Photo from City of Pullman shows Hilltop 
restaurant with red and black sign Caption: The proposed hotel expansion involves the demolition of the Hilltop Restaurant (shown on the left) to make way for 54 additional sleeping rooms.
HILLTOP INN RESUBMITS EXPANSION PLANS
In June of 2010, we reported that the Kirkbride Group of Lacey, Washington
had submitted a site plan review application to the public works department for a proposal to expand the Hilltop Inn located at the corner of Davis Way and Old Wawawai Road.
The plan involved the addition of 54 rooms to the existing 59-room, three-story motel. To provide the necessary space for this addition, the 10,000-square-foot building that contains the Hilltop Restaurant was proposed to be demolished. The applicant and city staff engaged in the iterative site plan review process until November of that year when staff sent a letter requesting correction of certain deficiencies in the proposed construction drawings.
On Feb. 13, 2012, after putting the proposal on hold for more than a year, the applicant resubmitted its site plan, and followed up soon thereafter with the provision of building plans (necessary for the issuance of a building permit).
The city’s site plan review committee met last week to consider the site plan resubmittal, and it has notified the applicant of certain deficiencies in the plan. However, if all goes smoothly, the developer intends to start the demolition and construction work at the site later this year.
Info below based on story in June 2010, City of Pullman Planning Department Newsletter:
Photo from City of 
Pullman shows front of Hilltop Restaurant. Caption: The Hilltop Restaurant has been serving patrons since the mid-1960s.
HILLTOP RESTAURANT TO BE DEMOLISHED FOR MOTEL ADDITION
In June 2010, the Kirkbride Group of Lacey, Washington submitted a site plan review application to the public works department for a proposal to expand the Hilltop Inn located at the corner of Davis Way and Old Wawawai Road.
The plan involves the addition of 54 rooms to the existing 59-room, three-story motel. To provide the necessary space for this addition, the 10,000-square-foot building that contains the Hilltop Restaurant is proposed to be demolished.
According to the city’s building division records, a restaurant has been in place at this site (accompanying a motel) since 1954. Back then, the eating establishment was a small drive-in restaurant and ice cream shop. The Hilltop Restaurant structure that we know today was built by then-owner Al Kircher in 1965.
Over the years, the business has been called Kircher’s Steakhouse, Hilltop Café, and Hilltop Steakhouse, until it took on its current name in the late 1970s. Ron and Barbara Wachter, long-standing owners of the motel and restaurant property, are maintaining their ownership interest in the motel facility throughout the redevelopment process.
The city’s site plan review committee has met to consider the site plan for this proposal, and it has notified the applicant of certain deficiencies in the plan. If all goes smoothly, the developer intends to start the demolition and construction work at the site late this summer.
ADDITIONAL INFO ABOUT HILLTOP RESTAURANT:
==“My best recollection is that when Templin bought the Hilltop back in the 70's, (the purple chairs at the Hilltop) came from the Old Coeur d'Alene hotel, which (Robert) Templin owned before he went to Post Falls (and opened the North Shore resort which had a) nice restaurant on the 9th floor called the Cloud 9 and those chairs were there....” – A knowledgeable person told Cup of the Palouse on Sept. 9, 2010.
Photo of one of the Hilltop Restaurant's famous purple chairs by Pullman :: Cup of the Palouse.
Al Kircher was head football coach of WSU, 1952-55.
==In the year 1955, "Head coach Al Kircher’s tenure came to a close following a forgettable 1-7-2 campaign.... Kircher concluded his Cougar coaching career 13-25-2. He used the money from the buyout of his contract to purchase what would become an icon on the Palouse culinary scene: The Hilltop Steakhouse. -- By Greg Witter, Cougfan.com executive editor in article "The Fascinating Fifties" posted
on July 24, 2002.
==Following the Nov. 1, 2004, death of Al Kircher, age 94, in Salem, Ore., WSU Athletics issued a news release on Dec. 8, 2004. It includes: "Following his resignation as Washington State's head football coach, Kircher and his family remained in Pullman, where they owned and operated the Hilltop Motel and Steakhouse from 1954-75. They retired to Las Vegas in 1976 and earlier this year moved to Salem."
==In a joint venture with H. F. Magnuson and Associates, Robert Templin purchased Al Kircher’s Hilltop Motel and Steakhouse in Pullman. Story says the motel, with 17-units is "perched on the west side of Pullman with an expansive view of the city.” Story says,“within a few years” Templin “plans to build a new structure on the three-acre site, with more than 200 motel rooms and a convention center.” Source: Lewiston Morning Tribune, Jan. 23, 1977.
