A Touch of the Exotic
Pick up a copy of the current Seattle yellow pages and flip to the restaurants section. You’ll find page after page of listings to suit every taste and budget, from fast-food franchises and corner cafés to upscale eateries famous nationwide and drawing from practically every ethnic cuisine on the planet. Today, they’re all considered part of Seattle’s culinary melting pot. We think nothing of having ravioli one night, jambalaya the next, maybe some chicken Kiev a few days later—and how about some shrimp enchiladas Suiza later in the week?
Time was, though, that eating at a Seattle restaurant meant choosing from a limited number of menu items heavy on steaks and chops, with sometimes a token nod to seafood. Anything outside those familiar boundaries was considered by the mainstream Seattleites to be somewhat exotic. Even Italian dishes long since blended into the great American cookbook—standbys like lasagna or spaghetti and meatballs—seemed out of the ordinary. As late as the 1950s, one restaurant reviewer commented that her meal at a certain Italian restaurant was excellent “if you liked that sort of food” (paraphrasing just slightly).
In truth, eateries offering food other than standard American fare have been in Seattle since the early days. Originally, they may have drawn their support from members of the same cultural group as the cuisine, but over time, the more conventional citizens of Seattle discovered and popularized these new, different, foreign foods. It’s interesting to note that when display ads started to appear in the Seattle telephone directory in the 1950s, ethnic restaurants—Chinese, Mexican and Italian—were among the first to make extensive use of them.
It’s probable that the native Duwamish considered Anglo-Europeans as a wave of new ethnic arrivals. That notwithstanding, the Chinese are considered the first ethnic culture to establish itself in Seattle once Anglo predominance was a given fact. Nineteenth-century historians recorded instances of Chinese employed in area fish-packing plants in the 1850s, and the esteemed Wing Luke Museum cites Chin Chun Hock as the first Chinese person to settle in Seattle, circa 1860. By the 1880s, the Chinese were well established, so much so that it led to competition with Anglos for jobs and eventually to an ugliness known as the Seattle Riot of 1886, when armed mobs attempted to remove the Chinese from the city. It wasn’t until well into the twentieth century that anti-Chinese sentiment abated; by that time, sufficient numbers of other ethnic groups had arrived that the so-called American distaste for foreigners had been somewhat diluted.
Several Chinese restaurants are known to have existed as early as 1879. Possibly named for their proprietors, they included Ah Chu, at the corner of Third Avenue and Washington Street; Ah Jim, on Third between Washington and Main Streets; and Hei Lee Fong, on Washington Street. All three were in the area where the Chinatown district was already rising.
By the turn of the century, Me Wah & Company was conducting a “first-class Chinese restaurant and merchandise” at 318 Washington Street. Yoot Hong had a restaurant in the brick three-story Canton Building at 210 Washington, with Chung Dep two blocks away at 414 Washington. The Prince Chinese Restaurant was near the north end of the business district on First Avenue near Pike Street, and the Shanghai Restaurant was midtown at 214 University. Chas. Louie operated a restaurant under his own name at about that time; by 1909, he was a principal in the Pekin Cafe at Second and Yesler.
In later years, Seattle Times columnist John J. Reddin reminisced about Seattle’s early Chinese restaurants:
For many of us who were reared in this old sawmill town, our first taste of Chinese cuisine came with a prohibition-era visit to Chinatown for a late-hour snack, usually after other restaurants were closed. Like many others, we suppose, we soon developed a taste for chow mein, sweet-and-sour spareribs, fried rice, egg roll and other American-type Cantonese cookery.
In those days, however, Chinese restaurants (like the many near-by speakeasies in Chinatown) were sparsely furnished. Customers were served at a counter or bare table and the menus were often sticky with soy sauce. It was pretty primitive, to say the least.
In various residential areas, however, it soon became common practice for someone to suggest after a late-hour poker or house party: “Let’s all go down to Chinatown and get some chow mein or almond-fried chicken.”
While the early Chinese restaurants may have catered predominantly to their countrymen and a few adventurous Seattleites, the Pekin Cafe charted a different course, ushering in a new trend with a mixture of Chinese and American dishes on the menu. Christmas dinner at the Pekin in 1915 was about as Americanized as it could be, with traditional roast turkey the main attraction. The Pekin also introduced live music to the Chinese dining experience; a brief series of performances by the Hawaiian Orchestra proved so popular that Mr. Louie invited them to remain as a permanent attraction at the Pekin.
The Pekin Cafe, an early Chinese American restaurant at Second Avenue and Yesler, looked much like any other café of the times. MOHAI, 2002.48.1267.
By the late 1920s, there were plenty of Chinese restaurants in Chinatown (naturally) but also spread around other sections of the city and even out into the developing suburbs. Chinatown (today, officially called the Seattle Chinatown–International District) hosted restaurant upon restaurant within its twenty-plus acres. Notable examples include the Golden Pheasant Cafe at 307 Sixth Avenue S, opened in 1929 as an “exclusive Chinese restaurant” and surviving into the 1960s. The building that contained it was erected in 1873; now called the Old Main Street School, it is one of Seattle’s oldest buildings.
The King Fur Cafe, at 709 King Street, dated from 1930 and under longtime manager Fred Eng was still going strong thirty years later. Its menu was typical of the times, a mixture of Chinese and American foods. Various types of chow mein, foo young and fried rice made up one side of the menu, along with roast pork and duck, shrimp and a few out-of-the-ordinary items like mar hi chicken and lichee duck. Steaks and chops could be had by the less adventurous. A block away at 667 Jackson, the Hankow Cafe advertised Chinese foods delivered to all parts of the city—day or night—as early as 1934. Owned by Suey Kay Lock, the Hankow closed in the ’60s.
New restaurants opened in Chinatown as older ones closed in the 1960s. As each one opened, its ads announced it to be Seattle’s newest and best Chinese restaurant. The newcomers, such as Art Louie’s (421 Seventh S) and the Bamboo Terrace on Maynard, emphasized genuine Chinese décor and a trend toward more authentic cuisine than the Americanized fare of the past. The Bamboo Terrace promised “only authentic Chinese cuisine…exotic foods from the Orient are prepared in original Chinese fashion and served with the distinction of its origin.” The usual chow mein and fried rice dishes, while still on the menu, were overshadowed by new and unusual dishes.
Charles Wah’s 8 Immortals, opened in 1964 in what had been the Don Ting Cafe, epitomized the new class of Chinese restaurant. The menu included barbecued spareribs and fried meat dumplings; exotic soups such as egg flower, abalone, seaweed and shark fin; chicken wings with oyster sauce, pineapple duck, mushroom chicken balls and ginger beef. All dishes were cooked to order, “different than so-called commercial Chinese restaurants where most dishes are semi-prepared in advance and simply finished when ordered.” The food was said to be Cantonese in eight “immortal flavors: Hom, salty; Tom, bland; Teem, sweet; Seen, sour; Foo, bitter; Lot, hot; Heong, fragrant; Gum, golden.” For the uninitiated, the 8 Immortals of Chinese mythology were described in a booklet free to guests.
Chinatown wasn’t the only place to find Chinese food. As early as 1911, the Nanking Restaurant, upstairs at 1511½ Fourth Avenue in midtown, called itself “the prettiest Chinese and American grill on the coast,” with the best lunch and dinner in the city for twenty-five cents. The Nanking moved to new quarters a block away in 1924; its grand opening announced the largest and most exquisitely finished and modernly appointed Chinese restaurant on the Pacific coast. It was gone by 1934.
