Little Bear Cafe brings big plans to EagleVail, with longer hours, event focus, expanded menu
Ben Roof/Special to the Vail Daily
It was a tough winter for Vidette Gehl, owner of Vail’s Big Bear Bistro, but the pain of having to relocate her beloved Vail Village business has been eased somewhat by the opening of what she hopes will become EagleVail’s go-to neighborhood eatery, the Little Bear Café.
“Everybody wants a neighborhood restaurant,” Gehl said of her decision to open a second location this winter. “And when I first got approached, I thought, well, I love EagleVail. We lived in EagleVail for years when we first moved to town … and I have a lot of friends who live in EagleVail still.”
Gehl and her husband Mike now live just a couple of miles to the west in Avon, and they are still searching for a place to relocate Big Bear Bistro and its signature sandwiches in Vail Village, or possibly Lionshead, but Gehl acknowledges EagleVail is one of the last up-valley refuges for locals — many of whom want something closer to home for a quick breakfast, lunch or, starting soon, an evening glass of wine, cocktail or beer on her beautiful new Little Bear patio.
“People are like, ‘We don’t want to drive into Vail and pay for parking now that they’ve started charging for parking in the summer,” Gehl said, adding that this summer the Little Bear will start staying open past 5 p.m. “I have my liquor license to include the outdoor patio, so I’m really excited for the summer, and that’s why I want to stay open later, at least Friday, Saturday. With golf, the pool and tennis courts and everything, I think this is really going to rock it.”
Little Bear is located in the beautifully renovated new Alpinist workspace building at 211 Eagle Road right as you’re coming into the eastern end of EagleVail’s residential area (south side of the highway; not on the Green Mile), and that was part of the draw for Gehl, who sees great potential in hosting neighborhood and even valley-wide events in the sunny, clean new space.
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“We’re trying to do a lot of events,” Gehl said on a day when one company was planning to hold its end-of-season party there in the evening. “We want it to be kind of a community place where people can come and enjoy and hang out. I had a knitting group here. We’re buying a Mahjong board, so we’d love to have Mahjong here. I just want to promote a lot of new events here.”
As for the food and drink, expect much of what tourists and locals have come to love at the Big Bear Bistro — fresh meat, veggies and cheeses piled high on locally baked ciabatta bread — but with plenty of added touches from new/old manager Marty Odom.
Marty and his wife Lauren, also now at Little Bear, worked and met at Big Bear when it first opened in 2008.
“I kept them in the back of my mind, and I called them up when I was going to do this and said, ‘Would you be interested?'” Gehl said. “So I wanted him to have his own menu and kind of put his own twist on it. But as we got started, everybody’s like, ‘Oh no, you have to have the Briggs … or you have to have the Mo.”
With the Odom’s new twists and the old favorites named for the Gehl’s daughters, among other favorites from the Vail store, the menu has ballooned to 20 or so items. But variety is the spice of life, Gehl insists, and Marty Odom wants to add even more to the menu.
“He really cares about quality of everything and we’ve added microgreens and some other things, so we’re hoping to expand the menu even more,” Gehl said. “We want to definitely start doing takeout dinners because a lot of people have asked for that, so they can stop by on their way home.”
If you haven’t already, whether you live in EagleVail or elsewhere in the valley, stop by Little Bear Café any day between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. (even later starting soon) at 211 Eagle Road in EagleVail, call them at 970-445-6368, go to the Little Bear Café website, or email them at littlebear@littlebearvail.com.
