Latest news with #Puyallup-based
Yahoo
21-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Pierce County Thai chain now running waterfront restaurant with new menu
Gig Harbor Thai Cuisine has an expanded menu and a fresh interior look after a change in management. The waterfront restaurant at 8825 N. Harborview Dr. is keeping its name but is now managed by Chili Thai, a Puyallup-based restaurant chain. It will be the chain's sixth restaurant, along with their locations in Silverdale, Puyallup, University Place and Tacoma, which has two. The site was a 'great opportunity in the Gig Harbor area,' Chili Thai manager Paul Tunchuleeporn said in a phone call on May 15. The chain had been looking for a spot in Gig Harbor for over a year to help shorten the distance between its Silverdale location and other locations in Pierce County, according to Tunchuleeporn. He estimated that the menu has more than quadrupled, from about 20-30 items to almost 80, including all of the appetizers, salads and main dishes. There's also a wider selection of beer and wine than before. All six of the Chili Thai locations have the same menu, according to Tunchuleeporn. Inside, they've changed out some of the kitchen equipment and installed air conditioning. The restaurant lacked air conditioning before and got 'extremely hot in the summers,' Tunchuleeporn said. They've also added booths to seat customers and new decorations. The transfer in management was finalized around the end of March, and the restaurant closed for a few weeks to make the interior changes. It opened again for business on April 17, Tunchuleeporn said. While customers might have gotten used to the previous recipes, Tunchuleeporn emphasized the authenticity of Chili Thai's dishes and that they've been in the business for over 20 years. Most of the staff including the head chef are Thai, he said. 'If you're looking for ... authentic Thai food, feel free to visit us,' he said. Chili Thai was found to have denied employees overtime from 2020 to 2023, but took action to comply with federal laws going forward, The News Tribune reported.
Yahoo
08-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
This quiet coffee shop turns into one of Tacoma's best bars five nights a week
When this coffee shop closes, a cocktail bar opens. Five nights a week, Proof — a new concept from one of Tacoma's most respected bartenders — takes over Anthem Coffee in Tacoma's Old Town off Ruston Way, transforming the cafe into a neighborhood haunt with excellent drinks and snackable food to match. Owner Chris Keil and his team, including fellow en Rama vet, chef Meghan McLean, introduced the project in mid-February. The industrial space, simply adorned with dark-wood tables and Edison pendants, is surprisingly adept at its new evening persona. When Anthem closes at 3 p.m., Keil and his team get to work. A heavy curtain covers the ordering counter, hiding the espresso machine and other coffee happenings from customer view. They 'just kind of straighten up the room,' said Keil, 'setting the vibe' in just under an hour. 'It's weird because it seems like a bigger lift than rolling into a pre-existing space, but oddly enough it's easier than any other bar.' The cafe, one of six Pierce County locations for the Puyallup-based company, already served beer and wine. It expanded the liquor license to allow for spirits. Proof added a backbar, the shelves now stocked with spirits and liqueurs. A display nook shows off various ingredients that, along with two decades of experience and experimentation, make the drinks here special: super-fruity and floral beeswax, loose-leaf teas, whole spices. The cocktail menu offers three styles: Jesus Take the Wheel (spirit-driven), It's an All Night Thing (low-ABV or 'sessionable drinks for the long haul') and Let's Party (batched drinks that use time and hyper-specific dilution to create 'approachable' sippers). For the uninitiated, that all might sound terribly intimidating — but don't be. 'Proof is just a neighborhood cocktail bar,' said Keil in a March phone call. 'We want it to be pretty low-key, pretty casual, no reservations. We wanted to be the kind of place that people drop in, like, once or twice a week, maybe for a happy-hour drink and a snack or something.' Working in the confines of the modest cafe setup, McLean serves house focaccia to enjoy with pimento cheese and pickles, as prosciutto toast with whipped citrus and herb ricotta and lightly dressed arugula, or as the vehicle for a BLT and tuna melt. Truffle-salt popcorn, a generous vegan Caesar umami-ed with miso, new spring potatoes with 'dilly-dally' sauce, and hand pies with pizza vibes or broccoli cheddar complete the drink-friendly menu. 