The Stone House has been a fixture in Montrose since 2008, serving up steak, seafood and other American steakhouse fare. Don Vincent, who was bar manager at the restaurant from the time it opened, bought the business and the building in 2018 from Jack Ludwig and Jesse Cochran.

Since then, the restaurant, located on the south end of town at 1415 Hawk Parkway, has adapted in some ways, facing the COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent rising of food costs. Still, The Stone House has maintained its charm and its draw to Montrose diners. We spoke with Vincent this week to learn more about him and his restaurant.

Montrose Business Times: What made you want to buy the restaurant six years ago?

Don Vincent: I always had it in my mind that I wanted to own my own restaurant, and Jack (Ludwig). And I had talked for years about starting up another one, or doing something different and, and for various reasons that never happened. But I’d been with The Stone House for 10 years, and I was, I was just looking for something different and to switch things up a little bit. That was about the same time that he and Jesse (Cochran) were looking to sell it. And so it kind of made sense from an investment standpoint.

I bought the real estate along with the business, so it’s more of a long-term commitment for me on that one. I got to try to do what I had always wanted to.

And, you know, my kids grew up here, so my daughter — she’s 16 now. She was in a car carrier when we opened the restaurant. Now she’s driving around. My son was starting school and kindergarten, and he’s graduated from college now.

MBT: What would you tell diners their experience will be like when they go into your restaurant?

DV: We’re trying to give an upscale experience without being a stuck up five-star place. We want to give them a warm, nice place that they can dress anyway they want. We want to do an upscale experience, but it’s more of an upscale experience for everybody. So it doesn’t matter if you’re right off the construction site or if you want to dress up for date night. We’ve a lot of times turned into a special occasion place for some, but there’s a lot of people coming in on a daily basis just because they want to experience the atmosphere and the warmer environment.

MBT: What are some challenges you’ve faced or things you’ve learned since you bought The Stone House?

DV: Covid definitely messed with things. I bought (the restaurant) in October of 2018, and just over a year later, we were, we were looking to take that next big step, trying to figure out what what means within the restaurant business. Since then, we’ve struggled keeping staff. The majority of our front-of-the-house has been with us for a really long time.

But customers expectations have changed, employee expectations have changed, our costs have doubled in the last six years of me owning it. And even though the prices have gone up significantly, they have not doubled. So we’re trying to find the balance between

Making customer’s expectations a reality and employees’ expectations a reality within the market of purchasing.

MBT: How do you meet those staff expectations or maintain staff when the service industry, like others, is struggling to do that?

DV: We try to make everybody part of the of the family, and so I try to do individual things for for the employees to help them out within their lives — not just having a transactional relationship.

If they need something, they can’t afford something, I try to give them interest-free loans or try to help them out in whatever way I can.

We’ve increased wages, but so has everybody. That doesn’t necessarily solve the problem. It’s really a personal decision for people to want to work with us. And we try to give them what they’re looking for on individual basis because everybody wants something different.

Some people want more acknowledgement, some people want money, some people want potential growth.

People want to come to work and want to enjoy it, and we want people that want to make other people happy and within the service industry, those are the ones we try to try to keep.

MBT: How do you describe your menu?

DV: I say that we try to serve whatever anybody’s looking for. Our main items are steaks, seafood and pasta. But we sell a lot of burgers. Our firehouse burger has been popular for many, many years and people still still eat it up. And it’s a really good burger. The menu has changed over the years, so popular demand will bring different things back, but we sell a lot of steaks. We do certified Angus beef, which means it goes through a rigorous selection process.

That’s not to say that we never have a bad cow because we certainly do every once in a while, but we have very few complaints on the quality of beef. So I always try to let people know about that and to steer them in that direction.

Chicken parmesan is one of my favorites. I eat that all the time. But the blackened salmon salad, and our chowder are also what a lot of people love.

MBT: It’s the time of year for giving. Do you find that important?

DV: We do a lot of charity work within the community, and we help out a lot with Montrose nonprofits. And that’s one of the reasons why we love the town is because there’s so many people out there that that are active in doing charitable work.

And so we do a lot of wine dinners and gift certificates and donations with different organizations to really be a part of Montrose. We’re not just a business where we try to take people’s money.

MBT: Why do you feel it’s important to kind of give back and do that sort of work?

DV: I think that as a human living in society it’s all our responsibility. During COVID, I had a lot of people buying each other dinner, or buying for the less fortunate people that couldn’t get out. So we have definitely gained appreciation but by being supportive and helping the people that have supported us through the years. I just feel like that’s how society should work, and we should help each other out.