Health by Hack – Flathead Beacon

When Madison Cross’s father, Huck, got sick years ago, he couldn’t eat bread or sugar, and his family started making juice and smoothies for him to make him feel better. A healthy diet allowed him to feel better and he continued to take a natural approach in addition to Western medicine.

“He tried traditional medicine and it didn’t work,” Cross said. “It’s always felt good to have juices and smoothies and that’s where we base our recipes.”

Huck eventually succumbed to the disease, but Cross and her husband and business partner, Kyle, carried on a healthy legacy when they opened Huck’s Place four years ago in the Stumptown Marketplace on Spokane Street in downtown Whitefish.

“We wanted our own storefront from the beginning,” Cross said. “We went in there and put up a couple of menu boards and started from there.”

After the mall closed last year, they moved to a new location on Central Avenue and renovated the space to open their own storefront, and artists painted an Italian-themed mural on the interior of the hack wall. At the same time they moved, also started their own family and now have two daughters, Grace, 2, and Eloise, 5 months.

Huck’s Place is centered around his family, inspired by his favorite recipes and also getting construction help from his uncle.

“My uncle helped us figure this out and come up with the Italian theme, and then we started adding a lot of my family’s favorites,” Cross said of the juice bar’s interior.

Cross offers her father’s favorite juice and smoothie recipes at a new juice bar and restaurant, as well as breakfast and lunch, coffee, gelato, baked goods and to-go items.

Hack’s Special consists of coconut milk, kale, spinach, banana, pineapple, avocado and honey, and the restaurant also offers several other organic and dairy-free smoothies.

“We don’t add any sugar and everything is plant-based,” Cross said.

To continue the food-medicine theme, local cancer survivor Natalie shared her smoothie recipe with Survivor, a hack of her own nut milk, spinach, banana, mixed nuts, flaxseed, spirulina, cinnamon, and almond butter.

“It’s the fluency that she says helps me, so we developed that as well and it’s very popular,” Cross said.

The refreshing juices at Huck are a more concentrated form of vitamins and minerals – juices centered around roots, greens, peppers and fresh fruit. Many clients regularly prescribe ginger, lemon, cayenne and turmeric to cleanse the colon. The store also has a milder version of the Mule Kick Shot with ginger, lemon and cayenne pepper.

Because Huck loves brewing beer, she added cross ginger beer as another ode to her father, which she makes with lemon, ginger, distilled water, vanilla bean and cane sugar. She also adds other flavors like habanero, strawberry rhubarb, lime and strawberry, which make delicious cocktail mixers. Cross says the habanero variety pairs well with tequila, while vodka complements strawberry rhubarb.

Huck’s Place originally started out as just smoothies and juices, but since moving into its new location on Central Avenue, manager Rachel Brom has introduced a coffee bar. Coffee drinks are made from Italian Ely coffee bean syrup including lattes, cappuccinos, chai, matcha and cold brew from an Ely machine.

Cross added gelato to the menu to continue the Italian theme at the store, sourced from a distributor in Salt Lake City that imports a variety of flavors from Italy.

“My parents traveled to Italy together and loved it,” Cross said. “They had gelato together and we’re trying to base the menu off of some of their favorite flavors.”

But you don’t need a straw or spoon for everything on the menu, breakfast items include farm-fresh eggs from Farm to Market ham, bacon or sausage served in a burrito or bagel or in a Witch House focaccia bread sandwich. Lunch items include paninis, soups and salads with vegetarian options.

“We just want to be a family-friendly restaurant,” Cross said.

Hack’s Place is open seven days a week during the summer: Sunday and Monday from 8:00 am to 6:00 pm, from 8:00 am to 8:00 pm Tuesday through Thursday and Friday and Saturday from 8:00 am to 10:00 pm.