By LISA BRITTON

Of the Baker City Herald

You could say Iva Brehmer is an expert when it comes to the restaurant business.

Brehmer, 79, spent her entire working life in the food industry.

andquot;That’s all I’ve done,andquot; she says.

She began as a waitress, fresh out of high school.

From there, she transferred through three more waitress jobs before taking her career a bit further.

In 1953, Brehmer purchased the Blue and White Cafe, where she’d worked for Virginia Buchanan for three years.

She was 29 years old.

At the end of Brehmer’s 36-year era at the cafe in 1989, coffee still cost only 10 cents.

Perhaps the secret to her success was the coffee.

andquot;If people like your coffee, they’ll read the menu and come back for something to eat,andquot; Brehmer says.

Then again, maybe it was the cooking.

She describes it as andquot;plain old down-home food.andquot;

She still remembers her daily specials.

She ticks each day off on her fingers:

o Monday: ham hocks and beans

o Tuesday: Swiss steak

o Wednesday: chicken and noodles

o Thursday: meat loaf

o Friday: old-fashioned steak

o Saturday: fried chicken

andquot;When you made something, you better plan on having that same thing on the same day every week,andquot; she smiles.

Brehmer learned her cooking craft as a child growing up on a farm in Pleasant Valley.

andquot;I didn’t like working outside, so Mom turned the housework to me,andquot; she says. andquot;I watched everything any cook made and kept track of what he put in it and what he did.andquot;

Brehmer’s transition to the public sector brought a rude awakening when she took a waitress job at Howell’s Cafe in Huntington.

andquot;I was told never to talk to strangers. And to get back behind that counter, all there were were strangers,andquot; she says. andquot;Man, that was brutal.andquot;

She spent three years in Huntington where the railroad paid the restaurant to stay open 24 hours then moved to a restaurant in Durkee.

After her boss sold that business, Brehmer decided to take a vacation.

andquot;I went home and thought I’d take a rest,andquot; she says. andquot;I’d been there three weeks before someone came knocking and said, ‘Iva, I heard you’re looking for a job.’andquot;

That’s when she moved into Baker City, working first at the Steakhouse truck stop on Highway 30, and then on to the Blue and White.

At that time, the cafe was located in a small building on Dewey Avenue, across from the post office.

andquot;I wasn’t even married when I started working there,andquot; she says.

In fact, she didn’t marry Ed until after she’d purchased the business.

andquot;One of my girls that was working for me was going with him, and I met him through her.andquot;

She smiles.

andquot;He caught me at a weak moment, and we got married.andquot;

Ed didn’t join her at the restaurant he was a logger.

Besides, space was a bit cramped at the original Blue and White.

They had two booths and 20 stools lined up at the counter.

After her purchase of the cafe, Brehmer made sure not to change the essentials.

andquot;When I bought it from Virg, I knew what she served and followed along. Then I dressed it up a bit and made a bigger menu till I had a following,andquot; she says.

andquot;Everybody had their own following, to a certain extent. But you have to do something to keep them coming.andquot;

Her days began at 3:30 a.m., when she worked through the pre-dawn hours to make pies, cakes, rolls and pastries.

andquot;The maple bars and cinnamon rolls I made myself,andquot; she says. andquot;It’s a lot of work, but if you organize things and follow a pattern every day, it’s really not that hard.andquot;

Six o’clock was the official opening time.

andquot;Unless they started crowding us at the door before that,andquot; she says.

A few of her customers 90 percent were regulars, she says discovered that although the front door was locked tight, the back door was open for deliveries.

andquot;By the time I got all the baked stuff ready to go, people were sneaking in the back door, or it was time to open the front door,andquot; she says.

The customers are the root of nearly every story Brehmer keeps in her memory bank.

There was one, she says, who had epilepsy and would sometimes suffer seizures while eating at her restaurant.

But she learned the warning signs. When he began to spin his coffee cup, she would run around the counter and hold him tight against the wall andquot;until he came out of it,andquot; she says.

There were a few restaurants in town that didn’t welcome him into their establishments, she says.

Even today, Brehmer scoffs at that treatment.

andquot;Well, good heavens, he had to go out and have coffee with the guys,andquot; she says. andquot;And he appreciated it, too. He could kind of relax. If he had one, I’d know what to do.andquot;

Then there were the customers who volunteered their help, making sure the stools stayed tight to the floor, and even pitching in to clean the massive shipments of smelt.

After they moved to a larger building at 1825 Main St., Ed started to help out at the restaurant.

andquot;That was the worst for me,andquot; he grins. andquot;I’d never worked inside and never with so many women.andquot;

One of his jobs was to cut the maple bars, a talent Iva admired because all his pastries came out in a uniform shape.

andquot;When I did that, we had some of the weirdest shaped maple bars you ever saw,andquot; she says.

The Blue and White was known throughout the region it was mentioned in the andquot;Northwest’s Best Places to Eatandquot; review four or five times and also garnered some national acclaim.

One day, a customer told Ed that andquot;he’d been waiting for 3,000 miles for a maple bar.andquot;

andquot;I asked, ‘How did you hear about my maple bars?’andquot; Ed says. andquot;He said his next-door neighbor told him about them.andquot;

That man lived in Georgia.

In 1989, the Brehmers sold the business amid a bit of protest from their regular customers.

andquot;People wouldn’t let me quit. If you could see those long faces when I said I was going to,andquot; she says.

But her legs were giving out on her, and at 65 she thought it was time to give up the restaurant business.

andquot;Would you believe we sold it three times? It was more work than they thought,andquot; Iva says.

Each time the Brehmers sold the Blue and White, the new owners set about changing everything.

Then they’d get tired of it and give up.

andquot;They think it’s ‘you open a can, you open a package’ and you’re ready,andquot; Iva says.

They finally sold it for good, and after that it was rented out.

Now the building is vacant, and the windows void of the bright blue and white curtains Iva hung herself.

But she can still vividly recall the hustle and bustle of the Blue and White’s glory days.

Especially the good-natured bantering and teasing from her regulars.

andquot;I liked my customers. If you don’t like people, you’ve no business in a restaurant.

andquot;I don’t miss the work, but I sure miss the people,andquot; she says.