Restaurant round-up: Wolf & Scout, Buck and Board, Dotted Lime shuffle locations in downtown Columbia

Diners and coffee shop lovers in Columbia will see some familiar hotspots at brand new locations this fall and winter.

Downtown small business owners of popular eateries including The Dotted Lime, Buck + Board and Wolf & Scout are shuffling their locations and their approach to business.

Though Buck + Board, located adjacent to the Linen Duck at 109 E. 6th Street, has closed, the restaurant will reopen at a new location, making way for year-old coffee shop Wolf & Scout to move in.

Wolf & Scout is expanding from its current spot in the Columbia Arts Building to the East 6th Street location. The walls are in, the coffee bar is installed and table and chairs are being placed to soon serve Wolf & Scout's faithful customers, plus some new ones.

When running a small business, facing challenges and swift change is inevitable — especially with rising food prices and pervasive worker shortage in the service industry — but not impossible to overcome when you have the support of other fellow small business entrepreneurs.

The three brands that have become staple eateries and coffee spots in the city are helping each other by providing new opportunities by sharing and switching spaces.

It all started when Debbie Cooper, owner of Buck & Board, was faced with the decision to close the East 6th Street eatery after four years. During those years, Buck & Board had established itself as a popular place for brunch, as well as one of many businesses that helped develop the East 6th Street area into a popular spot for social gathering just off the downtown square.

After numerous attempts to relocate Buck & Board to places like the Columbia Arts District, as well further down East 6th Street, Cooper said she was out of options, and uncertain if Buck and Board could ever find a new home.

"We were kind of in limbo looking for a place, kind of like The Dotted Lime was, just searching around," Cooper said. "I thought I wasn't going to open it, because it had just been too mentally taxing."

Winery coming soon

Buck and Board wasn't the only East 6th Street business to close or relocate recently. Vintage Winery announced in July it would be relocating elsewhere.

Meanwhile, another winery is coming to Columbia. Grinder's Switch Winery announced that a lease has been signed at 510 N. Garden St. in early August in shops of Marketplace of the South where Tallgrass Meat Company, Lime & Loaf, Needle and Grain and Little Juice Company are located.

"Stay tuned for more as we get started on this exciting new addition," the post said.

Cranky Yankee closes

While all of this was happening, Paul and Crissy Jensen, owners of The Dotted Lime, were also facing a difficult decision.

After launching their new restaurant The Cranky Yankee on East 5th Street earlier this year, the business had begun to encounter numerous challenges, which ultimately resulted in the short-lived business' recent closing.

"We had a grand vision for kind of a 'mocktail' lounge with the meat and three-type concept, but as we kept going there were just more and more roadblocks that seemed to present themselves," owner Paul Jensen said. "We were continuously presented with a lot of challenges that just required a lot more mental energy than we wanted to put into it."

The Jensens also announced they would be pulling out of their partnership with Smith & York at Lime & Loaf Kitchenette, which also opened earlier this year at 510 N. Garden St.

Jensen said the duties of running multiple businesses "created too many distractions," and that he and wife Crissy, needed to focus their strengths elsewhere, primarily in Crissy's baking expertise.

"We thought our best opportunity was to branch out beyond The Dotted Lime and the restaurants," Paul said. "We realized 100% that what Crissy has created will be what we need to focus our energy on getting into the market."

Their focus has now turned to their bakery, located at 1806 S. Main St., as well as using the former Cranky Yankee's back kitchen for their growing catering business.

The South Main bakery, which The Jensens have operated for about two years, also opened a lobby customer space, where patrons can place orders, as well as purchase freshly-made breads, pastries, pies, cakes and other special items.

"Every day we make several standard baked goods, like cinnamon rolls, muffins, scones, biscuits, several types of bread," Crissy said. "Our 'trifecta' is that we've had most of this stuff since the original brick and mortar Dotted Lime. We just brought all of that back here."

What's mostly kept this family of chefs and entrepreneurs going has been the support shared by customers, friends and other business owners. The Jensens hope this next venture will create a new way to connect with clientele, but also continue their path in sharing their gourmet recipes with the public.

"We have really enjoyed still having a space to say, 'Hello' and stay connected to people, be a part of their lives a little bit," Crissy said. "The businesses around here, I feel all of us together have learned a lot over the last couple of years, really learned to prioritize our time, our effort and energy, and where it is being spent. For us, that means really looking toward the future, and we feel like this space and our neighborhood has a lot of really cool potential."

Unexpected offer turns everything around

While on a trip to Paris to escape the stress, Cooper said she was "seriously considering" shutting the popular Buck + Board restaurant's doors for good.

That is, until she came home and received a call from the Jensens about whether she was interested in moving into their former Cranky Yankee spot, located at the corner of 5th and Main Street.

"Paul told me, 'Hey, we're going a different route. Do you want to sublease the building,'" Cooper said. "I'd felt like he'd given me a gift, which he did, but he also felt the same way because he was wanting to spend more time on their gluten-free baking mixes and things like that. We both feel good about it."

Paul said he believes the move will be good for both businesses, in how they can work together to accomplish what's best for each other.

"To overcome those roadblocks and hurdles, we thought it would be a good opportunity to reach out to Debbie," Paul said. "We thought this would be a good solution for both of our businesses."

The new Buck + Board site is currently undergoing renovations, as well as the process of renewing its wine license at the new location.

Cooper said she hopes everything will be finished by October.

She can't wait to reopen to customers, both her local regulars and new faces, she said.

"We're going to have a lot of the same things, and a lot of new things too. I just can't wait to hurry up and get it done," Cooper said.

'Scouting' new heights downtown

With Buck + Board's former location becoming available, local coffee shop co-owner Chase Bobier of Wolf & Scout, which recently celebrated his first year of business at the Columbia Arts Building, saw an opportunity to grow.

Bobier said that while the CAB, 307 W. 11th St., has been a great place to start his own business, moving to a more central downtown-adjacent location will be a great chance to expand and offer more products to customers, like food items.

The new location will draw more foot traffic as well as more first-timers, Bobier said, which is a crucial part of having a successful coffee house.

"Coffee shops do require that kind of window shopping for impulse purchasing," he said.

"That's a big sector for us, because there is only so far that your regulars can carry you. Now, I love our regulars, many of which have transitioned into friendships, and we have an absolute army of wonderful people down here helping us out. But when 70% of your customer base is weekly/daily regulars, that is just a touch off for coffee shops."

Already having been open a year and a half at the CAB, Bobier added, has been a great experience in having a startup. The space has also proven to be a good starting point for other small businesses like Wolf & Scout, such as Needle & Grain and Glover's Secondhand, both of which eventually opened their own brick and mortar locations.

"[The CAB] has provided us an excellent place to start," Bobier said. "It's a really excellent place for businesses. It teaches you things like how to maximize efficiency and improve the process. And when you've finally gained enough you figure out how to translate it to a better position."

Though there is no official date of Wolf and Scout's grand opening at the former Buck + Board facility, Bobier said he expects to be operational by the end of the year.

"What's left is to hang and plug in the hood for the stove, and then the rest is just paperwork," Bobier said. "So the race is almost done."

This article originally appeared on The Daily Herald: From here to there, to there: local businesses shuffle locations downtown