The Kitchen in Stillwater shuts its doors

No one's in the Kitchen with Dinah...

​The Kitchen in Stillwater opened to high hopes: A project with Erick Harcy and Ben Hiza at the helm, with Jim Kyndberg, formerly of the Bayport Cookery, running the kitchen.

The former Stone's space was redone with cheeky kitsch--the retro paintings of curvaceous babes on the wall, the pinup girl in the logo--while retaining its amazing patio. There was great basic grub, like the Perfect Burger, as well as well-executed fancy stuff, such as the succulent crab cake served with avocado, cilantro, and supremed grapefruit segments.

But there were many seats to fill--a daunting task for a sparsely populated tourist destination during the middle of winter--and the Kitchen's phone was recently disconnected, with Open Table no longer accepting reservations. What happened?

Teddy Hobbins

The Kitchen's killer burger is no longer--luckily you can find it at Victory 44.

​A call to Victory 44, Harcey's other restaurant, put Hot Dish in touch with Harcey's business partner Jodie Heyerdahl, who told us that Harcey had actually recently sold his stake in the Kitchen to the private investor he originally partnered with (Harcey and Hiza's partnership dissolved several months ago) so was not involved in the closure.

Harcey and Heyerdahl are currently busy running Victory 44 and have a couple of other projects in the works. "Our focus is on Victory, but we are trying to see where we can expand and what might be the right project," Heyerdahl says. Stay tuned...