After 16 years under the ownership of North Bend Mayor Ken Hearing, Scott’s Dairy Freeze, which opened in North Bend in 1951, will be changing owners.

Scott’s was first opened in 1951 by Alan and Dorothy Scott. According to Hearing, they sold it to their daughter and son-in-law in 1969 and in 1990, Hearing bought it from them.

Andy Moreno, the soon-to-be owner and North Bend resident, has known Hearing for more than 20 years. Hearing contacted him about taking over the business in 2015, when Hearing learned that his own son and daughter would not be able to fill the role. Hearing and Moreno are currently working out the details of the ownership change.

“I’ve been here 25 and a half years. It’s been a lot of fun, it’s been a pretty good way to make a living. My kids aren’t interested in taking over and Andy has been like a son to me over the years,” Hearing said.

Moreno has some plans for a few renovations and changes around the business, but will not be making any drastic changes. Scott’s has been around for more than 60 years and hasn’t really changed much, he explained, and that is what people like about it.

“They want it to stay a Valley icon. One of the reasons I want to take it over is because it means so much to myself, my friends, family, it means a lot to us who grew up here.”

“It’s one of the restaurants on Main Street that is still here, it’s named the same, it hasn’t changed at all, and I think people appreciate that,” Moreno said. “There will be some minor changes, but for the most part 95 percent of everything is going to stay the same. The way we do burgers, french fries, onion rings, the milkshakes. There will be some minor changes with some of the buns and things like that.”

Moreno is also planning a few renovations to decor inside the building by updating the lighting and placing a digital menu board over the counter at the entrance.

Another big change to Scott’s has already begun in the form of Soul Food nights. Moreno brought in a new Valley resident Randa Fahie, originally from Saint Thomas in the Virgin Islands, to lead the charge on the Soul Food nights, which run from 8 to 11 p.m., Wednesdays through Saturdays.

“I noticed there wasn’t really anywhere to go late at night. Everything shuts down. So I thought ‘let me try something different,'” Fahie said.

Fahie puts hours into preparing dishes like oxtails and gravy, ribs, and jerk chicken. She moved to Snoqualmie in 2015 and had been doing some catering. When she met Moreno, he offered her a job at Scott’s. Once the idea of Soul Food nights was considered, Moreno knew that Fahie had to do the cooking.

“When I tried her food, I thought it was amazing and thought, ‘why don’t you do it, we already have the idea.’ It’s a food that nobody offers, even in the Seattle metro area there’s only a few of these places,” Moreno said. “I feel that we are serving something that no one else is doing with the quality that she is doing it.”

Fahie is happy that the people at Scott’s and the community as a whole has been so welcoming and is happy to share a bit of her cooking with them.

“I’m an excellent cook, I cook with love and with my heart. So I wanted to present that to the community,” she said.