We invite you to visit regularly to see our weekly dinner menu and our photo gallery.
How They Met
Tom was born in L.A., and since his father was in the Navy, they moved to different places every so often. As a young man he joined the Air Force and served in Germany. During his free time he extensively traveled throughout Europe. Being young, he enjoyed views, food, and drinking beer and wine. Tom even purchased his stein in Munich and kept it at the Hofbrauhaus.
Upon leaving the Air Force, Tom settled in Neah Bay, Washington where he operated a restaurant, motel and campground with marina. Little did he know that in the 1980s he would end up in Florida where he met Barbara on a blind date.
Barbara was born and raised in Warsaw, Poland. One day she got an invitation to go to England. Giving that Poland had a different political system, she never went back. Instead, she stayed in London. Barbara got married there and even immigrated to Australia, just to go back to London after a few months. She just didn't like living in Australia. After her divorce she came to visit friends in Tampa, Florida and again did not leave to go back to England.
Barbara went on a blind date with Tom to Busch Gardens. What a date that was. They both got drenched in water on one of the rides, she didn't want to go on any roller coaster (hate that). On the Phoenix she was yelling "let me out, NOW!"
On March 17th Barbara and Tom had their official first date. They went to a Clamdigger bikers pub for celebration of St. Patrick's day, but they decided to go somewhere else for a short time for a drink at a pub on the water. The pub was washed out to sea during hurricane Elena. By the time they came back ALL THE FOOD WAS GONE, which was only one hour later. So they went to Pofolks, scrounging money to split the meal and iced tea. That was the beginning. On May 18th they got married and that was 21 years ago.
Work Experience
Tom worked for Olive Garden as a trainer and opened a few restaurants in Florida and Georgia. They did some outside functions - "Bite of Tampa" and "Gaspanilla" - where they sold $3,000 meatball sandwich, as he always laughed about this with his friends from Olive Garden.
Tom moved to Crown Colony Restaurant where he worked with Chef Peter. Crown Colony is a 4 story restaurant with beautiful view over Busch Gardens Animal Kingdom. Tom and Barbara spent lots of time just sitting down and watching animals, such as gators, elephants, zebras and of course white tigers.
Boise Becomes their Home
In 1994 Tom and Barbara moved to Boise to operate a restaurant at the Bon Marche in Downtown Boise and to be closer to Tom's family. They opened October 17th as Tres Bon Café, and for 10 years they served American and eclectic food. They had lots of customers who knew that Barbara can whip up some good Polish food and often customers asked for it.
Button Shop in Poland
Trip to Europe
In October, 2004 they decided to call it quits for a few reasons. One of them was that they had not had a vacation for 10 years. After finishing all business matters, they went to Europe. They spent a week in Amsterdam, walked all over, took a train to visit the Hague, where it was as windy as in Chicago, but the city was beautiful. Dutch mixed very well the new and the old. There are old buildings right next to new. They mixed together so well that you would never suspect the ages of these buildings.
Tom and Barbara then went on to Poland. Warsaw was their base, since Barbara was raised there and her mother still lives in the same apartment for 48 years. They walked around Warsaw for hours and days checking everything - shops, museums, parks, restaurants, exhibitions, cemeteries. They took trips on buses, trams and metro and always found something new. It brought back a lot of memories to Barbara from her youth.
London, April 2005
They traveled by train and car to west, north, and south Poland to visit with family and friends. They saw places like Poznan, Koszalin, Mielno, Slupsk, Malbork, Kielce, Sandomierz, Krynica, Zakopane, Wieliczka, Krakow, Czestochowa, just to name a few.
They also spent a few days in London where Barbara lived for 10 years. She showed Tom places that were not on the tourists routes. When you live and work in big cities, you are the best guide. They enjoyed visiting with friends again.
tres bonne cuisine
A New Opportunity
In June they arrived back home in Boise. They didn't know what they wanted to do. First, the weeds in their garden were 6 feet tall, that took some time to clean. And there was another question - shall we go to work for some other company? The answer was NO. So Tom and Barbara started looking for another opportunity. They scanned Boise for different property. Every so often they would come back to Overland, where there was a Bavarian deli for 9 years and space was still available. Finally they came to the conclusion that "this is it!"
They signed a contract with the owner and started working on the opening. They painted walls, took out stinky carpet and put in nice flooring. They moved counters around, put up new shelves and storage, put equipment in the kitchen. Barbara made table cloths, bought flowers and ordered food. And the doors opened on November 11, 2005.
From that moment people started coming and asking "can you get that or this?" And they did. German sausages, Polish sausages, breads, cheeses, beer and wine. The best way to get to know Tom and Barbara is to come and see for yourself. Tom offers a 20¢ tour of the deli cases. He can't pronounce some of the names in Polish, but he tries. Just come and see for yourself.
