If you know, you know

By Lyndsie Kiebert-Carey
Reader Staff

To some, being invited to meet a friend at 113 Main sounds like an invitation to meet on a street corner in downtown Sandpoint. To others, it means dinner and drinks at the latest restaurant to join Sandpoint’s downtown culinary scene.

When it comes to 113 Main, if you know, you know.

This has been largely by design, according to owner Justin Dick. The establishment only recently launched its social media presence, despite being open as a bar since May 2022 and a restaurant since January 2023. 113 Main still doesn’t have a phone, and has no plans to take reservations in the near future, opting instead for walk-ins only. 

The open interior concept at 113 Main. Photo by Lyndsie Kiebert-Carey.

Dick, who also owns Trinity at City Beach and co-owns Jalapeno’s, said he hopes that this new venture will highlight and further encourage Sandpoint’s natural spontaneity and penchant for adventure.

With that in mind, executive chef Ryan Leggett seems destined to run the helm. Raised abroad in Egypt and Scotland, Leggett aims to blend international flavors with easy-to-recognize classics to give North Idahoans a rotating menu balancing familiarity with exploration.

“Ryan puts the artist in culinary arts, which has been fantastic,” Dick said, later adding: “We have a kind of limited menu, but ‘limited’ is the wrong word for how much goes into each of the dishes.”

Leggett gained his chef stripes by working in kitchens under professionals who were able to impart the tricks of the trade and allow Leggett to make them his own. For example, he learned the art of pasta making from a chef who trained in Italy, and it’s a skill he’s utilizing at 113 Main, including on one of the restaurant’s most popular dishes: citrus pesto gnocchi with Chilean sea bass. 

Scratch cooking is a staple of Leggett’s style, and prep work allows the kitchen to still turn out dishes in a timely fashion.

“I prefer doing things in that way,” he said. “I think it creates a more flavorful dish. I work to make dishes appealing to all the senses, which makes it much more enjoyable for people. It’s building an experience.”

That experience goes beyond the food to the hand-crafted cocktails and the restaurant’s open floor concept. Rather than the kitchen being walled off from the bar and dining room, guests are able to see the magic for themselves.

A cocktail at 113 Main. Photo by Lyndsie Kiebert-Carey.

“I really enjoy that aspect,” Leggett said. “I know the staff enjoys that as well — to break away from a traditional kitchen where you’re behind everything and only hear when you don’t do well. It’s nice to receive positivity from people.”

“We’ve got great dialogue,” Dick added. “It reminds me a lot of the old Cafe Trinity, which is really nice.”

Harkening back to the days of old downtown Sandpoint dining spots is a throughline of 113 Main’s mission. The location is best known as the previous home of Truby’s Health Mart, and the Bonner County Historical Society has been assisting Dick with painting an even fuller picture of the building’s history.

113 Main will eventually undergo a name change, Dick said, but not without the help of locals, who will be invited to weigh in sometime after the upcoming tourist season.

“Locals are the ones who know this building,” he said.

“One thing I’ve learned over the years is that it’s never our restaurant,” he added. “It’s the community’s restaurant.”

Find 113 Main online by searching for “113 Main Sandpoint” on Facebook or going to the restaurant’s Instagram: @113mainsandpoint. We’d normally include the address again at the end of the article, but we’re pretty sure you know where it is.