When Kent Chappelle announced that his Magnolia seafood restaurant Tanglewood Supreme was closing its doors, many assumed that finances or support were the main reason.
“People always want to assume when they see something closing or for sale, they go right, ‘Oh, your location wasn’t any good,’ or ‘Sorry, you guys didn’t make it,’ and all kind of the doom-and-gloom stuff,” he said.
Rather, with two boys in middle school and a third in elementary school, Chappelle said the time was right to step away from the restaurant business.
“That is a crucial time for a dad to be at home, spending some time with the boys at night,” he said.
Ultimately, the pull of family life for Chappelle — along with the decision by chef Irvin Diaz to move back to Boston, where his family is from — contributed to the decision to close the restaurant at 3216 W. Wheeler St in late December, after a little more than three years in Magnolia.
It’s currently not known what the next use of the space may be.
“We talked about the possibility of rebooting a restaurant again with a third executive chef,” he said, “and we just felt like this was a perfect time to move in a different direction.”
Accolades
The seafood bistro had received rave reviews in its brief tenure in the neighborhood, with The Seattle Times calling it “an out-of-the-way gem,” while Seattle Weekly included it in its list of favorite places to eat and drink in the paper’s 2015 dining guide.
When the restaurant first opened, Chappelle said there felt like there was a void in localized neighborhood seafood options. To fill that gap in Magnolia, he wanted to establish a spot that offered creative cooking and “something in a neighborhood environment where people could get food just as good, if not better, than places they would go downtown.”
Looking back, Chappelle said he was happy with the amount of recognition the restaurant received and fondly remembered when the restaurant’s first executive chef, Jeffrey Kessenich, was named one of Seattle Metropolitan Magazine’s five next hot chefs of 2014.
After the restaurant closed, Chappelle said he was contacted by the reality cooking show “Top Chef” to see if Diaz was interested in appearing, “because they heard a lot of great things down in L.A. about what we do.”
Whether it was accolades for the restaurant itself or the chefs at the helm, Chappelle said the acknowledgement was welcome.
“Those certainly feel good, to know that other people think you’re doing something well or doing it right,” he said.
He also appreciated the response of the other restaurants in the neighborhood.
“It was really nice to not feel a sense of competition of other local restaurants, but rather an environment of support and just kind of a friendliness,” he said.
Family time
Moving forward, Chappelle isn’t ruling out a return to the restaurant industry in the future, but that would be a number of years down the road, he said, “maybe [when] my kids have driver licenses and can get around and don’t need as much help with their homework.
“I wouldn’t be opposed to partnering with somebody or doing something again,” he added. “I really loved it.”
But for now, he’ll have the memories of the people he served at Tanglewood Supreme.
“I just felt like the guests that we served on a nightly basis were really tremendous,” Chappelle said. “They’re good people, and that made doing it all rewarding and worth it.”
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