William Collazo cooks up breakfast, lunch and dinner at Gravy Dave's Cafe in Union, pictured here on March 22, 2024. On Fridays, Collazo offers a prime rib special. 

UNION — After eight months of operation, professional chef William Collazo has gained a strong following of diners from two counties with his homestyle menu at the well-known Gravy Dave’s Cafe.

He and his wife, Timur Gaston-Collazo, a full-time special education teacher at Elgin High School, live in Cove in the 1877 Hendershott home and purchased the cafe together in Union from Deb Albes. After some remodeling, they reopened it in July 2023. The cafe’s name had brand value, so they decided to keep it.

Collazo came to Union County in 2022 from Nampa, Idaho, at the invitation of his current wife, who has been a county resident since 2010. She formerly lived in Irrigon with her late husband.

She and Collazo, also widowed, were married two years ago in April, Gaston-Collazo said. Buying the cafe was a good fit for Collazo.

“We bought the cafe so that William would not have to travel out of state for work,” Gaston-Collazo said.

Collazo has an extensive background in food service and nutrition.

“I’ve been in the food service business for over 20 years,” he said. “I was an executive chef and a certified dietary manager for health care facilities for a long time in Boise.”

Popular meals

The menu offers a large variety of meal options for breakfast, lunch and dinner, but Collazo has noticed some of his customers’ favorites.

Breakfast is served until 11 a.m. and his customers seem to love either the biscuits and gravy meal or a Blue Skillet meal. The Blue Skillet comes with hash browns, gravy, bacon, sausage and ham, scrambled eggs and cheese.

Lunch favorites are bacon cheeseburgers made with fresh ground beef.

“We make our own patties with straight 81/19 ground beef, nothing frozen,” Collazo said. “We have a char broiler that we cook our hamburgers, steaks and prime rib on. Not many places in the area cook on char broilers.”

On Fridays, Collazo offers prime rib specials, and it comes in 8-, 12- and 16-ounce sizes. It comes with your choice of baked potato or mashed potato and gravy and a side salad with a choice of dressing.

“I’m the one who cooks the prime rib, and everyone has a choice of the temperature they want their meat to be cooked,” he said.

The dinner favorites are top sirloin steak or a chicken fried steak.

“We serve a chicken fried steak dinner as well as a chicken fried steak breakfast,” he said.

The dinner version of chicken fried steak includes mashed potatoes and gravy and side salad. The breakfast chicken fried steak meal comes with eggs, hash browns and toast.

“Our customers can get lunch at dinner time, and I allow them to get dinner items a little earlier if they come in before the normal dinner time,” he said. “The only exception would be the prime rib, which we heat up at 4 p.m.”

All the beverages are Pepsi products, and they also serve Starry (lemon lime version of Sprite), root beer, iced tea, Dr. Pepper, and lemonade. Hot beverages are served like regular and decaf coffee and tea.

“Right now, the cream pies are in season and later on in the spring, we’ll start serving fruit pies,” he said. “The popular one now is a chocolate cream pie.”

All year round, the cafe offers hard ice cream and shakes with upwards of 45 different flavors.

Daily specials

“We’ve enjoyed getting to know our neighbors and also people from Baker City, La Grande and Cove that come,” Gaston-Collazo said. “That’s the interesting part, all the people from Baker that we meet.”

Their customers from Baker City come on certain days and eat certain things. That’s one reason why Collazo has daily specials.

They serve a value meal on Monday with a hamburger, fries and a drink for $10. Tuesday’s special is either a chicken fried steak sandwich with fries or a chili burger. Wednesday is always spaghetti and meat sauce. Thursday is home-made meatloaf. Fridays is the prime rib, and most of the time Saturday is the prime rib sandwich.

“People like the routine, and they know what to come in for, and it’s something they like,” Collazo said. “I don’t change it up much.”

To help him, he has four adult employees, all from Union, including one assistant cook.

“One of my waitresses has been with the company for 18 years, and she knows all the regular customers,” he said. “We’re here to serve good food and support the community.”

During spring and summer, Gravy Dave’s Cafe, 359 North Main St., Union, is open Monday through Saturday from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. and during the fall and winter months, the hours are 8 a.m. to 7 p.m.

There is in-house dining for 36 people, and they also have a drive-thru service. People can call in for take-out at the café phone number 541-562-5717