'It's kind of based around being snack-y and having fun,' said Keil. For anyone who has followed Keil through his many years at the forefront of Tacoma's cocktail scene, the candid description might sound familiar. He opened en Rama, the intimate Courthouse Square restaurant known for handmade pastas and cocktails, in 2018, hanging that hat in the summer of 2023. (The developers of the building sold the restaurant to new owners last year.) Before then, he operated 1022 South J in its original form, Hilltop Kitchen and Marrow, that Sixth Ave space now home to Busy Body. In the past couple of years, Keil has spent his professional energy largely on bar consulting; locally, he helped build the cocktail program at Holy Moly, a similarly chill neighborhood spot with light bites and board games. All of the above rolls into what Proof is offering out of the gate: some of the finest cocktails in Western Washington blended with mindful service and food you'll want to eat. Take, for instance, the Woman in the Dunes, already a leader among the spirit-forward, stirred numbers. Japanese whiskey rests in a big, beeswax-lined jar before infusing with apple blossoms in a sort of fat-washing technique. It's stirred simply with a pinch of salt and poured over a big, clear cube. From the session section, the sherry old fashioned stands to alter any lingering confusion around this mystifying fortified wine, combining a medium-dry amontillado and darker, sweeter Pedro Ximenez with amargo de chile and moscatel. They 'took the architecture of the old fashioned and made that, just using sherry,' explained Keil. 'You get this big, flavorful, chewy drink, but it's not high-octane.' The 50/50 martini takes a similar tact, splitting light and floral Japanese gin with a Spanish vermouth blanc, not the typical dry, diluted precisely by 20% with flat mineral water. Other drinks imbue unique flavors through sourced ingredients, such as Naomi Joe Coffee beans co-fermented with watermelon in the boulevardier, yerba mate in the sake-based Check Mate with house ginger beer, and coconut-washed gin with lime leaf and lime juice in the delicately tropical gimlet. Things have already grown more playful from there. The name Proof doesn't so much honor the colonial-era term coined for liquor tax as it does the notion of 'proof of concept,' said Keil, which, in practice, means an opportunity for this group of pros to showcase 'different concepts, genres and styles of bar programs.' Like a band might cover songs of their good friend's band, Proof will play with themes every third Wednesday. Recently they created limited-edition menus for Mardi Gras and a Daylight Savings-induced ode to beachy drinks, including a tea punch and a classic daiquiri. Throwback Thursdays will provide a field for retro recipes, forgotten cocktails and favorites from the crew's previous bars. (Baby Netflix and Chill, with multiple rums, grapefruit, ginger beer, grenadine, lime and Jäger — yes, that Jäger, which is really just a German digestif! — is always on the happy-hour menu). The idea will extend to collaborations with other bars and bartenders, said Keil, who also wanted Proof to serve as a testing ground for consulting clients. Word of this 'unqiue situation' of coffee-shop-by-day/bar-by-night has spread quietly online and organically around the neighborhood, which has become something of a haven with the recent additions of Tacoma Wine Merchants and Bordeaux Wine Bar, joining one of the city's oldest bars in The Spar. ▪ 2312 N. 30th St. (inside Anthem Coffee - Old Town), Tacoma, ▪ Tuesday-Saturday 4-10 p.m. (happy hour 4-6 p.m.) ▪ Details: neighborhood cocktail bar from Tacoma industry vets in coffee-shop-by-day; follow Instagram for specials and limited-run menu updates ▪ Need to know: walk-ins only, 21+, NA drinks available but no coffee
Yahoo
31-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
New owners for 70-year-old Pierce County diner with plate-sized pancakes, endless coffee
