An elderly couple are headed toward the door at White House Grill when they spot its chef hanging out at the bar.
"Wonderful," the man says. "Delicious as usual. We'll be back."
Four regulars are sitting with the chef. One sips a dirty martini, as he does before every Wednesday afternoon bowling session. He's been coming to White House Grill for the past 20 years. The two at the end have him beat by close to a decade — they've been regulars for almost 30 years, ever since the Mediterranean restaurant opened in 1996.
Yes, they come back for the Chilean sea bass and the blackened salmon. Or the calamari, which comes piled high on the plate. Or the sarmisak, a savory, extravagant dip that epitomizes the restaurant's exaggerated love for garlic. But really, they come back for the chef, Raci Erdem.
Erdem makes people laugh. He left Turkey in 1990 for New York City when he finally took a good look at himself and realized he wasn't going to be a professional soccer player — a childhood dream that came to a crashing halt because, well, "I sucked ass," he says.
Erdem started out as a "coffee boy" in Brooklyn and fell in love with restaurants. He eventually also fell in love with a woman moving to Spokane, so he moved West, too. He started his own restaurant, White House Grill, in a small, white house on Spokane Street in Post Falls.
At first, he didn't even realize his establishment shared a name with the most prominent political building in the U.S. But when he opened a second restaurant and wanted to come up with a theme, he took advantage of the similarity. He opened up the Oval Office, a martini bar down the block from the White House Grill. The martini menu started featuring some pretty politically incorrect, pretty hilarious drinks.
There's Princess Charles. Orange 2024. Obama's Mama. Mexican Caravan. Purple Politician ("It's not red, it's not blue, it's purple just for you!").
"It's poking the bear," Erdem says. "Just to see people's reaction to such a not important thing in my life."
North Idaho may not seem like the perfect place to crack Trump jokes. But apparently, Post Falls can't get enough.
"It became so popular that people wait for us to change our menu," Erdem says, just because they want to see what potentially offensive names he's come up with next.
Erdem pays attention to the people in his restaurant, not to reviews or awards. He even puts his cell number on the front of the menu — a direct line to the president! — so people can tell them what they think of him immediately.
But it's almost all positive. People come back weekly, even daily, to chat and joke and relax.
"I love to laugh," says the dirty martini drinker, who's only delighted by Erdem's hospitality.
"The most important thing to me is customers and how their experience is," Erdem says. "Don't try to make everyone happy. Just choose one thing and be good at it."
