Flagstaff Business Feature: The Social Butterfly – Val’s
The Flagstaff Region Featured Business is a monthly newspaper and web feature presented in partnership by Flagstaff County and The Community Press.
The Social Butterfly – Val’s
5002 50 Ave., Forestburg
780-582-3541
After more than 35 years in the restaurant business, Valerie Wolbeck decided to spread her wings and open a restaurant of her own.
“The Social Butterfly – Val’s” took flight on April 16, 2018, at the north end of Forestburg’s main street.
Good ol’-fashioned home cooking is what sets the restaurant apart from others, says the owner and head chef. Plus, they’re open weekdays from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.
“We pretty much make everything homemade,” Wolbeck notes. “We serve breakfast, lunch and supper – or dinner, as city people call it. We have an all-day breakfast and we serve pretty much anything. We serve hamburgers, pizzas, chicken, different varieties of chicken. We serve steak. We serve beef. We do lasagnas and we do heat-and-eat meals, like the frozen meals. They’re made up and baked and then they’re put into microwaveable containers and froze and you can just pick them up. And they take about four to five minutes to heat up and your lunch or dinner is prepared.”
In addition to the seemingly endless list of homemade cuisine – as well as the friendly service that customers relish – the Social Butterfly also serves up homemade jams, bread, cinnamon buns, cookies and a dizzying array of pies (up to 30 a week), as well as custom-order cabbage rolls.
“My sister, Wanda, comes in here and she helps me do canning. And most of it’s fresh from her garden,” adds Wolbeck.
In fact, Wolbeck says she will make anything if she has enough notice.
“If anybody phones and wants something, we’ll make it for them,” she explains. “If you phone ahead, there’s no problem making anything.”
That goes for fruitcakes, too.
Her fruitcakes, afterall, have landed Wolbeck on the front pages of the Edmonton Journal and Calgary Herald, as well as in the Western Producer.
“I’ve been making fruitcakes for something like 30 years,” she adds. “And I’ve made up to a thousand fruitcakes in a year for the Christmas season.”
Indeed, the allure of home cooking has been the key to the large local clientele Wolbeck has developed over the years.
“A lot of being in the restaurant business, too, a lot of the times things come in and they’re already made, already portioned and put together.
All you do is heat them up,” she notes. “But we pretty much make everything from scratch. I would say 80% of our products that people eat in here are homemade or locally grown or bought at the store that is local.”
What also sets the Social Butterfly apart from other restaurants is that it shares space with a thrift shop, where you’ll find a variety of new and gently used items.
“The new stuff would be stuff that I would get at a gift show or buy from a market, say like purses or wallets. Or in the springtime, we had a lot of garden stuff, like metal art or metal garden ware,” Wolbeck explains.
“I’ve got five sisters. So they all have stuff. And my kids when they move and when they have babies, we accumulate things and then I just sell them here. And my stepfather was a collector. He collected a lot of stuff.”
For more information, visit the restaurant’s website at: thesocialbutterflyvals.business.site, find “The Social Butterfly – Val’s” on Facebook, and watch the video on The Community Press website.
Also check out the feature in the September 30 edition of The Community Press – available for digital purchase anytime. Never miss an issue, become a SUBSCRIBER today!
The Flagstaff Region Featured Business is a monthly newspaper and web feature presented in partnership by Flagstaff County and The Community Press. For more information, contact Jenalee Waring, Economic Development Coordinator, at 780-384-4152.