The Hang Chow was a storefront café on Eighth Avenue, the east edge of the downtown commercial district. MOHAI, Seattle Post-Intelligencer Collection, 1986.5.11364.
The Shanghai Restaurant fared better. It opened prior to 1916 at 106 Second S and soon added another location on Pike Street. Half the menu was devoted to Chinese dishes—the usual chop sueys, chow meins and rice dishes—with the other half listing American favorites such as chicken, steaks, seafood and sandwiches. The Second Avenue branch closed in the early 1930s; the location at 711 Pike received a new name—the New Shanghai Cafe—and was still going strong in the late ’60s.
Another early midtown restaurant was the King Joy on Fourth Avenue, not far from the Nanking, “where discriminating epicureans may find fellowship in dining with congenial spirits amid ideal environments.” The building that housed it was specially constructed for the restaurant with tables, booths and private dining rooms. At 1411 Eighth Avenue, the Hang Chow Cafe celebrated its grand opening in 1934 with free tea and rice cake to all visitors and a special six-course roast turkey dinner, Hang Chow style, for a dollar.
In 1948, Ruby Chow and her husband, Ping, opened a restaurant in an old mansion on Capitol Hill. Over the years, it became one of Seattle’s best-known restaurants, recalled as the first upscale Chinese restaurant and the first to introduce Mandarin-type cuisine to Seattle. Authentic cuisine dominated the menu; the only Americanized items were steak and fried chicken. Patrons could select from among several complete dinners (for two or more) or order à la carte. Dinners included the Imperial (barbecued pork, spring rolls, prawns, shark fin soup, Imperial chicken, Mandarin duck, abalone in oyster sauce, ginger beef, cashew shrimp), the Canton, the Mandarin and the Emperor’s Feast (which required forty-eight hours’ advance notice). Among the individually ordered dishes were Mandarin duck, sesame chicken, gai ding (diced chicken with vegetables and almonds), prawns Cantonese (prawns with chopped pork and eggs in black bean garlic sauce), tomato beef curry and pineapple spareribs. After twenty-one years of loving attention to their restaurant, the Chows leased it in 1979; it was bankrupt a year later.
Farther out into the suburbs, the Chung Hing Cafe opened at 516 Broadway in 1942; thirty years later, it became the Macfong-Ho, specializing in both southern and northern cuisine, including sizzling dishes, vegetarian plates and Peking duck. On Forty-Fifth in Wallingford, Tien Tsin introduced Seattle to Szechuan foods in the ’70s. In the Rainier Valley, the Topspot—a modern Chinese restaurant with Oriental atmosphere, “where the finest Chinese and American food is served at modest prices”—opened in 1962. After it closed in the early ’70s, its neon sign was salvaged and put into storage for several years until 2002, when a new business recycled the sign—minus the S, which had fallen off—to advertise Top Pot Doughnuts, now a successful café chain with over two dozen locations in the Seattle area.
After Prohibition was repealed in 1933, a new breed of Chinese restaurant started to appear in Chinatown and around the city. Though often cloaked in Oriental-sounding names and offering a nominal menu of Chinese foods, in reality, they were nightclubs in disguise. An example was the Chinese Garden on Seventh Avenue S. Originally a typical Chinese café, by 1936, it had evolved into “Seattle’s most celebrated restaurant for supper and after-theatre parties—music and dancing every evening after 9.” In 1960, the Gim Ling took over the premises, and in 1976, it became the China Gate. Owned by Alan Louie, who had previously run the New Luck Toy in West Seattle, it was well known for dim sum. The China Gate closed in 2010.
Club Maynard, formerly the Pixilated Club at 612 Maynard S, advertised itself as something new in nightclub entertainment with Oriental decorations, floor shows and dancing on the finest finished dance floor in the city. Food—chop suey, noodles and American dishes—was almost an afterthought. It was in business from 1937 to about 1950.
Farther south on Highway 99, at 10315 E Marginal Way, the China Pheasant threw a grand opening party in 1940, promising “the sweetest of music—the choicest of foods at Seattle’s newest, quaintest dining and dancing rendezvous.” Built by Slim Randles, a Seattle carpenter, and owned by Mar Dong, also the owner of Mar Hotel in the International District, the China Pheasant was known to be a “real swinging roadhouse.” In addition to dinner, the restaurant offered music by Bob Harvey, dancing and gambling. It was operated by Harry Lew. In 1945, the police raided the establishment for gambling equipment. Despite the sheriff ’s best efforts to close the place down, it remained open long enough to run into trouble with the law again. In 1962, the manager was arrested and fined for serving alcohol without a liquor license.
Its opening announcement invited Seattleites to step into the Chinese Temple—“shadowy, rich with Eastern splendor…the hospitality and quaintness of Old China brought to Seattle”—to enjoy Chinese foods served in the traditional manner, drink the beverages they enjoyed and “dance to American dances on a table-smooth floor—to the daring syncopations of a smart American orchestra.” Located at 1916½ Fourth Avenue, the Chinese Temple didn’t last long; it was gone by 1940.
The Rainbow, at 710 Union, billed itself as “America’s outstanding Chinese & American restaurant” with a house orchestra, floor shows three times a day, dancing noon and night, beer and wine and a menu of Chinese and American food. The Chinese theme didn’t last long; within a year, it was known as the Supper Club for about a month, and later that year, it was McKenzie’s Restaurant. In the ’40s, it became John Q. Public’s, with a capacity of seven hundred and continuous dancing and entertainment.
JAPANESE
Japanese were later arriving in Seattle than the Chinese; a sizeable Japanese population was not recorded until the 1890s. Japanese restaurants were also slower to develop, and on that subject, there are several confusing factors. For one thing, at that early time, many restaurants were only listed by the surnames of their owners. It is a tempting but risky assumption that a restaurant with a Japanese-sounding name (e.g. T. Miyasaki) was, in fact, a Japanese restaurant.
Also, it seems that—even more than with Chinese owners—many restaurants owned by Japanese catered to American tastes in the early days. While there were certainly Japanese restaurants serving Japanese cuisine, few of them advertised; in many cases, all memory of them has been lost.
At this late date, the issue of who was first, and how authentically Japanese their restaurant was, probably can’t be solved. In later days, it was claimed that the first Japanese restaurant in Seattle was opened by either Toyojiro Tsukono (the Klondike, in 1896) or Osamu Sakamoto in 1897. However, the 1890 city directory lists these restaurants: R. Taniguchi, 106 Weller; Nakagawa & Aki, 2417 Front; Onta, Opa & Mori, 502 S Seventh; and Matagito Tsukuno, 504 Main. A 1909 study of immigrants living in West Coast states found eighty-seven Japanese restaurants in Seattle, of which thirty-six served American meals and fifty-one served traditional Japanese foods. It’s known that in 1911, T. Yamashita owned the Sunrise Restaurant at 116 Second S, and K. Nishimura was owner of the Cascade Restaurant, 209 Main Street. Both of them were located in the Chinatown district, but which category the two fell into can’t be determined.
ITALIAN
Ristorante Italiano, Mangia e Italiano
As ubiquitous as it is these days, it is surprising that Italian cuisine was late to develop in Seattle. Out of a total population of 230,000, the 1910 census counted only 3,454 Italians, many of whom had originally come to work in the coal mines south and east of the city at Renton, Newcastle and Black Diamond. Nonetheless, a well-known Italian restaurant—Maison Tortoni, first in the city—was doing a fine business at Second and James in those early years.
