Tollgate Crossing Store undergoes reconstruction Tuesday, April 11, 2023, and interior remodeling in the Blue Mountains on the outskirts of Umatilla County.

WESTON — The Tollgate Crossing Store in Weston is getting a makeover.

New owner Trevor Abell has begun a several-months-long process of renovating the store and opening a new restaurant within. He also purchased the Tamarack Lodge across the street from the store and converted it into a full-service bed and breakfast.

“The vision for the Tollgate Crossing Store is we’re going to be bringing nonethanol gas and diesel back up there. We’re going to have a full service general store,” Abell said. “We’re going to carry general items for the mountain community that have to drive sometimes more than an hour to us to get supplies.”

Tollgate Crossing will continue serving coffee and bakery items, Abell said, but also will feature a new restaurant, the 5052 Mountain Eatery, which will serve beef from Abell’s other company, Yellowstone River Beef.

“My wife and I both studied agriculture at Oregon State University, and we developed a beef production company after college called Yellowstone River Beef and Yellow Stone Premium Meats,” Abell said. “We export wagyu and other high-end beef all over the world to Japan, Singapore, Malaysia and many more (countries). Now we’ll get to share our beef here back home in Oregon.”

The 5052 Mountain Eatery, which will be inside the Tollgate Crossing Store, will offer local spirits. Abell said he has partnered with local distilleries and breweries to showcase what Northeastern Oregon has to offer.

“It’s all about creating a unique experience in Northeastern Oregon,” he said. “We’ll also be creating an outdoor dining experience, but that will come later. We’re taking a phased build approach, so phase one will be the gas station, general store and the 5052 Mountain Eatery.”

Phase two, Abell said, will feature the outdoor dining experience, an outdoor fire pit, a place for live music and an extension of the bar area.

“We want local people to feel like this is a place they can hang out,” Abell said. “We want people to be able to snowmobile up to the door, stop in, have a coffee or a meal or just pick up some regular grocery items that you might need passing through to the lake or any of the other many destinations around us.”

Fundamentally, Abell said he hopes to make the Tollgate Crossing Store as much of a full-service “one-stop-shop” as possible, but renovations will take some time, and with construction having just begun, he said he was eyeing a potential summer reopening for the store.

“We’re just starting to rip out the walls and put the construction area together, so it’s going to be a little bit, but hopefully we’ll be open sometime by mid-June,” Abell said.