A new addition to the Tri-City brunch scene in Kennewick

The folks who previously ran Jack-Sons Sports Bar in Richland are back on the scene and want you to have breakfast with them — anytime you want.

Chuck and Serene Fisher opened Parks Cafe: A Gathering Place less than a month ago at 335 Columbia Drive.

Chuck Fisher said he was initially looking for a place to run a catering business but changed his mind after touring the vacant restaurant —most recently home to the Sandstone Cafe — with his wife, Serene.

She saw it as a perfect place for a cafe. He saw an opportunity to get back to his roots when he worked in a diner in the 70s.

“The mom and pop diners, they just don’t exist and we want to bring that back,” he said.

Breakfast, lunch and dinner items are all available but breakfast is served all day. Signature dishes include their “ginormous” cinnamon roll the size of a dinner plate, an omelette called the “Kitchen Sink” and “Coach Wayne T’s Biscuits & Gravy,” a “stolen” recipe from Serene Fisher’s brother.

“I cook with a lot of heavy cream and a lot of butter and when I’m not using that I’m using a lot of eggs and half and half,” Chuck Fisher said, noting he likes to cook good food that isn’t necessarily good for you.

The cafe is named after Serene Fisher’s father, who went by Parks when he served in the Navy. He was an inspirational figure, having worked as a barber, a pastor and a migrant worker along with being a veteran.

The Fishers also have reopened the restaurant’s lounge, naming it the Hawks Nest in honor of the Seattle Seahawks football team, only to discover during renovations that it bore the same name in recent years.

Hours for the restaurant are 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. seven days a week.

Fresh Leaf Co. will feature about 60 salads, wraps and soups.

Founders Juan and Gina Carrillo have long worked to open their own restaurant and they'll be using Fresh Leaf to highlight local seasonal items from the Pacific Northwest, a release said.

The restaurant, in a former Subway shop at 2617 W. Kennewick Ave., will offer sit-down dining but to-go orders are welcome and online ordering is being planned for.

A full menu will be uploaded to www.FreshLeafCo.com in coming days.

Hours aren’t set yet, but they’ll open at 10 a.m. on their first day.

Replacing the long-standing Cavanaugh’s Landing which closed in May, the hotel has spent several weeks completely remodeling the lounge, giving it more of an industrial modern feel, said managing director Gurbir Sandhu.

The lunch and dinner menu will feature more than half of its ingredients from the Mid-Columbia and nearly all from the Pacific Northwest. The Neighborhood Garden Green Salad will even change seasonally depending on what local farms have available, Sandhu said.

All drink mixers and syrups will be made on-site and the cocktail menu will feature 11 specialty drinks, including the Bye Felicia with several varieties of rum, curaçao, coconut and more served in a snifter.

Karaoke will no longer be offered at the lounge but there will be live music on the weekends and there is a small dance floor. There also are plans to expand food and beverage service to the hotel pool.

Hours will be 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. seven days a week, though the bar will be open later on weekends. Happy hour will be 2 to 5 p.m. and 9 p.m. to close each day.

Editor’s note: Our new ‘Eat All About It’ column by business reporter Ty Beaver provides news and updates about the dining scene in the Tri-Cities. Have information about a new restaurant, bar, food truck? Send it to tbeaver@tricityherald.com.

This story was originally published July 16, 2015 at 12:00 AM with the headline "A new addition to the Tri-City brunch scene in Kennewick."