The City Grill opened in 1909 on Third between Yesler Way and Prefontaine Place. Within a year, and after a change in management, the City Grill announced it was specializing in Italian food. After Joseph McGuire took over in 1931, the restaurant reverted to a typical dine-dance-drink place and closed in 1948. Another early establishment, the American Cafe, described itself in 1911 as the “only Italian restaurant serving a table d’hôte dinner,” though what was on the menu—chicken gumbo, consommé, poached filet of sole Marguerite, spring chicken sauté Marengo, Noisette of lamb Rachel, leg of veal and Melba peaches, among other items—sounds more French than Italian.
A place called the Italian Tavern opened in 1930 at 810 Union Street in the old Ambassador Hotel. Managed by Frank Galati, the menu featured Italian dinners with emphasis on spaghetti and ravioli. The following year, the restaurant moved into the St. Regis Hotel and promptly went out of business. A year or two later, the Italian Tavern’s quarters on Union were occupied by the La Tosca Cafe. Chef Jack Gustino promised “true Italian cookery at its best” with dinners priced at $0.60, $0.85 and $1.00. Thanksgiving dinner at La Costa—seven courses served Italian style and including a bottle of wine—was $1.25 in 1936. Later owned by Frank and Ruth Petrino, it closed during World War II.
The Italian Village was a popular Fifth Avenue eatery with Joe Santilli as owner and manager. A native of Abruzzi, Italy, Santilli had previously run a small place called Buon Gusto in the Queen Anne neighborhood. In 1933, he bought the old Fifth Avenue Cafe at 1413 Fifth, remodeled and modernized it and gave it a new name. The restaurant was well known for chicken cacciatore, veal scaloppini and bocconcini à la Romana, among other Italian specialties. A full-course dinner cost $1.25, with a choice of seven entrées: filet mignon with mushrooms, roast turkey, lamb chops, pork tenderloin Italian style, roast leg of veal, grilled salmon steak or roast chicken. À la carte menu items included steaks, pork chops, oysters and halibut. When it closed in 1971 after nearly forty years in the same location, a news columnist mourned the loss:
Joe Santilli’s Italian Village restaurant was as comfortable as an old shoe. Thousands of Seattleites ate Italian food for the first time there, including young couples on dates who later ate their engagement and wedding dinners at the Italian Village and returned on every anniversary for the next 25 years or more.
The early 1930s saw the opening of the Roma Cafe in the New Richmond Hotel at 310 Main Street. Louis Pettofrezzo ran the café until retiring in 1953, when it was purchased by Bill and John Gasperetti, part of a family who owned and operated a number of places in Seattle and along the highways. The Gasperettis not only owned the café, they were also the chief cooks. The Roma Cafe was so good that even competing restaurant owners stopped by for a meal. John Franco of the Hidden Harbor on Lake Union was a regular customer and particularly fond of braised sirloin tips with spaghetti alburro.
For forty years, Santilli’s Italian Village Cafe occupied part of a glass tile–faced building on Fifth Avenue. MOHAI, Seattle Post-Intelligencer Collection, 1986.5.11368.1.
At a time when Italian restaurants (in Seattle, at least) offered a mix of Italian and traditional American dishes on their menus, the Roma Cafe differentiated itself with a much larger variety of Italian items than its contemporaries. The usual fare like roast chicken and pork, liver and onions and boiled ham were listed, but Italian specialties made up more than half of the menu. Even conventional dishes like Swiss steak and pork tenderloin were given an Italian flavor. In addition to à la carte items, the Roma offered three different special dinners ranging in price from $1.75 to $3.00. Each dinner came with soup, salad, an entrée (pot roast for the lowest-priced dinner, steak or chicken cacciatore for the highest), ravioli or spaghetti, a vegetable, dessert and beverage.
In 1961, the Roma Cafe moved to 220 Fourth Avenue S. Seventeen years later, after nearly a half century of creating quality Italian dinners and pleasing thousands of customers, the Gasperetti brothers decided it was time to retire. The Roma Cafe closed in 1980, and a nightclub, the Komedy Store, moved in. Today, the site is a vacant lot.
The Italian Club of Seattle dates its origins to 1920. In 1937, the club moved into quarters at 620 Union Street, soon to be known as the city’s most elegant downtown club, complete with its own members-only restaurant. Costanzo Lazzaretto, better known as Chef Costa, was the longtime chef for the Italian Club; he later opened his own place—Chef Costa—at 167th and Aurora. With its fancy dining room, big cocktail lounge and attentive staff, a dinner at the Italian Club was always a special event.
The American-Italian Cafe, under proprietor Jules Daverso, took over 620 Union a few years after the club lost its lease. Open to the public, the café served dinners from 5:00 p.m. until 11:00 p.m. with sixteen-ounce steak a specialty. By 1949, a buffet lunch service had been added. After a short stint as the Elks Club headquarters, the space became a nightclub—Irving’s 620—in 1961. Irving’s didn’t last long; a year later, it had become Mario’s 620, “Seattle’s newest and finest theatre restaurant.” By 1967, a place called the Fifth Amendment had taken over, followed in 1970 by Apricot Orange, a discotheque. These days, a nondescript parking garage marks the site of the old, elegant Italian Club.
As early as 1932, George Leos was running the Palace Grill at 159 Yesler Way. He sold it to the Daverso brothers, Frank and Jules, in 1946. The brothers were principals in a moving and storage company, Owl Transfer; Jules had been associated with the American-Italian Cafe. The brothers kept the Palace Grill name for a couple of years before renaming it for themselves.
Daverso’s claimed it introduced pizza to Seattle around 1948. Pizza was popular on the East Coast but almost unknown out West. When Daverso’s started offering it, they had to explain to potential customers what it was (“sort of an Italian pie with tomato sauce and cheese”). Daverso’s was more than just pizza, though; in 1949, newspaper writer Nat Lund described what Daverso’s “ancient and honorable establishment” (it was only three years old at the time) had to offer: “lasagna alfurno, a special sort of short spaghetti glamorized with ham, sausage, cheese and other assets; chicken fanciers go for the pollo alla cacciatore, a daily feature, as is the justlyfamed Daverso pizza.”
In 1960, Daverso’s opened a second location on Lake Union, at 1844 Westlake Avenue N. Harry Drinkwater, along with the Daversos, took over management of the new restaurant. The expansion must not have gone well, though; within two years, it had closed, to be replaced by a place called Kim’s. The Daversos kept the Yesler Way restaurant for another few years, but by 1964, it had become Rudy’s Italian Restaurant. Rudy’s was still there a decade later; it moved to 423 Second in 1976.
Ciro’s, at 109 Pine Street in the Gatewood Hotel, was owned by Jessie Christensen, sister of infamous nightclub owner Frank Colacurcio. In 1931, the Seattle Grill was at this address; four years later, Spiro Boris opened his New Oyster & Steak Shop there. It was the Kwang Chow Cafe in 1940 and the Gatewood Grill ten years later before becoming Ciro’s by 1958. Ciro’s specialized in pizza and other Italian foods at modest prices, according to its ads, and was open for breakfast, lunch and dinner. The Gatewood Hotel building still stands, in use as apartments, but Ciro’s is long gone.
A downtown favorite for many years was the Abruzzi Pizza House at the corner of Pike and Sixth. It opened around 1956 under Carmen Finamore and had wraparound windows so people strolling down the sidewalks could watch pizza dough being tossed. In addition to pizza, Abruzzi’s menu listed half a dozen types of spaghetti; lasagna with meat or Italian sausage; and several kinds of ravioli. By 1996, this old-style pizzeria found itself surrounded by the high-rise glass and steel towers of a redeveloping Seattle; inevitably, progress in the form of Niketown gobbled up the building that contained it.
