Customers flood Chaps on owner’s last day at the celebrated Latah Valley diner and bakery

Two lines spilled into the Chaps Diner and Bakery parking lot Saturday. One line led into the cafe, and the other was a “hug line” leading to owner Celeste Shaw herself.

After 16 years, Shaw has sold the Latah Valley restaurant she created and nurtured for so long due to concerns over her health. She used her last day to say goodbye to the community.

“I think that’s what Chaps is. It’s just pure community,” Shaw said. “It’s pure love. It’s pure trust,”

Visitors in both lines held bouquets and letters – farewell gifts to give to the woman for whom they kept returning. Tears snuck their way onto otherwise smiling faces everywhere.

“She invited us all to come down and say goodbye,” said Michele Cantlom, longtime friend of Shaw’s, as she dabbed at her eyes. “Look how brave she is to do this. I’m not sure I could do that. She’s incredibly great.”

As a single mom 22 years ago, she moved a farmhouse a half -mile to 4237 S. Cheney-Spokane Road and created Chaps as a tribute to her late grandmother. The word “sweet” covers one wall of the bakery in memory of her.

“The ‘sweet’ that’s on the wall of the bakery represents a little cafe in Wolf Point, Montana, called the Sweet Shop, where she used to take my sisters and I to get Vanilla Coke when we could afford it,” Shaw said.

Despite being a restaurant, Chaps has never really been about the food to Shaw.

“I’m a terrible cook. I was never a waitress. It’s shocking to me that I ever built a restaurant,” Shaw said. “I think in the beginning I didn’t even know what to serve and I just thought, ‘maybe I can serve myself.’ And maybe in doing that, I could just make the world a little bit better.”

Chaps has never really been about the food for many customers either, though some say it is an added bonus.

“She remembers everyone’s name,” said former Chaps waitress Alexis Butler, 29. “It’s not just the spaces that she creates, but the people that she touches within the spaces.”

Regular customer Alisa Nickoli, 58, describes herself as a “Celeste fan.”

“If you were a guest in there over the last 20 years, she came to make sure that you were fed and that you were happy. She loves this town and she supports this community like none other,” Nickoli said. “Her heart is for the people.”

The act of serving has remained a constant in Shaw’s life. Initially moving to Spokane after high school to become a nurse, Shaw has worked in trauma and critical care for her whole career.

She has participated in hundreds of international medical missions over the years, providing emergency care to children around the world involved in political conflicts including in Romania, Egypt, the Philippines, China and Rwanda.

“I’ve always maintained my license so that I can be somewhere in the world giving back,” Shaw said.

At home, too, Shaw has had a history of helping the community in times of need through her work.

After the 2017 shooting at Freeman High School, Shaw opened Chaps’ doors to the Freeman and emergency response community for a day of free food. She has also been known to feed local athletes before games, and cars lined up all the way to Interstate 90 for a bowl of oatmeal from her mom’s original recipe on Mother’s Day during the pandemic, Nickoli said.

“Yes, she does a beautiful job professionally,” longtime customer Jennifer Vigil said. “But what she does and how she pours her heart out for the community is absolutely noteworthy. She just has a really big heart for giving and you see that in everything she touches.”

Looking around at the crowd of people at Chaps Saturday, Shaw had a hard time containing all of the emotion she felt.

“It’s sad for me. I’m not ready – I don’t feel ready,” Shaw said. “Life has just kind of thrown a monkey wrench at me, and so I have to make a change.”

Shaw declined to disclose the specifics of her heath issue. She will remain the owner of her downtown Cafe Coco, 24 W. Main Ave.

Though “desperate to remain connected” to the community she has worked so hard to foster, Shaw said that it is her faith that has kept her going throughout it all.

“I don’t know the plan, but God knows the plan, and I don’t know it yet, but I’m gonna know it,” she said. “I just want to walk through the light – and I want my children to see that. I want my staff to see that.”

The crowd that showed up to tell her goodbye gave no indication that they intended to let Shaw slip away from the community.

“As she goes through whatever she’s going to go through, they will continue to show up for her and honor her the way she always made us feel honored coming in,” Nickoli said. “Love is what Celeste is. It’s what she’s known for. It’s what she gives to all of us. And today, I think, is a really great testament of what we want to give back to her,”

Vigil said she couldn’t be more proud of Shaw.

“She deserves every ounce of the hugs and everything today,” she said. “They say that the love you put out into the world eventually comes back to you, and I feel like that’s happening with her.”

Shaw’s last day does not signify the end of Chaps, however. New owner Sarah Shore will be stepping in to continue what Shaw calls her “legacy.”

Shore said that Chaps was built by Shaw’s heart and soul, and that she plans to “keep it exactly the same.”

“Her love was just needed somewhere else in the world,” Shore said.

Vigil believes that the staff understood Shaw’s mission.

“I feel like they’re going to make her proud. They’ll probably hear about it if they don’t. Everything here is just beautiful. And I know that the staff is committed to that as well.”

Shaw hopes to continue her international work with children and write a book now that she has stepped back from the Chaps.

“I think I would just love to write down some of the things I’ve been through in my life that have crossed through Chaps and meeting people,” she said. “All of us need to be in circles where we learn from each other.”