"We get a lot of requests for window seats," said general manager Richard Jones.

Window seats at the Alpine Garden Grill, nestled next to the Rhonda's Gardens, at Mile 45.2 of the Parks Highway, allow diners to look out on four waterfalls and Rhonda Williams' eclectic gardens.

"They are bringing me business and I'm bringing them business," Williams said. "They get a lot of the gardeners at lunchtime, and at dinner time, (when the plant nursery is closed) people go there to eat, walk around the gardens and come back to shop the next day. It's a great partnership."

Not that one would necessarily need a stroll around the gardens - not with the food at Alpine.

"Non-fattening, non-caloric and just good for you," said Jones, with a wink, as he inspected a tray of freshly prepared desserts offered by waitress Willow Thiele. "You can't go wrong with Belgian chocolate mousse and creme brule.

"It's good food at a reasonable price. We already have had people driving up from Eagle River and Anchorage," he said.

Jones got his start in the restaurant business as a youth in Anchorage, as a soda jerk making malts and taking orders at the drive-up window of the Lucky Wishbone. He took culinary courses at the old Anchorage Community College, launching himself into a restaurant career that took him to several states, and finally back home to Alaska.

Alpine Garden Grill owner Bruce Corson, who has homes in Willow and Anchorage, owns other businesses, and has worked in general contracting and commercial fisheries.

Alpine Garden executive chef Brett Yliner displays one of the restaurant's favored salads. Alpine's menu features an "eclectic disarray" of foods, Yliner said. Photo/Margaret Bauman/AJOC

The restaurant, which can seat about 90 comfortably for dinner, features what executive chef Brett Yliner describes as an international menu with a little Italian and French influence. Jones said the offerings are more of "a variety; an eclectic disarray, old-school and classic dishes."

For starters, there are appetizers like baked brie with roasted garlic, an imported double creme French brie baked on a light crust, served with roasted whole-clove garlic and a sliced sourdough baguette. Or perhaps crab cakes with lemon caper aioli, featuring Dungeness crab meat mixed with seasoned bread crumbs and pan-fried, then served with a classic sauce of pickled capers and lemon zest.

Oven-roasted rack of lamb, served with a spicy mint sauce, at about $30, is the current nightly feature, and a very popular entree is the hazelnut-stuffed chicken roulade runs at about $20. This dish is a rolled paillard of chicken with hazelnuts, fresh sage, apple and cream cheese that is oven roasted, sliced and served with a Calvados cream sauce.

Diners may also chose from an array of seafood, beef, veal and pasta dishes, including the popular veal picatta, which is sautéed and presented in classic style, with white wine, capers, lemon zest, parsley and butter.

Evening entrees come with a house salad with a complement of marinated beans, sliced salami and Parmesan cheese in a house vinaigrette, steamed wheat rolls and a sourdough baguette.

Desserts, not listed on the menu, are freshly made daily by one of several chefs. The Alpine Garden Grill also features a list of more than 100 wines.

"We had a soft opening," Jones said. "The owner wanted to make sure we were doing it right."

Customers of Rhonda's greenhouse, who had been watching the construction of the new restaurant, started dining there as soon as it opened, and word spread quickly about the good food and reasonable prices. Along with the diners came requests for catering, something the owner prepared for in the design of the kitchen, Jones said.

The doors open at 11 a.m. for lunch, and dinner service runs from 5 p.m. to 11 p.m., with light meals offered between lunch and dinner, and no matter the hour, some tables are always filled.

"I tell the staff, 'Let's have fun,'" Jones said. "If we have fun, the guests will have fun too ... and you're only as good as the people who work for you."