Eastlake Avenue was still lightly populated when the Casa Villa opened its doors in 1936. Located at 1823 Eastlake, the restaurant—an Italian-design villa of white stucco and tile roof—was the creation of Alice and Robert Smith and Herman Stoll. A sign above the entryway bore the Casa Villa’s slogan: “A touch of old Italy.” It became well known for its seven-course dinners for only $1.00 (by 1951, the price had risen to $1.95), and of course, Italian cooking was emphasized.
In 1959, the Casa Villa was completely remodeled under new owners George DiJulio and Robert Hyde and two years later was chosen to be part of an International Cooking School hosted by Frederick & Nelson, the downtown department store. William Boileau, the Casa Villa’s chef, prepared chicken cacciatore for the event and must have done well—the restaurant’s reputation for quality dining rose significantly. A 1966 restaurant review commented favorably on the lunch offerings, in particular the Gulfport salad bowl (fresh greens, crab, shrimp, tuna, sardines, hard-cooked eggs and tomato wedges), broiled teriyaki steak, ravioli and scallops. The dinner menu listed broiled lobster tail, tournedos of beef Casa Villa, veal scallopini Marsala, veal parmigiana, chicken cacciatore and a large variety of pasta dishes. Somewhat incongruously, evening music entertainment was provided by 250-pound, electric ukulele–playing “Little Bob” Hrvatin. After Casa Villa closed in 1973, a Mexican restaurant, Casa Lupita, moved in. More recently home to Don Eduardo’s Mexican Restaurant, today it is a vacant lot.
Casa Villa was a familiar sight along Eastlake Avenue for over forty years. It later became a Mexican restaurant and has been slated for redevelopment. Author’s collection.
Out north on the highway to Bothell, the Italian Spaghetti House and Pizzeria, at 9824 Lake City Way, was doing business by 1954 with family-style pizza and spaghetti and pizzas tossed in view of customers. Long a favorite of north-enders, it closed in 2011. At the other corner of the city was Galletti’s Italian Restaurant, at 2311 California SW in West Seattle. In the ’70s, it claimed to be “West Seattle’s only restaurant serving original Italian dishes” with family dining and moderate prices.
MEXICAN
Restaurante Mexicano
Though it wasn’t until the ’60s that authentic Mexican restaurants took root in Seattle, the late 1920s saw the city, like the rest of America, develop an appetite for south-of-the-border-style foods—chili, enchiladas and particularly tamales. Street vendors sold them, and tamale shops opened. Blues great Robert Johnson sang about them in “Hot Tamales (And They’re Red Hot)”; not one but two musical groups (the Alika Hawaiian Trio and the Goofus Five) recorded a song titled “Hot Tamale Molly.” In Seattle, street peddlers like Marcus Joffary, Frank Ray and Charlie Lunan sold tamales from carts. John Kahn had a tamale restaurant at 604 Union in 1924; the Eagle Tamale Parlor was at 726 Pike. Two places called the Golden Tub Tamale Shop opened on the northern edges of the city. Being Italian didn’t deter Joe Milani from building a prosperous tamale factory at 2934 Western Avenue.
The earliest shop seems to have been the B&M Tamale Grotto, originally on James Street in 1905 and relocated to Fifth Avenue by 1914. It was only open at dinnertime (special Mexican chicken dinners cost fifty cents). Another early place was Austin’s Chili and Tamale Shop, in business by 1915 and owned by Jesse Henderson. For reasons not clear today, Henderson was known as “Dad Austin”—thus the name of his shop.
Austin’s had a habit of moving frequently: opened at 313 Pine, it moved to 1907 Fifth Avenue in 1919; then to 1631 Westlake (1920); 517 Pike (1923); and 611 Union in 1931, where it remained until Henderson retired in 1935. Austin’s stayed open until 2:00 a.m.—perfect for night owls—with chicken and beef tamales, chili, enchiladas and sandwiches. After Austin’s closed, the Chinese Village Cafe took its place at 611 Union.
In 1921, Cook’s Tamale Grotto debuted at 721 Pine Street. (Despite shared usage of “grotto,” there doesn’t seem to have been a connection between Cook’s and the earlier B&M.) Clarence and Genevieve Cook ran the place. A menu from 1943 lists what was available: tamales, of course—special chicken or Texas beef tamales (fifty cents and thirty-five cents, respectively; smothered in chili and cheese for an additional twenty cents), enchiladas and chili; also salads, relishes and sandwiches; turkey, chicken (either hot or cold), ham, chili, egg, salami, grilled cheese and a lettuce sandwich with thousand island dressing. In an early example of fusion cuisine, Cook’s menu also offered Chinese noodles and spaghetti (Milanese with choice of sliced chicken or fried chicken livers).
When Cook’s Spanish Inn opened on Highway 99 south of Seattle in 1948, it turned management of the Tamale Grotto over to Mrs. Emory Holman. Shortly afterward, Cook’s relocated to 611 Union Street, which thirty years earlier had been home to Austin’s.
Newspaperman John J. Reddin recalled Cook’s as being the place where he was introduced to enchiladas. It was still in business in 1956 but had closed by the time Clarence and Genevieve passed away in 1960.
Bob’s Chile was in a similar vein as Cook’s: chile (Bob always spelled it with an “e”); chicken and Spanish tamales; cheese, chicken and beef enchiladas; and various sandwiches (ham, liverwurst, cheese, salami and chicken, among others). Bob’s menu also listed salads, relish trays and spaghetti. Located at 608 Union Street—right across the street from Cook’s—Bob’s opened in 1932 and survived well into the 1970s. One of the owners, unfortunately, did not: co-owner Robert Kevo was fatally shot while arguing with a customer over a bill in 1968.
One of the first authentic Mexican restaurants was Juan’s Mexican Cafe in the Fremont district. By 1945, Juan’s was serving up tamales, chili, enchiladas and Mexican dinners. Downtown, Los Amigos and La Fiesta opened their doors in the late ’50s. La Fiesta was at 715 Pike, a spot that had held a restaurant on and off since the 1910s. Owned by Chester Espinoza, it was a typical interior arrangement of a counter and stools on the right side, booths on the left. What made La Fiesta different was its sauces—many of them using authentic ingredients such as ground California and pasilla chilis rather than the tomato-based sauces so common. Los Amigos, a couple of blocks away at 906 Pine, took pride in hot Mexican dishes individually prepared. It was gone by 1965. A small local chain of the same name appeared in the suburbs in the 1970s with no relationship to the downtown restaurant.
Another local chain, Guadalajara, had its start when Pablo and Lucy Lopez opened downtown in 1967. By 1974, they were up to four locations: at 1429 Fourth under Pay’n Save; another in Wallingford on Forty-Fifth; and two others elsewhere in the city. A main attraction of Guadalajara was the chalupa, a bowl-shaped tortilla shell topped with lettuce, guacamole, sour cream and meat (ground beef or chicken) that Lucy Lopez claimed she invented while working at Bob’s Chile Parlor. It later became a staple at local Mexican restaurants.
