They say that lightning doesn't strike twice in the same place.

The good folks at Evergreen Court, an independent retirement living community in North Bend, might beg to differ - at least when it comes to hiring chefs.

Case in point: What are the odds of putting an ad in the newspaper for a two-day-a-week relief chef on two occasions and winding up with chefs who have 63 years of experience between them - who just happen to be looking for something to fill their time?

That's exactly what lead two seasoned chefs to Evergreen Court.

Chefs John Wilson and Petra Hawk-Tanner had both recently relocated to the Bay Area and were looking for something to do.

Wilson had “retired,” after spending 26 years catering in the high Arctic oil fields of Alaska and is living on his boat in Charleston Marina with his wife, who grew up in the North Bend area.

Hawk-Tanner's husband is a commercial salmon, crab and tuna fisherman who spent the majority of his time in the Coos Bay area, so the family decided to relocate. She had worked 11 years at Roy's Pacific Rim, a Eurasian fusion restaurant in Pebble Beach, Calif.

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Wilson, a 1970 graduate of the Tacoma Culinary school, knows how lucky he is to find really talented help.

“She's a gem,” Wilson said. “We're very much alike. I'm old school. She's young and culinary arts trained and she's from Pebble Beach.

“She's here and bored, and answered the same ad I did. I got a really good chef who was looking for something to do.”

“This is the ideal place for both of us,” Wilson said. “I have some tricks I'm teaching her. When you've done this for more than 40 years, you have some tricks.”

Wilson said the two chefs have worked very well together.

“Her husband is a fisherman ... that left a big-time chef in Coos Bay,” Wilson explained. “I feel very fortunate.”

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Retirement ... working on his boat ... maybe a little traveling.

Wilson never figured he'd be running a kitchen again.

“Her parents are here,” Wilson said.

His wife grew up in North Bend.

“So we came up to see them. I was feeling well enough, I thought I'd work somewhere a couple of days, so I answered an ad here for a relief chef. Since I have experience, they hired me.”

He said the next turn of events led him back to full-time duty.

“About two weeks after I got here, the chef here decided she wanted to work four (10-hour shifts),” Wilson said. “So they asked me if I wanted to take a third day and that was attractive to me.”

A prolonged back injury to the facility's original chef pushed Wilson back into regular duty.

“They gave me an offer that was attractive,” he said. “So here I am, back at work.”

And Evergreen Court is a perfect fit for Wilson.

“Here, it's high-quality cooking that changes every day,” he said. “It's got variety, you're not ordering a No. 2. We can use our own recipes and we each have well-educated palates.

“Even the best places in town are working off a menu. This is better for us. For Easter we can do a special menu - whatever pleases us within our budget. ... It's a special niche you don't find very often.”

“Where do you get to go and management says ‘chef's choice,' ” Wilson said. “That's very attractive for a chef.”

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“I tried being a stay-at-home mom and a deckhand on my husband's boat,” Hawk-Tanner said. “But in the winter, I didn't like crabbing and we all know what happened to the salmon season - and I was bored.”

So she replied to the ad placed by Evergreen Court.

“This has been a great deal of fun,” Hawk-Tanner said.

So, what has impressed her the most about Evergreen Court?

“I see the staff put a lot of care into what they're doing in the dining room,” she said. “The waitresses ... the way they treat the guests, that made a big impression on me.”

While Hawk-Tanner has always had the freedom to create her own menus, she says that cooking at Evergreen is similar to cooking at Pebble Beach.

“You're still looking to see a smile on the client's face when you deliver a meal,” she said. “The reactions we get is what drives us. It's so much more important to these people than it would be in a restaurant.”

A 1991 graduate of the LandesberufschuleWaldegg Chef School in Austria, Hawk-Tanner has been able to use more of the basics she learned there in her cooking at Evergreen.

“I'm reaching further back into my training,” she said. “Back to my roots that I haven't been able to do in the last 15 or 16 years.”

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The chefs are working at Evergreen and are getting ready to prepare a special Easter dinner for the residents and their guests.

“We're going to do a nice non-traditional Easter,” Wilson said. “We'll have prime rib, coconut shrimp with pina colada salsa, and duck breast a l'orange. We'll do a nice rice pilaf, and baked potatoes with the works and a broccoli, cauliflower au gratin..”

He also said he'd likely carve a fruit bowl with an Easter theme using a watermelon. And, of course there will be desserts, including at least two sugar-free recipes he'll bake for those with dietary restrictions.

So how have the residents taken to their new chefs?

“The residents absolutely love them,” said Community Relations Director Tammy Trost. “We have guests that come in quite often and we've gotten a couple letters about the food.”

Besides holidays, another event that often finds guests quite joining the residents in the facility's elegant dining room is the monthly seafood buffet.

And for $6.50 (guest price), who can blame them?

The menu reads like a top restaurant: chilled tiger shrimp, baked salmon with dill sauce, tavern-style fish filets, breaded butterfly shrimp, breaded scallops and a host of side dishes.

The dining room seats 56, with 80 residents usually taking part during the dining hours.

On special occasions - like the seafood buffet, or a holiday - Wilson says they often have more relatives join them in the dining room than take residents out to dinner.

“For Easter, we're already up to 20 guests,” Wilson said. “That's a good deal for $6.50. It's a very festive time.”