Biz Bits: Mikey’s Gyros in Moscow changes ownership

A pingpong table that was shelved during the COVID-19 pandemic is back at Mikey’s Gyros in downtown Moscow, a business that is under new ownership.

Mina Ashkannejhad and her partner, Jeremy Martin, took the reins of the iconic restaurant from Bert Harvey and Louise Todd on Jan. 1, Ashkannejhad said.

Business partners Harvey and Todd are retiring after owning Mikey’s for decades, she said.

The food, which is made daily in house and from scratch, is the same, but Ashkannejhad and Martin have made upgrades.

The most popular item is a deluxe gyro. It’s made with slices of lamb and beef meat, feta, cucumber yogurt tzatziki sauce and pepperoncinis that are stuffed into toasted pita bread.

Mikey’s features a different soup every day of the week, which, like its other menu choices, is made in house. Its clam chowder that’s served on Fridays is among the most popular, Ashkannejhad said.

Ashkannejhad and Martin have added a vegan gyro and refreshed the decor with new artwork. They’ve also introduced more live events and online ordering for take-out food.

“It’s a community space,” Ashkannejhad said. “It’s part of what makes downtown Moscow special.”

The name will continue to be Mikey’s Gyros, what the restaurant was called when it opened as a food cart in 1981. The name of the founder was Mike Anthonson.

He owned it in the early 1980s and later moved to California, but he still drops in occasionally when he’s in Moscow, Ashkannejhad said.

Her connection to Mikey’s started more than two decades ago when she was a student at the University of Idaho where she earned a bachelor’s degree in communications. Her friends often gathered at Mikey’s and she held a job there while she attended school.

In the last decade, Ashkannejhad has worked at Mikey’s intermittently as part of a crew that shares responsibility for preparing food, serving customers and washing dishes.

That experience as well as other positions such as doing sales and marketing for a publishing firm and being an office manager for a start-up tech business have given her the background to be an owner of Mikey’s, she said.

Often she would be assigned tasks that had never been completed by anyone in the business and she would identify ways to accomplish them, Ashkannejhad said.

She and Martin are full-time owners and operators of Mikey’s. Mikey’s is at 527 S. Main St. It is open from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday.

A new spin coming on Keith’s Big Fish

LEWISTON -- Keith Havens is introducing a new format of a popular segment that used to be a part of the nightly KLEW news broadcast.

Episodes of “Keith’s Big Fish and Outdoor Trophies” will be released five days a week on Facebook and Instagram starting in late April or early May, said Havens, a former KLEW weather forecaster.

He left the Lewiston CBS affiliate in June after a failed contract negotiation and has been working as a substitute teacher this school year.

After the departure of Havens, 60, and Anna Velasquez, a longtime anchor and news director, the production of the news program shifted to a Boise CBS affiliate, which, like KLEW, is part of the Sinclair Broadcast Group.

In the spring, Havens plans to expand Keith’s Big Fish, an idea of Nate Kuester, a former KLEW news director, from the version that appeared on television.

Viewers would submit pictures of fish they hooked, often with details about the species, length, weight and maybe where they caught it, depending on how much they want to reveal about their favorite fishing holes.

In the new iteration, Havens will interview anglers on camera about their trips, possibly sometimes at popular fishing spots such as Dworshak Reservoir, a place Havens likes to boat.

He will also include the adventures of hunters. The length of each segment will vary based on how much people have to share.

“I’m so excited because businesses for months have said they would jump on board and sponsor my dream program (and they are),” Havens said in a recent Facebook post.

“There will be much more to Keith’s Big Fish and Outdoor Trophies than just BIG FISH (hence the name),” according to the post.

The post had close to 400 loves and likes, more than 80 comments and 50 shares as of the middle of last week.

“I was wondering how you are doing!! Fantastic,” one woman wrote.

Many people had similar comments.

“I’ve been on there. And will be again,” a man wrote.

One fan posted a picture of a man hugging a fish or shark statue that was significantly taller than the person in the picture.

Still another person shared a GIF of a fish with a large mouth with the word FIN-TASTIC! written in the image.

The response mirrors what he’s experiencing face-to-face, Havens said.

Often 10-minute trips to the grocery store have lasted 45 minutes or longer because so many people are approaching him talking about how much they miss Keith’s Big Fish.

“We’ll see how it takes off,” Havens said.

Parent company of major Lewiston employer reports financial results

Vista Outdoor lost $148 million in October, November and December as the business faces challenges in its ammunition and recreation product segments.

The company is one of the largest employers in Lewiston, where its CCI/Speer bullet-making operations employ about 1,400 people.

