Staff Fund for Kitchen Renovation

As we reach the end of 2022, with the cafe, hotel and restaurant full of light and warmth, good friends and neighbors celebrating with holiday cheer, we reflect with gratitude on the community which has helped us to make the Orcas Hotel what it is today. Over almost three years we have prepared hundreds of unique, nightly chef specials, celebrating birthdays and anniversaries, not to mention delivering meals to homes from Deer Harbor to Doe Bay during the height of the pandemic closure. We owe so much to our amazing staff, who have offered up genuine hospitality to hotel and cafe guests, all day, every day, through power outages and snowstorms, from the 4th of July to New Years Eve.

We regret to announce that our kitchen, the very heart of the hotel, is now in desperate need of repair after three long, lean years. We have made the difficult decision to close the Hotel, in its entirety, for the month of January while we make critical repairs to the exhausted flooring, aged infrastructure, and very abused equipment. We feel a strong obligation to serve the community and visitors to the island year round, and we regret the necessity of this closure.

Most importantly, we are committed to supporting our staff. While we will continue to offer them full-time employment (assisting us with room upgrades, they will lose the significant income that they normally receive through tips. In order to ameliorate this loss, we will offset their housing and utility costs for the month of January.

If you love our team as much as we do, and understand that they are what make the Orcas Hotel Experience what it is, we hope you will help us to help them. All funds raised through this campaign will go directly towards employee housing and utilities, and any additional funds will go towards an employee relief fund for future needs.

It is an honor to serve the community alongside our team, and we are excited for a New Year in a New Kitchen, with many wonderful meals and memories to come. Whether or not you choose to contribute at this time, we thank you for your support of the Orcas Hotel, and our team. We look forward to serving you.