Pablo’s Especial, on Roy Street near the base of Queen Anne Hill, was considered Seattle’s best Mexican restaurant in the 1980s. Owner Pablo Knecht specialized in Jaliscan fare rather than the usual Sonoran—no tacos, but 144 different offerings, all original, on the menu, including sopa de camarones, gambas costa brava (baked acorn squash stuffed with garlicky prawns and a white wine–garlic sauce) and zarzuela de mariscos (chorizo, shrimp, scallops, fish fillets, clams). In later days, extensively and hideously altered, the building became known as the Blob.
Ελληνικό εστιατόριο
Greek restaurant owners have been part of the Seattle scene since the 1910s. The Parthenon was located near the Arctic Club; other early Greek restaurants were a block apart on Third Avenue. Three longtime survivors were the Acropolis, at 315 Yesler Way; the Apollo (403 Second Avenue); and the Sapho, 114 Prefontaine Place, owned by Louis Fakas and Ed Martin (real name: Malevitsis).
The Sapho, located on the ground-floor premises of a triangle-shaped building that fronted on both Fourth Avenue and Prefontaine Way under the Yesler Way viaduct, was a favorite of policemen, bail bondsmen and politicians. When it closed in 1963, the Seattle Times wrote its obituary:
The Sapho was one of the last of the old-time Greek restaurants with refrigerated front windows for displaying steaks and melons and other meats and fruit. It also was one of the few “full menu” eating houses where customers had a choice of seven or eight entrees—even late at night
Unlike most of today’s short-order restaurants where steaks, chops, hamburgers—even hot beef sandwiches—are cooked to order, the Sapho menu also included a wide variety of ready-to-serve entrees such as boiled finnan haddie or steamed barbecued cod with new potatoes, boiled salmon, braised lamb, boiled ox tongue, baked halibut, roast leg of lamb and dressing, etc.
The old-fashioned, full-menu restaurants are fast disappearing from the Seattle scene. Rising food and labor costs and sparse patronage, especially late at night, have taken a toll. So has the fact that no one wants to put in 14- or 16-hour days, as did the ambitious and hard-working Greek immigrants.
Greek-owned though they were, none of these places served authentic Greek food. That was left up to the Greek Village and TOPS 24, both of which appeared in the mid-1960s. The Greek Village apparently came first, though the date isn’t certain. John Nicos of the Greek-American Historical Museum of Washington State described its history:
In 1966 Petro opened the Greek Village in downtown Seattle with Bill Apostolou. Greek culture was coming into vogue with the movie Never on Sunday and it was an opportune time to provide Greek cuisine and culture for restaurant patrons.
Initially they served only lunches when the Village became a major attraction for both Greek and non-Greek customers. Colleen became the financial controller, carefully keeping the books for the Village. Her mother was the chef, giving the food an authenticity not found elsewhere in Seattle. Petro had done some travelling and was able to engage several musicians, including John Tziotis, Nick Halkias, Tony Proios and Eleftheri Retsinas. The music and belly dancing added flavor. Petro and Colleen partnered with Jim Anas for a while but it was primarily the couple that made the Greek Village what they wanted, not only a representation of Greek food, but of the entire culture of Greece.
Petro and Colleen worked at making the Village “first class all the way,” even introducing separate menus for men (blue, with pricing) and women (gold, without pricing). After 13 years of operating a fast-moving and successful business, the couple decided it was time to sell the Village in 1979.
Restaurant critic Everett Boss was favorably impressed by the Greek Village on a 1966 visit. On the lunch menu were avgolemono (egg-lemon soup); a house salad of romaine lettuce, tomatoes, green onions, feta cheese, Greek olives and Greek sardines; and a list of entrées that included Stifado en casserole (a Greek stew of seasoned beef and onions), pastitsio (layers of macaroni, ground meat and Greek cheese sauce) and dolmas (stuffed grape leaves) in an egg-lemon sauce.
Dinner entrées included gouvarlakia (Greek meatballs), moussaka (baked eggplant and ground meat), lamb or beef en brochette, shish kebab and a seasoned roast lamb dish called arnipsito. Seafood such as broiled trout, salmon, smelts (marithes) and kalamarakia (squid with white wine) was offered. The non-adventurous could choose from charcoal-broiled steaks and pork or lamb chops. Baklava, a classic Greek delicacy, was for dessert along with several different types of pastries.
TOPS 24 opened in 1963, when business partners George Serpanos, Demo Apostolou and Aleko Gotsis purchased the Madison Cafe on Ninth and Madison. According to John Nicos:
They gave it the name of TOPS 24, because it was to be the “top of the line” and it would be open 24 hours a day. The problem was that none of the three knew how to cook. They flipped coins and George was the winner.
Demo and Aleko went on to open their own businesses and George hired cooks and wait staff. In addition to the food and drink, live Greek music made TOPS a popular destination for several musicians and appreciative audiences. TOPS was under George’s ownership from 1964 to 1978 when George turned the business over to his brother-in-law, George Valaoras. It then became the First Hill Bar and Grill and closed in 2013.
The Greek Village, at 700 Fourth Avenue, had a parking lot on its roof. The Columbia Tower now stands where it once was. Seattle Public Library, spl_wl_res_00032.
A more recent departure is Costa’s Opa in Fremont, owned by Costa Antonopoulos and closed in 2012 after thirty-two years. Loyal customers recall cramming into the small waiting area for their tables to be ready and gazing through conveniently placed windows at the trays of moussaka, spanakopita and Greek potatoes waiting to be served. When it went dark, the SeattleMet website ranked it as the saddest restaurant closing of the year. Not all is lost. Another Costa’s, owned by Antonopoulos’s brother in the University District, is still going strong.
Русский Pесторан
More than three decades after it disappeared, the Russian Samovar is still remembered as Seattle’s quintessential Russian restaurant. It wasn’t the first—the Moscow Restaurant on Lakeview Boulevard preceded it by a few years. By 1928, the Moscow was well known for its Old Russia atmosphere and was a favorite for lunch, dinner and after-theater parties. On the menu were traditional Russian dishes such as blinchiki pancakes and cutleti Kievska; Russian dark bread always fresh from the oven was served with every meal. Owned by Mr. and Mrs. Nicholas Gorn, the restaurant, described as “a small establishment that resembled a candy house from a Russian fairy tale” with an interior wall mural depicting Russia in winter, was a favorite of University of Washington students. Unfortunately, the Moscow Restaurant stood in the way of freeway construction and was demolished in 1958.
In 1926, Kolia Levienne, on the faculty of nearby Cornish School of Music, created Petrushka as a gathering place for artists, poets and kindred spirits. (The name was taken from the puppet hero of Russian “Punch and Judy” shows.) Located at 729 Harvard Avenue N, at first it seems to have only been a tearoom with light lunches, but it soon evolved into a full-service restaurant with Russian meals, luncheons and suppers prepared by Mrs. Larissa Voitiakhoff.
A few years later, Peter and Larissa Voitiakhoff opened the Russian Samovar in a newly constructed building known as the Loveless Studios at 806 E Roy. It was an overnight success, partly due to the gossip/shopping columnist known as Jean who urged her readers to try the Russian Samovar for “delicious and different foods, served in an Old World atmosphere.” On weekends, a crowd of as many as twenty-five often waited patiently for a table.
Among the Russian Samovar’s attractions were the hand-painted wall murals depicting the Russian folktale of three children who were lost in the woods but were guided to safety by animals. Other scenes showed the aristocracy of the Russian court in the seventeenth century. Leaded glass windows, dark woodwork and an entry door (some called it a portal) added to the feeling of being transported back to an earlier time. Of course a samovar—a large tea urn—was part of the décor.
