Prineville restaurant Club Pioneer, seen here in 2015, plans to serve dinner to the residents and staff or Redemption House, Crook County's only homeless shelter.  

Club Pioneer, an iconic Prineville steakhouse, will close its doors to patrons Christmas Eve, as is customary for the restaurant on Sundays.

But the stoves will stay on this year for just 60 people. The steakhouse plans to serve dinner to the residents and staff of Crook County’s only homeless shelter in what has become a holiday tradition.

For many of Sunday’s guests, a dinner at Club Pioneer is something typically out of reach. Food, in general, can be a hard thing to come by outside of the homeless shelter, which is why Cindy Burback, executive director of the shelter, and Jim Roths, Club Pioneer’s owner, decided to hold the Christmas Eve dinner for the second year in a row.

Last year, the menu included prime rib with all the trimmings. This year, it’s tri-tip, baked ham and scalloped potatoes.

“It was very heartwarming to know that they were thought of and that they could enjoy a nice meal in a nice restaurant with their families,” Burback said.

Burback has led Prineville’s homeless shelter, Redemption House, through a growth in homelessness over the past few years. As the population in Crook County has grown, affordable housing has become more and more unattainable.

In the last year, 93 people have used the shelter, and at least 26 of those were able to transition into permanent housing, Burback said.

For Roths, who owns Club Pioneer and the nearby Dillon’s Grill with his wife, Donna, entrepreneurship isn’t just about breaking even or making a profit. Part of the responsibility that comes with being a business owner is doing something good with it, he said.

“It’s not been a good year for anybody,” Roths said. “And just because it’s been difficult doesn’t mean you stop doing the important things.”

He, too, has seen how untenable current housing prices are for working people — including employees of his restaurants.

“When I mentioned homelessness, I just saw a spark in my staff,” Roths said.

Club Pioneer’s general manager prepared homemade desserts for the dinner guests to take back to the shelter with them, and cooks and servers will volunteer their time Sunday to serve dinner.

Homelessness can sometimes be an invisible, inarticulable struggle in Crook County.

“It’s all around us, but many of us just don’t see it,” Roths said.

But Burback, Roths and the staff at Club Pioneer and Redemption House have their eyes and arms wide open.