The Pine Cone, a 70-year-old diner in University Place and one of the few still standing in Pierce County, has new owners eager to put their stamp on this American staple. Aelysa Park and Jason Lee quietly took over the restaurant in February from Dave and Dana Verellen, who thoughtfully modernized the space three years ago. Evelyn Berkstrom and Ethel Boedecker opened The Pine Cone in 1955 — decades before UP incorporated, according to archives at the Northwest Room at Tacoma Public Library. It had just one other owner, twin brothers, before Steve Warp bought it in 1986. Warp ran it for 34 years, closing temporarily during the COVID-19 pandemic before selling it in 2022. The Verellens added forest-themed wallpaper behind the lunch counter and a small bar to serve — for the first time ever — beer, wine and cocktails. Otherwise, much of its 1950s-era character remained, from wood paneling to the forest green and tan booths. 'We really want to see them succeed,' Dana Verellen told The News Tribune in a message, adding they will hold onto Dusty's Hideaway, their cozy, family-friendly haunt in a Craftsman house in McKinley Hill. After closing Zodiac Supper Club in Hilltop not long after getting into The Pine Cone, they were just ready to downsize, she said. Park and Lee will continue the tradition of family ownership, and they aren't planning any major overhauls to the diner, which welcomed a steady stream of families big and small, couples and friends on a drizzly Saturday morning in March. That is — outside of switching to custom Northwest Blend beans, ground in-house, from Puyallup-based Martin Henry Coffee Roasters. The menu is big but not overwhelming, featuring, of course, breakfast classics — plates of hashbrowns, meat and eggs, usually from Wilcox Farms, omelets and bennies — plus fun pancakes in flavors like cinnamon roll and almond-poppyseed, sizeable salads and sandwiches, with house burgers and ample veggie options, too. They hope to extend hours later into the afternoon and early evening this summer, they said. Dinner is a possibility again, something the Verellens tried for a bit. In addition to savory dinner ideas from the kitchen, they have discussed incorporating some of their Korean heritage, including crunchy fried chicken in sweet-and-spicy sauces. Aelysa said she is also an avid baker and, once they settle in, hopes to experiment with not-too-sweet desserts such as chapssal doughnuts, a rice-flour wonder often filled with sweet red bean or nuts, and dojima roll, a fluffy chiffon-style cake with various flavors of airy whipped cream. She and her husband liked the neighborhood feel of University Place and the diner's place in the area's history. Coming from Sumner, where they owned a Baskin-Robbins for a decade, getting to know the neighbors and return visitors, it felt comfortable, said Aelysa. Their son, Joshua Lee, who helped share his parents' story with The News Tribune, added that their primary goal is to continue serving the community while also exploring 'new ways to bridge the gap between generations' and encouraging all walks of life to join them in this longtime community gathering hall. He pointed to the Korean concept of jeong. 'It's a type of affection or care for people that's in a very deep or intimate way,' he said. 'I like meeting people and serving people,' added Aelysa. The Parks trained for a couple of months with the Verellens and the staff — most of whom remain, including the chefs and veteran servers who don't miss an empty mug — before the sale closed on Feb. 11. Already they have gotten to know some of the regulars. ▪ 7912 27th St. W, University Place, 253-301-2115, ▪ Monday-Friday 7 a.m.-3 p.m., Saturday-Sunday 8 a.m.-3 p.m. ▪ Details: mid-century diner under new ownership, follow on Facebook for specials and updates
Yahoo
24-02-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Controversy over tree removal for proposed Bonney Lake housing development
This story was originally published on Some Pierce County residents are against a proposed housing development near Lake Bonney that would include 19 homes. Nearly 500 people have signed an online petition against it, and some spoke out at a City Council meeting in late January. 'I find exchanging a forest to build homes housing 50 to 60 people to be a travesty,' said Bonney Lake resident Cheryl Robertson. The News Tribune reports Puyallup-based Caliber Development owns the nearly five acres near 77th Street East and 182nd Avenue East. The company says that land is zoned for homes. Company President Carl Wade tells the paper they will leave more trees than the city's code requires. Some residents appealed the tree-removal permit the city issued to the company. There will be a hearing on that this Wednesday. More from MyNorthwest: Virologist sounds alarm on aggressive flu season, avian influenza and CDC cuts
