Published February 2002

Blue Bird: family dining that’s all in the family

By Kimberly Hilden
Herald Business Journal Assistant Editor

The Blue Bird Cafe is an Arlington institution — a place where, for more than 40 years, friends have talked over meals of meat loaf and mashed potatoes and families have enjoyed biscuits-and-gravy breakfasts.

And it’s a place where owners Florence and Merle A. Peper ran a business while raising their six children, two of whom continue to run the restaurant at 308 N. Olympic Ave.

“We do a nice business for a little, small-town restaurant,” said son Merle C. Peper, estimating that the cafe, which seats 90, serves between 300 to 400 customers each day.

Most of those are repeat customers, not freeway drivers who happen to stop off for gas and a quick meal, he said. In that sense, the Blue Bird is a destination spot.

“We get a lot of people from Everett and Marysville on a regular basis; they drive up here,” said daughter Shirley Parris. “We have folks come from Wenatchee for oysters.”

Some things have changed since the Pepers bought the Blue Bird in 1958.

At that time, it was located down the street. The couple moved it to its current location a few years later, after buying out another restaurant and trying to run them both.

“That was short-lived, though,” said Florence, who waited tables for four years and “took to cooking” at the Blue Bird before she and her husband bought the place.

In 1965, the restaurant underwent a complete remodel, reopening in June of that year to much fanfare in the local press and a dinner special: “Your choice of ham or turkey, complete with all the trimmings” — all for $1.50.

“I can hardly believe that myself,” Florence said recently while fingering the old newspaper clipping. “But when we took over, coffee was a nickel and hamburgers were a dime.”

In the mid-1990s, the restaurant became one of the first in Arlington to go nonsmoking.

“It was getting to be the time where we knew we’d have to do it one way of the other,” said the younger Merle, who began leasing the restaurant from his parents in 1981. “And we’re not set up where we could have different areas for smoking and nonsmoking.”

In the beginning, the Blue Bird caught some static from the decision, family members said.

“The first morning we opened up, we didn’t have those coffee drinkers and smokers. I thought, ‘Oh, Lord, what have we done?’ ” Florence said.

But the restaurant weathered the storm and proved to be ahead of its time, as more eating establishments eventually went nonsmoking, too.

While decor and smoking policies have changed at the Blue Bird, other elements have stayed the same.

The menu, for instance, is still filled with hearty American fare: eggs, hash browns and toast served with a 6-ounce sirloin steak; a children’s menu that includes corn dogs and grilled-cheese sandwiches with fries; and the very popular chicken-fried steak dinner.

The Blue Bird’s friendly atmosphere hasn’t changed, either, family members said, attributing to that atmosphere a low employee turnover.

“We’re the type of place that we keep our employees a long time,” Merle C. said. “Ten years isn’t unusual at all.”

One employee began working at the Blue Bird as a teenager, leaving at the age of 40 to run his own restaurant, he said, adding that families — parents and later their children — have waited tables or cooked in the Blue Bird’s kitchen.

“It’s a nice, friendly place to work,” said Linda Peper, Merle C.’s wife.

“There’s no yelling,” Shirley added with a chuckle.

Florence agreed.

“We had a cook or two who started (yelling) — they didn’t last long,” she said.

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