Looking like a gingerbread house from a fairy tale, the Moscow Restaurant was on Lakeview Boulevard in the Eastlake district. Seattle Public Library, spl_wl_res_00128.
The restaurant closed during World War II, though its tearoom remained open as the Supper Bowl. In the early 1950s, June Simpson bought the place and adopted the name Simpson’s Russian Samovar. Ownership changed again in 1978 with Martin and Margaret Farrar, and Simpson’s name was dropped.
A 1976 restaurant review by columnist Larry Brown described dinner at the Russian Samovar. On the menu (with explanatory notes for the uninitiated) were:
chicken Kiev (boneless breast of chicken wrapped around seasoned butter, then dipped in a light batter and fried)
veal Cordon Bleu (thin strips of veal wrapped around Canadian bacon and Gruyere cheese)
beef stroganoff (thin strips of beef in a mushroom sour cream sauce)
Golubsti (chopped beef, onions and seasonings wrapped in cabbage leaves)
Tefteli (Russian meatballs in tomato–sour cream)
Bastrooma (marinated and skewered beef with onion-tomato sauce)
Okoon v smetna (halibut in sour cream sauce)
Pelmini (“Russian raviolis”—packets of pastry stuffed with dilled beef in sour cream sauce)
grilled lamb chops
sirloin steak with sauteed mushrooms
broiled rainbow trout
All entrées came with a relish tray of fresh vegetables (carrots, celery, olives, pickles, tomatoes), borscht, a piroshki (meat-filled pastry), green salad, a vegetable dish such as broccoli soufflé, rice, biscuits and rye bread and dessert (pecan pie, blueberry tarts topped with vanilla ice cream). Prices ranged from $4.50 to $6.75. A mini-buffet lunch—salad, cold meats, cheeses, two hot dishes (stuffed green peppers, fried chicken)—was available Tuesday through Friday for $2.00.
When the Farrars lost their lease in 1982 and closed the Russian Samovar, over five hundred people signed a petition of protest about the closure, urging the landlord to reinstate the restaurant. It didn’t happen. The Russian Samovar found a new location in Pioneer Square, but the move wasn’t successful. A Greek restaurant called Baklava moved in at 806 Roy, and since then, it has seen a string of other restaurants, including Coco La Ti Da, a short-lived dessert lounge; a Spanish restaurant, Olivar; and most recently, Restaurant Marron.
The Troyka was located at 2109 N Forty-Fifth Street in the Wallingford neighborhood. Owner Faina Tulintseff was well known for her piroshkis; it’s said she made sensational golubsti. Other specialties included pelmeni and plombir (Russian ice cream). In business in 1961, it was gone by the late ’70s.
By 1982, the only remaining Russian restaurant in Seattle was Kaleenka, a small storefront café that opened in 1978 at 1933 First Avenue. The menu contained the usual items: chicken Kiev, beef stroganoff, pelmeni and golubsti. The food was always good, and patrons could sit in the two bay windows by the door and watch traffic going by on the busy street. What made Kaleenka special were the piroshkis. Owner Lydia Venichenko Barrett found they were so popular that she created a traveling booth to sell them at local fairs and festivals. The restaurant closed in 2000, but Kaleenka’s piroshkis live on—the booth is still a prominent fixture at the Washington State Fair. Seattle, however, is currently bereft of Russian restaurants.
The Persian Dining Room belongs in a category of its own. Despite its exotic name, the Persian Dining Room served conventional American food. What made it different was that it was created as a training ground for food service workers. Started in 1933 by Effie Raitt and Margaret Terrell, both of them involved with the home economics department of the University of Washington, future cooks, waitresses, hostesses and managers received practical experience working in a full-scale, three-meals-a-day restaurant environment. Breakfast at the Persian Room was popular among downtown workers; sixty-five cents bought a club breakfast (chilled fruit juice, one egg, two strips of bacon, toast and coffee); Persian pancakes with syrup, juice and coffee was another twenty cents. Pecan and butterscotch pies were dessert favorites. The only nod to Persia was the décor and the names of a few of the items on the menu. The Persian Dining Room was in the Northern Life Tower at 1218 Third Avenue and was in business until 1957.
CAJUN/CREOLE
Laissez Les Bons Temps Rouler
It’s a long way from the warm waters of Louisiana’s bayous to chilly Puget Sound, but over the years, a few restaurants have managed to bridge the gap. First to open was FranGlor’s, at Fifth and Jackson in the International District. Owned by Frances Emery and Gloria Lacey, it was described as “a hole-in-the-wall place with killer red beans, gumbos, jambalaya, cornbread, and the most incredible selection of blues and soul on the jukebox.” FranGlor’s later moved to 547 First Avenue S; it disappeared in 1990.
Crawfish Alley was in the basement of the Colman Building at 808 Post Avenue, a spot long occupied by the Colman Lunch. Its cuisine is best described as upscale Creole with entrées such as steak Robespierre (sirloin with mushrooms in a brown sauce), chicken jambalaya, oysters Lafitte, stuffed trout Nouvelle Orleans, poisson en papillote (cod, vegetables and sauce cooked in parchment), scallops St.-Jacques, filet of sole amandine and poisson Florentine. Appetizers included crab-stuffed mushrooms, chilled Louisiana prawns and Dungeness crab cocktails with soup choices such as bayou oyster soup and gumbo. A special New Orleans dinner for two—soup, salad, steak Robespierre or duck a l’orange, cheesecake or pecan pie for dessert and a bottle of champagne—cost twenty-five dollars in 1976. The restaurant had three dining areas: the main dining room, the bar and the Gazebo Room, all decorated New Orleans style. It was gone by the late 1980s after about fifteen years in business.
Out in Ballard was Burk’s Café, Creole/Cajun but leaning more toward the more rustic, earthier flavors of Cajun cooking. “Burk” was owner Terry Burkhardt, who presided over the kitchen of his nine-table eatery. In addition to a printed menu listing the customary jambalayas and gumbos was a blackboard with daily specials such as crawfish in Remoulade sauce, crawfish bisque, blackened red snapper, shrimp Creole and shrimp étouffée. Of course, pecan pie—almost obligatory for a Cajun restaurant—was also on the menu. Jars of pickled okra at each table were a nice touch. Unlike okra as it is normally found in cooked dishes (which most people consider slimy and have an uncontrollable urge to spit out), the pickled variety was crisp, spicy and salty—which probably helped increase Burk’s drinks revenue. Burk’s was located at 5411 Ballard Avenue and open from 1983 until 2005.
POLYNESIAN
Faleaiga Tahiti
Warm waters, balmy winds, palm trees swaying in the breeze—the romance of the South Pacific has had a hold on the mainland states practically since Hawai´i was discovered in the 1770s. A 1930s post-Depression, post-Prohibition country was ready for happy times; a South Seas vacation would do the trick, but overseas travel was beyond the reach of most people. So why not bring the South Seas home? How about stateside bars and restaurants with a Polynesian motif ? By the time Hawaii became a state in 1959—and helped along by Hawaiian-based movies like Blue Hawaii starring Elvis—Polynesian, or tiki, culture was deeply ingrained in the American psyche.
Don the Beachcomber is credited with starting the tiki bar craze. Don (real name, Ernest Raymond Beaumont Gantt) opened a bar called Don’s Beachcomber in Hollywood in 1933. A few years later, Don moved his bar a short distance, added a restaurant and changed its name to Don the Beachcomber. His tiki-themed restaurant was immediately popular, and by the 1950s, there were several Don the Beachcomber restaurants across the country.
