The Motor Supply Co. restaurant in the Vista is celebrating its 20th anniversary. (Inset, L–r) Tim Peters, executive chef and Eddie Wales, owner. During an era where, beset by rising food costs and shrinking profits, restaurants are falling by the wayside, the Vista’s Motor Supply Company Bistro is not just surviving, but thriving.

And the constant thread that ties Motor Supply to its success, according to its owner Eddie Wales, is that there are no constants.

“Our menu changes every day, the ingredients change every day, and nothing is ever the same,” he said. “While we always have certain types of dishes on the menu – such as a duck, fish, vegetarian, and a beef entreé – the preparations change as to the season and the ingredients. We have a different menu every day for both lunch and dinner.”

The goal of the 85–seat restaurant is to act locally while serving a clientele that lives, travels, and eats globally. Most all of the produce and other key ingredients are bought from farmers and vendors throughout the Southeast with a large concentration of them in South Carolina. The clientele, while mostly from Columbia and surrounding areas, also contains an ever–growing number of business travelers and tourists who have enjoyed Motor Supply’s fare and come back for more.

“The new hotels in the area have brought customers, but we also feel a great tie to the community with people who come back again and again to eat here,” Wales said. “We hope we are the kind of restaurant that you go to for a special occasion when friends come to town or when you want a great meal.”

The restaurant, located in a renovated engine supply building built in the late 1800s and listed on the National Register of Historic Places, is a warm combination of old and new, with a centuries–old bar as a beautiful focal point of the dining room and trendy modern art on the walls, most of them by regional artist Peter Nein.

Columbia resident Katherine McWilliams said she enjoys dining at Motor Supply because of its “diverse, eclectic menu.”

“The menu is very original in that it takes traditional pairings and puts a new twist on them,” McWilliams said.

Wales said he feels like he has grown up along with the bistro, having started to work as a waiter there only a few short months after it opened in 1989. Two years later, Wales was promoted to general manager, but then moved in 1994 to Athens, Ga. while his soon–to–be wife attended veterinary school. They were drawn back to Columbia after graduation, and he returned to Motor Supply once again. He purchased the restaurant in 2000 and since then has put his mark on it, despite hard economic times and shrinking profits.

“It’s tough to be a restaurant these days, but we have managed to power through it,” he said. “We’ve just had to work harder and be better.”

He credits a lot of the success of the bistro to executive chef Tim Peters, who shares Wales’ love of “local and fresh.”

According to Peters, who said he has cooked all around the world, including France, Colorado, and Charleston, Motor Supply is the perfect place to bring all of his experience.

“It allows me to be creative and extend that creativity to the staff,” he said. “There’s a lot of trust and a lot of talent in our kitchen.”

All of that talent will be amassed on January 31 in the crowning event for Motor Supply Company Bistro, an eight–course wine dinner that Peters says reflects “a mini–history of every place I’ve ever been and cooked.”

The dinner, according to a press release from the company, “will take guests on a culinary journey inspired by the career of Chef Peters from his training in France at the famed Le Cordon Bleu in Paris and time spent under Chef Marc Meneau at L’Espérance, an esteemed three–star Michelin property in lower Burgundy, to his time at the award–winning Grouse Mountain Grill in Beaver Creek, Colorado, and finally his years cooking with some of the best chefs in Charleston, SC.”

The dinner starts at 6 pm with a special cocktail hour followed by the first course at 7 pm. Per–person cost is $100 excluding tax and gratuity. Reservations are required and may be made by calling 803-256- 6687. Proceeds from the month–long celebration will go toward work done by the Ray Tanner Foundation.

Motor Supply Company Bistro: 20 Gervais Street, Downtown Columbia, SC 29201. 803-256-6687. Lunch menus for the day are posted at 11 am and dinner menus at 5 pm at www.motorsupplyco- bistro.com.