Yahoo
24-02-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Neighbors fight proposed housing development, tree removal in East Pierce County
Neighbors are opposing a development that would bring 19 new homes to Bonney Lake, not far from Lake Bonney. Nearly 500 signed an online petition against the project, and some spoke against the proposed development at a recent City Council meeting. Residents have appealed a tree-removal permit that the city approved, and a hearing is scheduled Feb. 26. They're fundraising to cover legal costs. 'If you are like us, you enjoy this quieter part of Bonney Lake. Many of us live in older homes and enjoy larger lots,' the petition says in part. 'We live on the original 1,000 acres which Bonney Lake was incorporated with in 1949. The proposed 19 houses would become some of the smallest lots in all Bonney Lake and do not belong in this unique and historic part of our town.' Puyallup-based Caliber Development owns the nearly 5 acres near 77th Street East and 182nd Avenue East. 'It is zoned to build houses,' Carl Wade, the company's president, told The News Tribune in a phone call this month. Wade said he understands the concerns. 'Nobody wants anything touched,' he said. 'They want to leave it untouched, and I can't blame them for that. ... The one thing human beings don't like is change.' The company is leaving more trees than the city's code requires, Wade said. 'I think it's going to be a nice neighborhood when we're all through with it,' he said. He expects the homes will be three- or four-bedrooms, he said, and that they'd maybe go for roughly $800,000 to $1 million, but it's early enough in the process that they haven't finalized that. The region needs more housing, he said. Asked about a timeline for when they'd build the homes, Wade said it's not clear. 'We're just waiting now,' he said. The city's hearing examiner approved the preliminary plat on Sept. 19, 2023, Jason Sullivan, the public services director for the city of Bonney Lake, told The News Tribune in an email this month. 'These parcels are approximately 670 feet from the shore of Lake Bonney, measured in a straight-line distance,' Sullivan wrote. '... It also includes two tree preservation tracts totaling 0.90 acres and three open space/park tracts totaling 0.36 acres. The project entails constructing two new roadways and associated utility improvements.' The developer applied for a tree-removal permit on May 21, 2024, and the city approved it Nov. 12. Residents appealed that permit Dec. 2. 'As the appeal is still pending, I cannot provide further comment on this project,' Sullivan wrote. Gabriel Hinman, the attorney residents hired to represent them in the appeal, told The News Tribune on Friday that the developer filed a motion to dismiss the appeal. The hearing examiner hasn't made a decision on that. They'll talk about the status of the case at the hearing Wednesday, and schedule a full hearing for the appeal. That full hearing will be like a trial, with witnesses and testimony. One of the roads to access the development would go along 44-year-old Jason Stephens' property. He likes to walk around the nearby lake with his kids. 'The most dangerous part of getting to the lake is right in front of our house,' Stephens said. He's not opposed to development on the land altogether, he said, but to the number of homes, given the size of the lots and the traffic they'd bring. That's also what he and other neighbors said in comments sent to the city about the project in May 2023 and at the City Council meeting Jan. 28. Stephens and others also say they have been frustrated with the process. For example, they told the council a $4,000 fee to file a State Environmental Policy Act appeal with the city was prohibitively expensive. They're also concerned about wildlife in the area. Stephens said he's seen a black bear on his game camera. Ann Fox, 75, lives next to Stephens. Her property also runs along one of the proposed roads to the new development. They've had more wildlife in the area since the Sumner Grade Fire devastated 484 acres along state Route 410 in 2020, she said. 'It's moving the wildlife up this way because they lost their home,' Fox said. She sees deer in her backyard sometimes, and squirrels that drive her dogs crazy. The trees are a nice buffer for her pool, she said, and her backyard is relaxing and private. 'Obviously they want this to grow and become like South Hill, and that's not what any of us came up here for,' she said.
