Owner not nervous about slowdown

WILLISTON, N.D. – As oil activity slowed down a few months before her Williston café was set to open at an expanded location, Lonnie Iverson grew nervous.
“I actually bought a new house, too, and then the oil prices dropped,” the 34-year-old Williston native said. “It puts a little twist in everybody’s gut, I suppose.”
But Lonnie’s Roadhouse, which opened in March next to its former location, has stayed busy, despite layoffs of oil workers and fewer truckers parked at the gas station nearby.
“We just pack them in here,” Iverson said. “There are some people I know that have left, but for the most part, everybody’s still here.”
More women come to the café now that it’s no longer connected to a gas station near truckers who sleep in their trucks.
“I think they were scared to come into the other place,” said Iverson, adding that she likes the truckers because they keep an eye on things for her.
After the oil boom brought an influx of new people to Williston, Iverson had to stop keeping the café open 24 hours a day. Too many rowdy, drunk customers would come in after midnight, including a stripper who once assaulted one of her waitresses, she said.
“I wanted to stay open for the guys that actually needed a place to go and eat, but yet we couldn’t control it,” said Iverson, who bought the restaurant 10 years ago. “You shouldn’t have to have a bouncer at a café.”
After changing her hours, Iverson gave a key to the café to a group of local men who were used to coming into the restaurant early to be at work by 6 a.m.
“They’ll start the coffee,” she said.
Iverson was recently honored by Williston Economic Development as the woman-owned business entrepreneur of the year. Even with drop in drilling, Iverson said she still thinks there are good opportunities for entrepreneurs in Williston.
“I think anybody could start any little business they wanted right now,” Iverson said. “If you find something different, you can do it.”