sprague and Evergreen in the Spokane Valley.

Bowerson was among the 50 employees who served free lunches and dinners this week as they trained to staff the restaurant.

The training process will be repeated four more times by the end of the year - at Argonne and Interstate 90, on North Division, on the South Hill and in Coeur d’Alene - as Boston Market explodes into the Inland Northwest.

The Sprague and Evergreen store will open Saturday, the Argonne store, July 6. Opening dates have not been set for the others.

BC Northwest Inc., which owns the Boston Market franchise rights for Washington and Oregon, chose Spokane as its third target expansion area because of population base and demographics, said Dennis Mullen, chief executive officer.

BC Northwest already has built 31 Boston Market restaurants, with the famous rotisserie chicken, turkey, freshly cooked ham and meatloaf, in Seattle and Portland. The company plans to have 75 stores by the end of 1997.

Boston Market changed its name from Boston Chicken when the ham, meatloaf and rotisserie turkey were added.

With an array of freshly prepared vegetables, including mashed potatoes, butternut squash and whole-kernel corn, some customers say Boston Market skewers its fast-food rivals.

“Nothing’s deep fried. It’s all rotisserie or steamed,” said customer Ted Whipps, as he sampled a ham sandwich and mashed potatoes.

Mullen said the main competition for Boston Market is “Mom and the supermarkets. People just don’t have time like they used to.” As proof, he said, 50 percent of Boston Market’s business is take-out.

Food for the Spokane stores is prepared both on-site and at the area’s “flagship” store, in Tigard, Ore., said Lauri Gritten, managing partner for BC Northwest. Salads and vegetables are shipped every week and are refrigerated, not frozen.

On an average day, a Boston Market restaurant will go through 20 to 30 spits of turkey and chicken. One spit will hold four chickens or two turkey breasts.

Boston Market, Gritten said, tries to be different by making the restaurant fun. Employees, like Bowerson, have to memorize the lines they recite whenever a new tray of steaming food is brought out.

“In my hands, I have stuffing so good, you’ll think it was Thanksgiving,” yells one employee as he places a tray of hot stuffing in front of a line of customers.

When a Caesar salad is ordered, the whole crew stops and yells, “Hail Caesar,” then returns to work.

The light-heartedness keeps employees cheerful, said Tracie Vlahovich, a recent University High School graduate who is working at Boston Market this summer.

“Everybody’s yelling orders and stuff,” she said. “It’s pretty fun.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Photo