In summer 2008, Ron Sevart moved to Seattle as the CEO of the Space Needle, the city’s biggest tourist attraction (2 million visitors a year) and home to its highest-grossing restaurant ($14 million in 2010), the 250-seat Sky City.
In addition to preparing for the Needle’s 50th anniversary next month and opening a new glass museum adjacent to its Seattle Center grounds later this spring, Sevart began nudging the Needle’s owners, the Wright family, gently in the direction of the “fun business.”
Sevart had been trying to bring “Check, Please!” to the Pacific Northwest and to have the Space Needle and Sky City underwrite its costs. Although they’d never sponsored a show on KCTS-TV, the Wright family responded favorably to the opportunity — as the city’s most visible icon — to support Seattle’s thriving culinary community. “Check, Please! Northwest” would do just that.
“They clearly have a history of local involvement and understand that they are both a public icon and a private, family business,” said Knute Berger, Crosscut’s Mossback and the author of an upcoming history of the Space Needle. “I thought it was fascinating that they see a big advantage in promoting smaller restaurants, many of them family-owned.”
The on-camera host, Amy Pennington, certainly deserves her position. Born on Long Island, N.Y., she’s a longtime resident of Seattle, author of several books about food and gardening. She learned the restaurant biz as a host at Palace Kitchen, moving on to becoming Tom Douglas’ personal assistant, and produced KIRO Radio’s weekly foodie talk show, “In the Kitchen with Tom and Thierry” — Thierry being “Chef in the Hat” Rautureau of Rover’s and Luc.
She also found time to start a business (GoGo Green Garden), write a series of cookbooks (“Urban Pantry,” “Apartment Gardening”), contribute regular articles to Edible Seattle magazine and Crosscut, and run a website, urbangardenshare.org, that matches backyard space and city gardeners.
Pennington, 37, was one of several dozen applicants to host “Check, Please! Northwest” and one of 16 to be called in for an audition. With an outgoing personality and a natural ability to deal cheerfully with strangers, she nailed the job.
Pennington said, “It takes my favorite things — eating good food and entertaining people —and wraps them up in an awesome show.”
Juicing up, Starbucks-style
Starbucks Coffee paid $30 million for Evolution Fresh — a relatively minor player in the juice business — just five months ago. Its development team, headed by president for Global Store Development Arthur Rubinfeld, must have had a juice bar on the drawing board, because it sprang into action with a fleshed-out menu (breakfasts, lunch, dinner, snacks).
Starbucks says it intends to roll out dozens of Evolution Fresh stores in the coming months and to get Evolution Fresh juices onto grocery shelves and into its own stores.
There’s no Starbucks branding involved, so there’s little downside if the public reaction to the concept is less than enthusiastic. If it flops, they would just spin it off. But the upside is huge: The health-and-wellness market is worth $50 billion a year; the “cold-crafted juices” category alone adds up to nearly $3.5 billion.
The opening tableau of the new store is a “juice wall,” where “juice partners” or mixologists mix your drink from spigots (carrot, beet, cucumber, greens, pineapple, etc.). For instance, a combo described as “Sweet Burn” is blended from coconut water, pineapple, apple, beet, cayenne and ginger.
There are also hot breakfast scrambles, though the eggs are delivered pre-cracked.
“Signature Bowls” are assembled by cheerful staffers from a salad bar of ingredients.
Sandwiches are available, as are collard-green wraps.
There’s more to the menu (desserts), but the whole enterprise seems daunting, something-for-everyone, as if Evolution Fresh were catering to health-conscious 20-somethings without wanting to anger the hard-core, raw-bar crowd.
Names and places
Taking our monthly spin around the neighborhoods, we find new faces in several kitchens.
Lauri Carter, for example, has moved from downtown’s Lecosho to Marjorie’s on Capitol Hill. That’s because Paul Hyman left Marjorie for Belltown’s Local 360 after the opening chef, Michael Robertshaw, was dismissed for “unbecoming conduct.”
We told you a couple of months ago that Landry’s had taken over the McCormick & Schmick chain, a change that didn’t sit well with Peter Birk, the new chef at Harborside, who’d been promised greater freedom than he was finding at Ray’s. At any rate, Birk departed for BOKA, in the Hotel 1000.
Also cooking downtown these days at RN74 is Seisuke Kamimura, last seen in the kitchens of Artisanal, in Bellevue’s Bravern complex.
The bizarre Tenoch Grill on Queen Anne morphs into Five Hooks Seafood Grill.
There’s a new chef at Branzino” Garrett Brown.
And Danielle Custer, long associated with TASTE at the Seattle Art Museum, is about to open her own food truck, called Monte Cristo, with a prep kitchen and financing underwritten by Bon Appetit Catering.
David Leck, the champion oyster shucker who works at Taylor Shellfish Melrose on Capitol Hill, added another notch to his belt by winning the Boston International Oyster Shucking competition last month. Coming in second, his former protégé at Elliott’s Oyster House, Jorge Hernandez.
Also on the winning front, the Washington Wine Commission has, for the 10th year now, honored several restaurants for their support of Washington wine. Restaurant of the Year honors went to Metropolitan Grill; Sommelier of the Year, to Nelson Daquip of Canlis; Walter Clore Honorarium, to Budd Gould of Anthony’s.
Coming soon to the former Fourth Avenue location of Borders Books is Yard House, a California chain of beer parlors.
Did I tell you that the W Hotel has opened TRACE where Earth & Ocean once flourished? It’s undergone a major remodel to bring more excitement to downtown.
North of the ship canal, Joule is moving from Wallingford to Fremont.
Also in Wallingford, Le Gourmand and its cozy bar, Sambar, are calling it quits.
New to Belltown is C.S. Finnegan, an offshoot of West Seattle’s Celtic Swell.
The notorious Copper Cart — responsible for much of the bad press Belltown has been getting the past couple of years — is gone, or at least dressed in a new outfit (same owners): Empire Lounge.
Coming soon to South Lake Union: Veggie Grill, another California chain.
Coming to Capitol Hill, in the space vacated by Tilden (home furnishings), a joint venture between Ethan Stowell (Ballard Pizza Co.) and Heather Earnhardt (Wandering Goose).
Say goodbye to the popular sommelier: Yashar “Shizzle” Shayan, who’s moving from Seattle to Lummi Island, where he’ll open bottles for Blaine Wetzel’s celebrated Willows Lodge.
RONALD HOLDEN is a restaurant writer who blogs at Cornichon.org.