Seattle Restaurants in the 2000s
Photo Credit: Eater Seattle
This wonderful article in Eater Seattle was just published and it’s giving me all the feels; the nostalgic ones. I was a baby in the business in the early 2000s. I’d arrived after about 18 months in Atlantic City to work as an Assistant Manager at The Hunt Club, a stunning old-school restaurant in the Hotel Sorrento. I was 22, broke, and thought I knew a lot about working in restaurants. Hired as an assistant restaurant manager I ran breakfast and lunch service and went home at 3. I thought this was great as I was used to shift work in Atlantic City. A month in, the restaurant manager quit with one day’s notice, my F&B Director was fired and I was the only FOH person standing. I started working six days a week, if not seven, oversaw 21 meal periods, and got my first taste of working closely with a Chef.
This was before the internet. I remember sitting in our office in between breakfast & lunch service trying to figure out how to order wine for the week. I pulled out the phone book and began to call distributors to ask if we had accounts with them. On one of these calls, a gentleman named Lars Ryssdal picked up and he offered to help me. Lars showed up to the Hunt Club asked to see my wine list, and proceeded to tell me where I could find every wine, and taught me how to manage my list and be an effective buyer. Lars is, by the way, one of our most beloved Washington Wine professionals and now runs this incredible publication, Art Culinaire. I had no idea the company I was in only that he helped. I also bought a lot of wine from Lars over the years! And, this was not the last time someone would show me the ropes. I’ve been lucky to have a lot of people looking out for me.
Working at the Hunt Club solidified for me that I had made the right choice in my career. I was working 70+ hours per week for $35,000 a year. It was hard but it was so fun. The owners of the Sorrento gave me $250 per month to dine at other esteemed restaurants in the city. This is before phones and when we lived and breathed on whether or not Nancy Leson wrote a great review for us.
I thought I was such a badass that I had so much money to spend on dinner and always took a friend. Back then, $250 went a very long way. I remember the pork chop at Lampreia, the fruit platter with Stilton at Gaucho as part of dessert, soup in a can at Cascadia that was divine, and the theatrics of the presentation blew my mind, the crispy whole fish at Flying Fish, the cheese board at Brasa and literally anything else I put in my mouth at that restaurant. Cafe Campagne and the most perfect omelet and the only warm cucumbers I’ve ever had (it was with a duck entree I think, I was stumped). Driving all the way to Cafe Juanita for my first real glasses of good Barolo and Barbaresco with lamb saddle. At the counter at The Harvest Vine and then heading down the street to Rover to eat a scrambled egg with lime out of the shell. It was quite the time to be a kid eating in all these incredible restaurants.
When I wasn’t having my once monthly dinner I was at as many Happy Hours as I could get to. I would stand in line at Cascadia for a martini and a slider or four. I preferred oysters at The Brooklyn (across from my big brother’s law firm and he often paid the bill!) and it was the ONLY time I would have a Bloody Mary past 2 PM because it was the best in the city. If I wasn’t eating oysters at the Brooklyn I was at the Waterfront eating them along with a Caesar Salad. That Caesar, the one where every nook and cranny was filled with the most perfect anchovy-y dressing and it didn’t need a fork; I would pick up the leaves. And, I was watched Chris Sparkman run the floor with a precision that I aspired to have. I remember sitting at the bar in Canlis eating fries and drinking dirty martinis when Shane Bjornholm was still on the floor and finally having dinner there. To this day, I have yet to pay for a meal at Canlis and I don’t know why!! On the occasional Sunday if the Hunt Club was slow I would leave early around 8 PM and head to Cafe Lago. I’d sit at their teeny-tiny bar and order a martini to drink while I waited for my antipasto to go along with their Sunday bread service which they threw in for free for me. Cafe Lago is still here and it still has the best lasagna you will ever have. Back then it wasn’t available to-go and I also couldn’t afford both. Plus their antipasto platter is to die for, especially when you’re 23 and eating on your couch watching The Sopranos.
I became a great restaurant manager because of all of these experiences. I was able to watch, listen, and interact with the service teams. Service was just different. You were taken care of in a way I don’t see often anymore. I always walked into the kitchen to say thank you and drop a $20 even though I could not afford it. I knew the line cooks made 1/4 of the FOH and were working their butts off. There were no kitchen tips back then, just shift beers. When another restaurant person eats in your restaurant there is unspoken camaraderie because we’ve all been in trenches, especially those of us that have been around for two decades. You take care of your people.
Working at the Sorrento also gave me more access than many of my counterparts. Brian Scheehser, our Chef, was a beloved member of the Chef community and was dialed into other restaurants. I also thought he was super old, at the ripe old age of 40, and figured out I had a lot to learn from him. We cooked at Gala events like The Liver Foundation & the Auction of Washington Wines where I brushed shoulders with all the big Chefs in the city. I especially loved the Liver Foundation dinner because a bar was always set up in the kitchen. The somms all brought incredible wines from their restaurants and I tried all of them. Although we don’t set up bars we do often carry on that tradition of bringing great wines to off-site events. We share a glass or two with our team, say thank you for the work, and enjoy each other.
I’ve been working in Seattle restaurants for two decades now, half of that at Stoneburner with Jason. I no longer work the floor except for occasional guest appearances. But having all of this incredible knowledge of what makes a restaurant work and how to work with people makes my current role easier. I’m not afraid anymore when I want into a new space with new people when we are asked to do events. People now look to me for answers and it’s a great feeling. I’m proud of the work I’ve done and the people that I’ve worked with. So many people I’ve worked with have gone on to become Chefs/Owners, GMs, and winemakers and I had a front-row seat for all of it. So next time you go out, put your phone down (I should take my own advice), watch what is going on around you, and talk to the service staff. Your experience will be different. Those of us who have been around the block, as they say, are happy you are here.
Special thanks to Naomi Tomkey for writing this article.