12 Hawks Winter Storm Hours: Staying Open for Ephrata Locals

The short answer: we stay open through most winter weather. Snow on the ground does not close the kitchen. We only adjust hours when Grant County roads get genuinely dangerous, usually tied to a WSDOT closure on Highway 283 or a county-wide storm warning. If that happens, we post updated hours by 6am on our Facebook page and on the home page.

Normal hours, so you know the baseline

Breakfast starts at 7am. The kitchen runs until 9pm most nights, later on Friday and Saturday when the bar stays busy. We are closed Tuesdays, storm or no storm. That is a staffing and prep day, not a weather call, and we wrote about why Tuesday is always our day off if you want the full reason.

Happy hour runs 2pm to 4pm, Monday through Friday. That does not change in winter. If anything, it gets busier once the snow starts, because people are off work early and looking for somewhere warm with a drink menu they trust.

What actually changes during a storm

Three things can push our hours around:

• A county-issued travel advisory. If Grant County asks people to stay off the roads, we open later, usually pushing breakfast back to 9am or 10am instead of 7am.

• Staff who cannot safely get in. Ephrata is a small town. Some of our cooks and servers drive in from Soap Lake, Quincy, or further out. If the roads between here and there are closed, we run a shorter menu with fewer hands in the kitchen.

• Power or heat issues. Rare, but it happens during a hard freeze. If we lose heat or power for more than an hour, we close until it is fixed rather than serve food we cannot cook or hold at temperature.

None of these mean a full closure most of the time. In a typical Ephrata winter, we have maybe two or three days a season where we open late, and closing the entire day happens less than once a year.

How to check before you drive over

Do not guess. Call ahead if the forecast looks bad, especially before 7am breakfast. We update our hours on the website and on social media as soon as a decision is made, usually the night before for an expected storm, or by 6am for a surprise one. If you are driving in from outside Ephrata, that five-minute check saves you a wasted trip on bad roads.

What is still worth showing up for

Winter storm days are actually some of our better game days. Nobody wants to shovel a driveway and then sit home alone watching football. We have every game on the screens, full craft cocktail service, and a kitchen that does not slow down just because it is cold outside. If you want a rundown of what people usually order during happy hour and why it draws a local crowd, we covered that in this piece on happy hour in Ephrata.

Breakfast on a snow day is also reliable. If schools are on a two-hour delay and you need somewhere to take the kids before drop-off, we are open at the normal 7am start unless there is an active advisory. Families show up a lot on snow days, partly because it is one of the few sit-down breakfasts in town that is actually open that early.

Takeout during bad weather

We still run takeout orders during storms, as long as the kitchen is open. If you would rather not deal with parking in ice, call ahead and we will have it ready at the door. Check the full menu before you call so you know what is running that day. During short-staffed storm shifts, we sometimes trim a few slower items, but the core menu, burgers, breakfast plates, wings, stays the same.

Group bookings in winter

If you have a group watching a playoff game or a family gathering planned during storm season, call a day ahead. We can usually hold a section even if the weather turns, but we need to know in advance so we can staff for it properly. Walk-ins are fine most days, but a confirmed group gets priority seating when the dining room fills up fast on a cold Sunday.

Bottom line

Snow does not close us. A genuine county advisory, a staffing gap, or a heat failure might push our hours back or shorten the day, and we will post that clearly before you leave the house. Outside of that, breakfast starts at 7am, happy hour runs 2pm to 4pm weekdays, and the kitchen stays open through most of what an Ephrata winter throws at it. 12 Hawks is built to be the place you can count on when the roads are bad and you still want a hot meal, a drink, and a game on the screen.