East Idaho Eats: Pocatello’s Main Steam Coffee and Desserts serves everything from coffee and pastries to gourmet dog treats

POCATELLO — When Tom Nestor purchased the building directly across the street from the Chief Theater more than 40 years ago, he dreamed of opening a fine dining restaurant to complement the Chief.

Then, in 1993, the Chief was destroyed by a fire.

“When it burnt down, my dreams, kinda, went up in smoke,” Nestor told EastIdahoNews.com.

A man named Tony Arambarri rented the space and turned it into a coffee shop — one of the first serving downtown Pocatello, according to Nestor. When Arambarri retired five years ago, Nestor and his partner Kevin Lish bought it and took a crash course in coffee-making. It became Main Steam Coffee and Desserts.

“We took coffee 101 for dummies and bought two espresso machines,” he laughed.

The beans Main Steam puts in those espresso machines are brought in from Caffe D’Arte — a Seattle-based company that has been roasting coffee beans for 140 years.

“I would like to buy local beans, but they just don’t meet our qualifications,” Nestor said.

Along with its coffee, Main Steam offers cookies, danishes, scones, cake pops and even gourmet dog treats made in-house. In fact, all the pastries served at Main Steam are made fresh daily in its kitchen. This can, at times, result in limited quantities of the available pastries because Nestor is conscious about waste.

“If we do have things that we need to get rid of, we try to give it — there’s a lot of homeless people out in the park here — we’ll take them a hot cup of coffee and whatever is a day old,” he said. “It gives them something to enjoy and eat warm with a cup of coffee.”

Main Steam also makes its own soda — with well over 100 flavor options — and smoothies.

Nestor offered EastIdahoNews.com samples of the orange-cranberry scone, raspberry danish, and a mocha.

The mocha was delicious. Nestor suggests it is the use of chocolate milk that makes the flavor rich and creamy. The danish offered the perfect balance of the flaky crust and creamy raspberry filling.

Finally, the scone, like the danish, brought a perfect texture. Softer than most scones, the orange zest and cranberries were perfect for offering zings of flavor and bits of chewiness.

As Nestor explained, before 2020 and the COVID pandemic, Main Steam offered breakfast sandwiches and lunch soups. However, that menu has not yet returned. The reason, he continued, is the fact that foot traffic in downtown has not yet reached the masses the city saw before the pandemic.

A born Pocatellan and admirer of the city’s historic downtown, Nestor is hopeful that people will return to Main Street — and to the businesses that live on it.

“We need to definitely, get people to come downtown,” he said.

Due to his love for Pocatello’s history, Nestor offers visitors to his restaurant a brief trip down memory lane, with photos and newspaper clippings from yesteryear. One thing he does not have pictures of, though, is the building where Main Steam currently resides.

“If anybody out there does know the history of this building, I wish you would share it with me,” he said. “I know, at one time, it was a restaurant, but beyond that, I have no clue.”

Along with history, Main Steam offers a warm and welcoming space for all — including a reference center for Pocatello’s LGBTQ community.

“Everybody is welcomed here,” he said.

Main Steam Coffee and Desserts is located at 234 North Main Street. It is open Monday to Friday, 9 a.m. to 2 p.m., Saturday, 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. and Sunday 9 a.m. to noon. You can follow the shop’s Facebook page — here — for promotional offers and a look at the entire menu.

If you want to make a recommendation for the next destination to be included on East Idaho Eats, email Kalama@EastIdahoNews.com and include “EATS” in the subject line.