In 2022, the company made $65 million during the last three months of the year, according to a news release issued last week reporting Vista Outdoor’s results for the third quarter of its 2024 fiscal year.

Sales in the Kinetic Group, which include ammunition, “decreased 9 percent to $365 million driven primarily by lower shipments across nearly all categories as channel inventory has normalized and (because of) lower pricing,” according to the news release.

That drop was offset some by increased shipments in the rifle and primer categories, according to the news release.

The Kinetic Group is the largest producer of ammunition in the U.S. In addition to CCI/Speer, it includes Federal, Remington and HEVI-Shot.

On the outdoor recreation side of the company called Revelyst, “sales decreased 10 percent to $317 million driven primarily by increased discounting, lower volume and unfavorable mix as consumers are presented by high interest rates and other short-term factors affecting their purchases of consumer durable goods,” according to the news release.

Bell helmets, Camp Chef and Camelbak are some of the brands of Revelyst.

A key factor in the third-quarter loss for fiscal year 2024 was a “non-cash impairment of goodwill and intangible assets” of $219 million, according to the news release.

The sale of the Kinetic Group to Czechoslovak Group for $1.91 billion is on track, according to the news release.

Vista Outdoor has previously reported it expects the sale to close this year.

TPC Holdings executive takes top job at Arizona newspaper

LEWISTON -- A top executive at the parent company of the Lewiston Tribune and Moscow-Pullman Daily News is moving to Arizona to begin a new position.

Doug Bauer, the chief strategy officer of TPC Holdings, starts Monday as the publisher of the Arizona Daily Sun in Flagstaff, Ariz.

Bauer’s background in sports and marketing is a good fit for Wick Communications, the owner of the Arizona Daily Sun, said Nathan Alford, the editor and publisher of the Lewiston Tribune and Moscow-Pullman Daily News.

Wick Communications is a third-generation, family-owned and -operated media corporation that owns 21 newspaper titles in 10 states, according to its website.

“Doug’s storied, three-plus decades with our small company started in sports, where you would have caught him with a notepad and pen at every area ball field or gym, to his last seven years, when he switched gears into reinventing the business model to support the journalism that pulled him into sports and eventually news,” Alford said.

Bauer’s former responsibilities will be handled on an interim basis by Alford; Joanna Alford, a digital marketing specialist for TPC Holdings; and Justin Ralston, the chief financial officer of TPC Holdings.

Bauer’s time with the Tribune extends back to 1990. He started as a part-time sportswriter while still a student at Lewiston High School where he was an All-Inland Empire League football player, shining as a defensive and offensive lineman.

Bauer reported on sports intermittently as he attended the University of Idaho and later Lewis-Clark State College. He worked as a sportswriter for the Bozeman Daily Chronicle in Montana for three years before returning to the Tribune as a sportswriter. In 2005, he went to work for the Daily News as a sports editor. There, he became city editor in 2006 and managing editor in 2009.

He was promoted to managing editor of the Lewiston Tribune in 2010 and became advertising director of Tribune Publishing Co. in 2017. He held that position until he became chief strategy officer in 2020.

Outside of the office, Bauer joined the board of the Lewiston Independent Foundation for Education in 2011 and served for 10 years, including five as president. That organization raises money for scholarships for Lewiston School District students and other activities that benefit students who attend Lewiston schools.

He’s married to Jenn Bauer, internal content coordinator at the University of Idaho. She was the editor of Inland 360, TPC Holdings’ arts and entertainment publication, until 2021 when she took her post at UI.

Physician joins TriState’s new urogynecology department

CLARKSTON -- A physician with more than 30 years of experience in urogynecology has joined Tri-State Health in Clarkston.

Dr. Julius Szigeti II treats female pelvic health conditions such as frequent bladder infections, overactive bladders, pelvic pain, pelvic organ prolapse, urinary incontinence and sexual dysfunction.

He completes advanced pelvic procedures using the da Vinci robotic surgery platform. He previously practiced in Texas and Washington.

Szigeti finished medical school at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine in Cleveland and a residency at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C.

He and Dezirae Berry, a certified nurse practitioner, will practice at TriState Urogynecology, which opened this month. She formerly saw patients at TriState Family Practice Clearwater in Lewiston.

“Right now many in our community who currently suffer from pelvic health conditions have to travel to Spokane, Seattle or even Boise to receive care … and even then they may have to wait several months to be seen,” said Joleen Carper, chief of operations for TriState Health, in a news release.

TriState Urogynecology is located inside the TriState General Surgery Clinic at 1119 Highland Ave., Suite 4. Its telephone number is (509) 769-2269.

Williams can be contacted at ewilliam@lmtribune.com or (208) 848-2261.