Don’s success didn’t go unnoticed. Up in the Bay Area, in 1934, Victor Bergeron opened a bar called the Hinky Dink in Oakland. In 1937—the same year Don made his name change—Bergeron unabashedly copied Don’s style; he assumed the moniker Trader Vic, and the Hinky Dink became Trader Vic’s. Don and Vic were amicable rivals for many years, freely borrowing each other’s ideas. Both claimed invention of the mai tai, the rum and fruit juice cocktail still popular today (maitai is said to be the Tahitian word for “good”), though the evidence seems to suggest that Vic came up with it first.
Trader Vic landed in Seattle first. In 1949, Western Hotels announced plans to open an Outrigger Room—designed by Trader Vic to resemble a South Seas beach—in the Benjamin Franklin Hotel. Five years later, the Outrigger doubled in size. Filled with Polynesian artifacts and wall décor, the new Outrigger offered escapism from the city—a tropical vacation self-contained within its walls. Behind its beach shanty façade could be found “delicacies prepared right before your eyes in the authentic Polynesian manner.” There was the Captain’s Room, fashioned to look like the main saloon of an old sailing vessel; the Barbecue Room, where, from a softly lighted vantage point, diners could observe “actual Chinese ovens behind a baffle of bamboo, grass and glass”; and the Garden Room with its lush foliage.
Trader Vic’s menu was designed to appeal to both conventional American and exotic South Seas tastes. One page of the menu listed typical fare such as lamb chops, chicken Cordon Bleu and filet of beef along with a few slightly adventurous dishes like beef teriyaki and sesame chicken. The facing page was given over to what the menu called paké dinners—complete meals with more exotic items. The Kowloon, for instance, included beef tomato, almond duck, chicken Cantonese, bah mee noodles and coconut ice cream. The Macao dinner consisted of pineapple pork, oyster beef, Chinese snow peas, pork chow mein and rum custard ice cream. These days, all of those dishes are familiar to anyone who has ever ordered Chinese takeout, but in the 1960s, they probably seemed unusual and almost alien to taste buds accustomed to steak, potatoes and frozen vegetables.
The Outrigger officially became Trader Vic’s in 1960. Twenty years later, when the Benjamin Franklin Hotel was razed to make way for the second tower of the Washington Plaza Hotel (now the Westin), Trader Vic’s moved into the Plaza’s original first tower. It was the only Trader Vic’s in the entire chain that served breakfast. When it closed in 1991, having lost its space in the Westin, longtime manager Harry Wong hosted a closing party.
The interior of Trader Vic’s created a South Seas atmosphere with rattan and bamboo furnishings. MOHAI, Seattle Post-Intelligencer Collection, 2000.107.185.26.01.
Phil Wong and Christina Gee have fond memories of their father, Harry Wong, and his time at Trader Vic’s. They recall that he first got a job there in 1953 as a cocktail waiter in the original Outrigger, working his way up to waiter, dining room captain, assistant manager and manager around 1968. To most of the clientele, Harry Wong was Trader Vic’s, highly thought of as host and manager and in the same league as legendary Seattle restaurant owners Peter Canlis, Victor Rosellini and Walter Clark. That’s pretty good company. Wong may not have owned Trader Vic’s, but he acted like he did, in the best possible sense.
Says Christina,
I worked at Trader Vic’s beginning in June 1969. I was a “coat room girl” hanging up coats, answering the telephone, recording dinner bill charges and sometimes acting as hostess, taking people to their tables. It was the year of the big service industry workers’ strike, and I crossed the picket line to help my dad working with a skeleton staff and limited menu.
My favorite time to work was June and senior prom season. I loved watching the kids dress up and come to dinner. We younger staff gave them an extra special reception because whether or not they became future customers depended on that one evening out.
Dad said the busiest day of the year at Trader Vic’s was Valentine’s Day. Second, Mother’s Day. Yes, New Year’s Eve was also a huge event! Phil and I once had the luxury of eating dinner there on New Year’s Eve, but we had to eat very, very early, probably when the place opened at 5:30 p.m., and had to leave before the prime dinner hour. Definitely we did not get the best table in the house!
Don the Beachcomber didn’t arrive in Seattle until 1979 and only stayed for about a year. The fifteenth location in the chain, it was located at 2040 Westlake Avenue N with a fine view of Lake Union and an interior design described as “Grass Shack Moderne.” Don’s menu listed quasi–South Seas foods such as mahi mahi and Polynesian chicken along with roasts, grills and stir fries. Beachcomber pupus (loin ribs, sliced barbecued pork and rumaki) were popular, as was a house specialty called Bahala Na (duck Mandarin, Lobster Chungking and Chicken Manuu around a bed of fried rice). Like Trader Vic, Don the Beachcomber was famous for potent cocktails with names like the Vicious Virgin, Pi Yi and Missionary’s Downfall.
By 1981, Don’s had been replaced by a restaurant called Green Jeans. Both chains still exist, though not in Seattle. There are three remaining Don the Beachcombers and over a dozen Trader Vic’s worldwide, only a few of which are in the United States.
Seattle could boast of a couple home-grown Polynesian-themed restaurants. The most elegant, logically enough named the Polynesia, was located at the end of Pier 51, a dramatic setting adjacent to the ferry dock with sweeping views of the waterfront, the sound and the mountains. It opened in 1961.
Described as “an authentic segment of Tahiti transported to Seattle’s waterfront…authentic not only in décor but in food preparation and service,” the restaurant’s triple A-frame design—three high-peaked gabled sections rising from a common roof—was inspired by the Polynesian halau, or long house. Architect Raymond Peck chose both the form and materials to create a South Seas atmosphere. He designed not only the building but also the menus and costumes for servers, keeping to a basic color scheme of tangerine, gold, black and seal brown throughout.
Interior walls were polished teakwood and grass cloth, deeply carved beams and upholstered benches, rattan chairs and carved figures; lava rock from Hawaii, art carvings and seashells were liberally sprinkled about. Markings on the posts and beams replicated the patterns of authentic ceremonial shields. A spiral fireplace in the main dining room rose from a reflecting pool on the floor to a black metal hood in the ceiling. Three Tahitian luau torches marked the entrance with exposed gas flames.
The Polynesia accommodated 320 diners and was open for lunch and dinner, with distinctly different menus for each. Lunch selections included crab Rangoon, barbecued spareribs, “exotic Polynesian appetizers” and several types of salad: a fruit salad served in a pineapple basket, an avocado supreme salad and chef ’s and chicken salads. Several omelets were offered: crab, mushroom, shrimp and oyster. Entrées were a choice of Rex sole, poached salmon with egg sauce, oysters mariniere poached in Chablis and herbs, mahi mahi with lemon butter and macadamia nut sauce and chicken à la Polynesia.
The dinner listed a long choice of entrées such as Sai Foon (Oriental vermicelli in chicken broth with julienned ham) and Trade Winds Salad (crab lags, prawns, mixed greens and tomatoes with a tart mustard dressing). Specialties included Mandarin duck, beef mushrooms, shrimp Tahitian, Imperial beef, various curries and a special all-seafood dish called the Blue Lagoon (filet of sole, crab legs, mussels, shrimp and scallops poached in a wine and hollandaise sauce). The risk-averse could always choose a steak. Desserts included coconut snowball, fresh pineapple with Cointreau and crepes Hawaiian.
