The Eighties, Part 2

By Ronald Holden

1985 Northwest Airlines begins air freighter service to Asia, providing access to new markets for eastern Washington's 2,500 cherry growers. Each 747 can carry 220,000 pounds of cargo, the yield of 20 acres of trees. International sales continue to grow, at least until 2018, when a trade war with China threatens to undermine exports of eastern Washington crops of apples and cherries.

1985 Peter Lewis, who would later become a writer of murder mysteries, opens Campagne and Café Campagne in the Pike Place Market. Two decades later he sells the restaurants to Simon Snellgrove, a real estate investor from Los Angeles. Among the chefs who pass through: Jim Drohman (Le Pichet, Cafe Presse) and Daisley Gordon, who now owns Cafe Campagne. The elegant upstairs space is now Sushi Kashiba.

1985 British-born Kerry Sear leaves his post as executive chef at what was then the Four Seasons Olympic Hotel and opens Cascadia in Belltown. With Alpine Martinis (vodka + Douglas fir "snowballs") and $1 miniburgers, he jump-starts the trend of serving high-quality bar food during the pre-dinner lull, redubbed "Happy Hour." Sear returns to the Four Seasons chain when Cascadia closes and is now the executive chef on the chain's 757 jet (luxury round-the-world vacations).

1985 Jerilyn Brusseau (photo), an artisan baker in the waterfront community of Edmonds, is hired by Seattle restaurateur Rich Komen of Restaurants Unlimited to develop a pastry envisioned as "America's best cinnamon roll." The idea is to sell them in shopping malls and to attract customers with the aroma of cinnamon. But the result, dubbed Cinnabon, is turned down as a too-weird novelty by the region's most prestigious mall, Bellevue Square. The first Cinnabon finally opens, several months later, at the SeaTac Mall (now The Commons at Federal Way). Only a decade later, Komen sells Cinnabon for $85 million to the parent company of Popeye's. Currently part of another conglomerate, Cinnabon operates 1,200 franchise locations in 50 countries around the globe.

1985 French-born Annick Myhre, who had been the dining room manager at the Brasserie Pittsbourg, and her husband, Guy, who had just finished his MBA, open a restaurant, Annique's, in the Westin Building. Very French, quite elegant, and not all that expensive. In 1992, they retire and move to San Diego.

1985 A kitchen-gadget company named Chef'n, inspired by the Grateful Dead's song Truck'n, opens in the Pike Place Market. Its founder, David Holcomb, has come up with a device called the Garlic Machine. He goes on to construct a one-handed pepper grinder and an assortment of spatulas, peelers, hullers, strainers, juicers, steamers, zesters, devices to grind, shake, dice, chop. "We want to make better tools so you can make better food," he says. In 2014 he sells Chef'n to Taylor Precision Products.

1987 Howard Schultz, a basketball and football star from Brooklyn who had worked for Starbucks from 1982 to 1985 as director of operations and marketing, leaves the company to start Il Giornale, a chain of sit-down coffee shops at a time that Starbucks was still selling beans, not coffee drinks. After two years, he returns, rounds up financing, and buys a controlling interest in Starbucks.

1987 Tom Hedges (photo with wife Anne Marie), a food broker, starts Hedges Cellars as a négociant brand to sell Washington wine (made by others) to customers in Europe. The first transaction, with the liquor monopoly in Sweden, goes well, and Hedges starts buying land near Richland, where he grew up. There's nothing but sand and sagebrush when he starts, but the site, Red Mountain, shows promise. Tom and Anne Marie (from Champagne) expand the vineyards and build a showplace, French-style chateau on the site, which is now recognized as the Yakima Valley's most prestigious viticultural area.

1988 A 40-year old actress and model named Lucy Rush, mother of four children and famous as the "Safeway Lady" for her work on local TV commercials, is walking home across the Ballard Bridge when she is struck and killed by a ladder that falls off a pickup truck.

1988 A fan of Seattle's grunge music scene, Hadley Long, transplanted from Carbondale, Ill., begins selling vegetarian fare from a cart outside the J&M Cafe in Pioneer Square. At first, he offers only bagels, to which he soon adds cream cheese and grilled onions. When he finally switches to soft buns and adds frankfurters, the Seattle Dog is born.

1988 A former baggage handler at SeaTac airport, Danny House, starts a business called Dan the Sausageman, selling gift boxes of locally-produced summer sausages and Wisconsin cheese to airline pilots and flight attendants. By 2018 he is grossing close to $2 million a year and is named US Small Business of the Year for Washington state.

1989 Rick and Ann Yoder return from a trip through southeast Asia enamored of the culture. They open a restaurant below the Pike Place Market, Wild Ginger , to showcase Asian cuisine to a broader audience. Before long they build out a 320-seat restaurant in the heart of downtown Seattle, then expand to Bellevue. They recently opened a second Seattle restaurant in the South Lake Union neighborhood. For the past ten years, Zagat Guide ranks Wild Ginger as Seattle's most popular restaurant.

November 2018

Ronald Holden is a Northwest native who's been writing about local food for over 40 years. His latest book, Forking Seattle, is available on Amazon.com. He blogs at Cornichon.org.