The Lakeside Pub Restaurant has a long and storied history, and on Saturday, September 22 the restaurant will open its doors likely for the last time when they hold a closing party after decades of serving the community.

“The whole reason behind the closing is that I have some health issues,” business co-owner Guido Hochheiden said. “Health is more important than anything else.”

Guido and wife Helga Hochheiden are tenants of the lakeside building and have run the restaurant for the past 11 years, since July of 2001. Guido said the decision to close the restaurant wasn’t something he had planned on; that it was more of a sudden decision. On September 22, they will be hosting an impromptu closing party open to the public running from the afternoon into the evening with games and prizes and Guido joked the theme of the party would be “drink the bar dry.”

The Lakeside Pub Restaurant has also been known for two main events they put on each year — the Lakeside Fly Event and an annual charity concert to benefit the Columbia Valley Food Bank in December. Guido said it was hard to let those events go, but that he is also in the process of looking for someone else to hopefully host the benefit concert in the future, and is welcoming any and all donations to the food bank at their closing party.

“We did this for 11 years, and of course we thank all of our customers, and especially the community,” Guido said. “These are things that are really coming from the heart — it’s a little tough to let that go.”

Guido was unsure what would happen to the building, but at the regular Invermere council meeting on Tuesday, September 11 a request was approved to fast-track an application to down-zone or re-zone the land to a residential designation.