The Hardware Store

Everyone knows that in the restaurant business, it's all about the guest. Yet somehow it doesn't always happen. At The Hardware Store on Vashon Island, it's a way of life.

Owner Melinda Sontgerath (at right) learned the lessons early on and incorporated them into her careers. Throughout her college years, she worked at the Doubletree Inn in Tucson which, at the time, had a restaurant and not yet a hotel. When they opened their first hotel, she was in on the ground floor. "They basically gave me the hotel dining room to run. I was 19 or 20. I stayed six years and learned it all. I knew that eventually all this would play in my future."

Melinda's other love was interior design. She attended Arizona State to get her Marketing degree, then got a second degree in Interior Design. For the next 25 years, she had her own company, Powers Interiors, in Scottsdale. "It was wonderful. I traveled the world. But for 30 years, I still had the dream of owning my own restaurant," she recalls. After retiring, she met a man through a friend who lived on Vashon Island. Once they met, it was just 10 months before they were married and she was living on Vashon.

She was a stay-at-home mom for two years and became familiar with the island's hardware store located in the oldest commercial building on the island, built in the late 1800s. "All businesses struggle on the island and this building was 5,000 square feet. The owners decided to close in 2002 and my husband and I had a moment of clarity and decided we had to make it a restaurant. They wanted to sell the building but we couldn't afford the price. We went to them and explained that we saw it as the heartbeat of the island; a gathering place where everyone was welcome. It was all about the community. We made them the only offer we could afford and they leaned over the table and shook our hands. Magic happened at that moment. The next day, they got a full offer on the building and they turned it down."

And then reality set in. They only had one water share which was not enough to handle Melinda's restaurant business plan. There was a moratorium on water and she couldn't get another share. Without water, she couldn't get permits. She had to redesign the restaurant to use less water while trying to find financing. "I had to get creative and the people on Vashon got behind me. I decided to open a retail store until I could get everything together to get permits for the restaurant. I called the County and said I was keeping it as a retail space and wouldn't need to do a lot of work on it, so I didn't need more water or permits. We sold wine, art, Italian scooters and ‘designer salvage' furniture. We let the community use the space for their events and even catered dinners for up to 100 people."

She finally found someone who would help finance her dream. But then the County wanted her to put in sidewalks and parking lots and bury phone lines, which was not affordable. She took her case to the woman at the top of DDES (Department of Development and Environmental Services) who agreed with her. Despite the building being historic, she was then asked to change the front of it; she refused, but did change the side. Every wire and pipe was replaced. It took three and a half months to complete the work. It took two full years from the moment of the handshake. "The community went through it with me; everyone on the island knows the whole story," recalls Melinda. "Right from the start, we were busy. We do offsite catering and have an art gallery in the restaurant with art shows and parties. There's a new artist every month." Finally her own restaurant. The Hardware Store opened on August 1, 2005.

Connie Adams/July 2011