Stephanie Graham recalls a visit in 1967:
The occasion was my boyfriend’s senior prom. Once inside, I was intimidated by the lush and colorful surroundings. Once seated, I noticed I was by far the youngest person in the restaurant. Most were middle age and older-generation adults dressed quite lavishly. It made me think I was in the company of rich people. Many gawked at the “youngsters” being seated in their formal prom attire.
The things I remember most about the inside: a colorful Polynesian atmosphere where the rustic beams were adorned with colorful carvings, tiki torches, palm trees, orchids, cockatoos and grass plants. The water side of the restaurant had cozy tables for four and a view of the sun setting over Elliott Bay. All the tables gleamed of white starched tablecloths, silver flatware and elegant stemware. In the center of each table was a candle in the shape of a coconut, which gave the entire restaurant a shimmer like nothing I had ever seen before.
The menus had similar coconuts and tiki-torch drawings. Dinner for both of us was about twelve dollars, including tip, which at that time seemed like a huge amount of money to spend on a single dinner. As we left, I remember one gentleman spoke as we walked by him, asking where we were off to. My date responded with our plans, and the gentleman said he remembered when he was young and he hoped we had a nice dinner and would have a fun evening.
In 1975, restaurant reviewer John Hinterberger paid a visit and was impressed by the several entrées he sampled. He also recorded an interesting quote from the manager, Bob Teichman, who, while acknowledging that the food was not authentically Polynesian, said, “In the first place there’s nobody around here who would know how to cook it, and not that many Americans would be interested in eating it.”
When the state condemned Pier 51 in order to expand the ferry terminal, the Polynesia issued two-for-one coupons in appreciation of its loyal clientele. The restaurant closed in May 1975, but owner Dave Cohn had the building lifted onto a barge in hopes of finding a new home. It didn’t work out, and eventually, the structure was burned by the fire department for practice.
Beef with Chinese Greens and Mushrooms
As prepared by the Polynesia Restaurant
1½ pounds thin sliced beef
Peanut oil
Salt
Pepper
1 clove garlic, chopped
2 pounds Chinese greens (bok choy)
½ pound fresh mushrooms
½ cup chicken broth
Soy sauce
Steamed rice for four
Fry beef in oil; season with salt, pepper and chopped garlic. Add greens, mushrooms and chicken stock. Simmer until vegetables are almost cooked. Add soy sauce and finish cooking. Serve with steamed rice. Serves four.
Back uptown was the Kalua Room in the Windsor Hotel, the creation of designer Ed Lawrence, who toured the South Seas for three months in search of appropriate tropical artifacts. It took three months to build at a cost of $100,000 (a lot of money in 1953), seated 150 and promised a “true tropical setting, unusual and exotic tropical foods and beverages.” Patrons enjoyed authentic Hawaiian and Polynesian recipes such as flaming prawns Samoa served en casserole with mango chutney in the Kalua’s three dining areas: the Bird Room, the Slide Room and the Orchid Waterfall, where bunched bananas hung from the thatched canopies over individual tables. The Polynesian dream lasted until 1969, when it became the Has-Been.
The Kau Kau Restaurant, at 1115½ Second Avenue, took up the Polynesian theme in 1959 with tropical cocktails and authentic Cantonese dinners until 2:00 a.m. Owner Wai C. Eng thoroughly remodeled the place in 1965 with new seating arrangements, wall paneling and booth lighting in the main dining room. Thirteen years later, Eng started up a branch location in Chinatown called the Kau Kau Barbecue Market; it was principally a lunch place and, contrary to the name, had not much barbecue on the menu—mostly mein and sweet-and-sour dishes. The downtown Kau Kau disappeared; the barbecue evolved into the still-existing Kau Kau Restaurant on King Street.
Behind the plain exterior of the Kalua Room was a tiki paradise of orchids and a real waterfall. Seattle Municipal Archives, 26696.
Also downtown was the Trade Winds, 2501 First Avenue. It opened around 1964 and persisted into the ’70s with a complete menu of steaks and seafood, as well as Polynesian specialties, served in an informal South Seas atmosphere. North on Aurora Avenue, the Lapu Lapu opened in what had been Ida & Gene’s Restaurant. Its specialty was Philippine cuisine “reminiscent of the romantic South Pacific Isles…Delicious Chicken Adobo for a taste thrill. Real Mango ice cream will be an enjoyable finish to your ‘adventure’ in dining Philippine style.” Chef Luiggi’s Restaurant had moved in by 1976; three years later, it was the Bamboo Tree Restaurant. On Broadway, the Luau Barbecue took over the former location of Carl Broome’s hamburger shop and later Bon’s Cafe. Operated by Albert Bon, it lasted for about four years before becoming DeCaro’s Barbecue in 1964.
KOSHER
Harry’s Bohemian Restaurant claimed to be Seattle’s original Kosher restaurant. Harry Ilwitz was owner and chef; his place was the type of delicatessen “where the ham and beef is sliced with a lavish hand”—common back east but rare on the West Coast. (Harry’s motto was “If you think one sandwich can’t make a meal, you haven’t eaten at Harry’s Bohemian.”) The restaurant was at 1422 Sixth Avenue and was open by 1930. After Harry left the business in the late 1940s, Mary and Max Rosenberg leased the Bohemian with plans to reopen, but it apparently never happened.
A place with a similar name—the Bohemian Cafe—opened at Seventh and Bell in 1946. It, too, had a motto: “It’s fun to be hungry at the Bohemian Cafe.” On the menu: chopped chicken liver, pickled herring, matzo ball soup and specialties such as sauerbraten (spiced pot roast of beef), potato pancakes and Viennese cream chicken on short bread along with the usual steaks, chops and seafood. A full breakfast service was offered. The interior was comfortable green leather and walnut booths with murals depicting the Bohemian way of life. On the outside of the building was the Bohemian’s big violin trademark. At some point in time, Ralph Grossman, one of the operators of the Igloo on Denny Way, was involved in the Bohemian Cafe. The building later became home to Bob Murray’s Dog House.
Contrary to Harry’s claim of being first, Ben Yeager operated a Kosher restaurant at Fourth Avenue and Cherry Street in 1910, and a few years later the National Kosher Restaurant made its appearance at 217 James Street. In the mid-1950s, Clara’s Kosher Restaurant, 1426 E Madison Street, served lunches (corned beef and pastrami sandwiches), appetizers (gefilte fish, chopped liver, pickled or chopped herring and chicken soup with matzo balls) and dinners of roast beef, chicken and steak. Clara also had a delicatessen and a catering service.
VEGETARIAN
You Are What You Eat
While steaks and chops dominated the menus of most early Seattle restaurants, there were a few healthy-eating alternatives. As early as 1901, the Good Health Restaurant, a branch of the Battle Creek Sanitarium, was advertising “nuts, grains, fruits, vegetables served in an appetizing manner.” It was located at 616 Third Avenue and lasted until about 1908. A contemporary was the Vegetarian Cafe, 214 Union Street. Owned by M.T. Madsen, it promised delicious meals made from healthful and wholesome foods. It was a long time before the next exclusively vegetarian restaurant opened in Seattle, a place with the ungainly name of Mother Morgan’s Gumbo Factory and Live-In Restaurant Honey, on Capitol Hill. Its limited menu featured quiche, pasta, broccoli pie, dirty rice and chili; grilled cheese sandwiches plain or with mushrooms, onions, avocado or tomato; peanut butter, banana and raisin sandwiches; and smoothies. It was one of the first restaurants in Seattle to ban smoking. Owners Stephany and Ken Malecki later opened a branch in Kent; by 1980, both Mothers had closed.
