Dirty Skillet Wins CHARR’s Restaurant of the Year Award
Dirty Skillet in Hope combines creative food, live music, and an informal approach to hospitality.
Photo Credit: Dirty Skillet
The Alaska Cabaret, Hotel, Restaurant, and Retailer Association (CHARR) named a small seasonal restaurant in Hope as the state’s Restaurant of the Year. Dirty Skillet, known for an eclectic menu, playfully named dishes, and live music, recently completed its eighth season in business.
Clean Fun at Bear Creek Lodge
For owners Jeannine Stafford-Jabaay and Derrick Jabaay, the award presented at CHARR’s 55th annual convention is recognition not only of the restaurant but of the team and the style of hospitality they have worked to create in one of Alaska’s smallest communities.
There are no stoplights, chain restaurants, or even a gas station in Hope. At Bear Creek Lodge, Dirty Skillet sits among log cabins, trees, mountains, a creek, and a pond. On summer evenings, live music is played while visitors, seasonal workers, and longtime residents often find themselves sharing the same space.
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September 2026
The intentional result, says Stafford-Jabaay, is a restaurant where the distinction between guest, regular, and friend can become blurry. “We have people who come back year after year, and we get to know their families and their stories,” she says. “Sometimes someone walks in as a stranger and by the time they leave, we know that we’ve made a new friend.”
Stafford-Jabaay’s philosophy for Dirty Skillet and Bear Creek Lodge is simple: “I want it to feel like going to Grandma’s, and she’s so glad to see you,” she says. “You get a big hug, there’s plenty of food, and you immediately feel comfortable in her home. That’s what hospitality means to me. We want people to feel like they have a family here in Hope.”
That philosophy shapes the restaurant’s approach to service. Stafford-Jabaay says the experience guests have with the team is just as important as what arrives at the table.
“The award says Dirty Skillet, but it belongs to our team,” she says. “They work hard, they rally together when it is required, but most importantly, they care about people. They remember names and stories. They ask about someone’s trip. They welcome people back. Our guests aren’t transactions to them. They turn into friends.”
Jeannine Stafford-Jabaay, Derrick Jabaay, and the Dirty Skillet team receive the Restaurant of the Year award at the 55th annual Alaska Cabaret, Hotel, Restaurant, and Retailer Association convention.
Photo Credit: Coral Howe
Stafford-Jabaay says receiving statewide recognition from CHARR is especially meaningful given the size of the community at the end of the Hope Highway on the Kenai Peninsula, even as many acclaimed restaurants operate throughout Alaska.
“There are incredible restaurants in this state, so for a little restaurant in a tiny town like Hope to receive this award is overwhelming,” she says. “We are incredibly proud of our team. They created the kind of place people remember, want to come back to, and tell their friends about. And that means the world to us.”
Photo Credit: Dirty Skillet
What happens when a city with fewer than 300 residents becomes a major freight and tourism hub, despite being accessible only by boat, plane, or a one-lane highway/railroad tunnel managed on a strict schedule?
If you’re in the City of Whittier, you get busy. The city has two separate transportation planning efforts underway, including a safety action plan under the federal Safe Streets and Roads for All initiative, which focuses on improving safety for pedestrians, cyclists, motorists, and emergency responders. The second is Whittier Moves, the city’s transportation master plan, which serves as the long-term roadmap for growth.