When employees worked their final shifts at the Lamplighter Inn restaurant, Julie Norberg asked them to sign their names on a side door.

Scores of employee signatures were added over the decades, representing countless memories and meals served. But on Friday night, it was Julie’s own turn to sign the door. With some strokes of a Sharpie, she marked the end of the Powell restaurant’s nearly 50-year run.

The Lamplighter Inn’s lodging and liquor store remain open, with Julie’s husband and business partner, Rick, still at the helm. But the restaurant has closed as Julie — who cooked the soups, sides, prime ribs, steaks and burgers and managed the place — enters retirement.

“It’s been a good run,” Julie said.

As that side of the business ends, “we’re mainly just really grateful to all of our patrons over the years,” Rick added.

Though the decision to close the restaurant was made months ago, the Norbergs decided to stay open through the holiday season, which, in retrospect, wasn’t the best timing, they say. Closing amid the holidays brought an influx of people looking to enjoy one last Lamplighter meal on top of the usual Christmas and New Year’s Eve crowd.

“We never stopped before, so we didn’t really know how to do it,” Rick quipped.

That’s about how it’s gone over the decades at the Lamplighter, with the Norbergs constantly pouring themselves into their business.

A long history

Rick’s parents, Ray and Shirley Norberg, started the business as a liquor store and lounge in the late 1970s. Food came later, when they crammed a kitchen, an office and storeroom into the space that now houses Jen’s Chinatown.

Ray and Shirley were from “the supper club era,” Rick said, and they wanted to bring Powell diners the type of steakhouse experience that Cassie’s and the Bronze Boot were offering in Cody.

“Powell didn’t really have that, and so that was a little bit of their vision,” Rick said of his parents.

The Lamplighter moved to its current location in the spring of 1984, when Ray and Shirley took over The Home Hotel and Lazy-U Motel. It gave the restaurant and liquor store more spacious quarters and added lodging to the Norbergs’ plate.

The timing, however, was unfortunate, Rick said, as Powell was hit by a severe drop in the oil and energy industry.

“The 80s were pretty rough,” Rick said.

One of the only things that kept the business from going under, he said, was the generosity of the hotel’s former owner, Paul Nelson, who forgave the balance of the Norbergs’ mortgage. 

“But [the] 90s turned around,” Rick said, “and then ever since it basically got better.”

Do you have a dress code?

The Lamplighter’s restaurant was one of the only places in Powell where patrons might dress up a bit, becoming a go-to spot for occasions like anniversaries or birthdays for diners in Powell, Lovell and Cody. Shirley was responsible for its finer touches, like the roses, linens and silverware. While it remained a finer dining experience, Julie and Rick made the atmosphere progressively more casual as the generation of supper club diners passed.

“The linen … it scared people away, that you’d watch them walk up to the glass doors and kind of peek in and turn around and leave,” Julie said. Others would call in advance and ask about attire.

“We never did have a dress code,” Rick said, “but it was [a place] where people did feel like they didn’t want to be grubby.”

The dress grew more relaxed over the years, with the restaurant welcoming regulars straight from the oil field in their Carhartts and boots.

“There’s been a little evolution over time, but lots of good memories,” Rick said.

A family legacy

Julie and Rick wed in 1987, and Julie became an indispensable part of the family business.

She started in the liquor store and waited tables before eventually moving to the kitchen under Ray’s tutelage.

When he began training Julie on the cooking, Ray “would not leave my side,” she recalled, “I was kind of wanting him to let me do it, but he stayed close for quite a while.”

Eventually, Ray turned all the cooking over to Julie, and it was a job she enjoyed.

“There is really nothing more gratifying than pleasing people with your cooking,” she said, and complaints felt like “a stab in the gut.”

Like Ray before her, Julie kept tight control of the quality of the food, generally serving as the sole chef.

From Monday through Saturday, Julie generally arrived at 9 a.m. and worked through 2 p.m. for lunch before returning from 4-9 p.m. for dinner. 

Rick, meanwhile, puts in his own long hours, literally living at the Lamplighter as he oversees the motel and liquor store.

Noses to the grindstone

Julie said the couple’s decision to run the business themselves has been one of the biggest keys to their success; hiring others is expensive and rarely results in things being done the way you want them, she said. However, maintaining that level of involvement has also limited their ability to do much of anything else — particularly after Ray and Shirley phased out of the business in the early 2000s.

It was only 20-some years into their marriage that Rick, Julie and their three children took their first family vacation.

Preparing to take that initial trip “was a huge and daunting task,” Julie recalled, but when things went fine at the business, the couple decided to make the weeklong breaks an annual tradition.

“Just knowing that that week was coming, you know, that was always enough to stay in and work,” she said.

However, as time wore on, the realization set in that “you haven’t really had any free time to go do anything,” she said. That played into her decision to retire, along with the work becoming less enjoyable.

Changing workforce, customer base

Hiring became more of a challenge in recent years, she said.

For most of the Lamplighter restaurant’s tenure, Julie had her pick of a strong pool of applicants, but that changed. In the summer of 2023, she had to place job ads for the first time, and “even with Indeed and doing some advertising on Facebook, it still didn’t draw really what we wanted,” she said.

Still, Julie eventually found staff and kept the restaurant rolling.

When Julie notified her employees in September that the restaurant was closing, “it was really up to them if they wanted to stick with us to carry it through to the end of the year,” Rick said, “and to a person, they did.”

Julie said the restaurant was “really, really blessed” by many great workers during its decades-long run. 

“We are and always have been indebted to our [help],” Rick said.

Similarly, they’re grateful for their patrons.

Julie said customers generally became more critical over the years, but they remained firmly in the minority. Many shared their gratitude for the Lamplighter in the final weeks, including dozens who shared warm memories and compliments on social media; several people popped into the kitchen to offer their thanks and well wishes in person — including one elderly man who stopped in on New Year’s Eve to say goodbye.

“It was kind of heartwarming,” Julie said.

Business up for sale

After decades working the restaurant, Julie said adjusting to retirement and a more flexible schedule will be a process. Rick is continuing to work the motel and liquor store, but the couple’s ultimate goal is to sell the whole business and get him into retirement as well.

The couple listed the Lamplighter for sale a couple years ago and originally hoped to simply transfer the restaurant to a new owner. Despite some ongoing interest, the search for a buyer continues.

The Norbergs remain proud of what they’ve built; Rick said there’s good potential and real value for whoever purchases the business.

“It’s just going to take … fresher legs, fresher enthusiasm,” he said, adding, “Our next effort is going to have to find that needle in a haystack and see if we can carry on a tradition.”