The Garrison

Champagne and Coastal Cuisine

Chefs and other restaurant folk are creative sorts, so even when they're operating a successful spot, they're generally looking ahead and thinking about all the concepts they have in their heads. It's certainly true for Josh Delgado and Jordan Melnikoff of Le Coin. After five years of dialing it in, then starting a farm, it's no surprise they've opened a second restaurant.

"Garrison is a Champagne and coastal cuisine house," says Josh. "We just opened December 16 and we already have six nice pours of actual Champagne. We're serious about Champane and hope to import it directly in the future. We also have a huge focus on Chartreuse, both at Le Coin for years and now Garrison. We easily have one of the largest Chartreuse programs in the region. Our lead bartender from Le Coin was flown to France to learn even more. Chartreuse is timeless."

While Le Coin is French focused, The Garrison is not. It's Pacific Northwest coastal food: oysters, caviar, raw items, crustaceans, fin fish. "I have one meat on the menu," says Josh. "We've wanted to do this for a while, and we've looked for several years. When we found the Ballard location, it just made sense. Ballard's an old blue collar fishing town and has a Scandinavian heritage. You can see the water and shipyard from the dining room. We love Le Coin, yet it's heavy on red meat. We like this easy marriage of seafood and Champagne.

"Over the past five years, we've put together a stellar team at Le Coin for both longevity and expansion. Our Chef de Cuisine is Danny Martinez who is also a business partner. Our chefs are multi-faceted, good in the kitchen and good on the floor. Our overarching business, Must Be Nice Hospitality, oversees both Le Coin and Garrison. The ethos is to be guest-centric while still being old-school culinarians. Part of what we do is bring people in, coach them, and let them spread their wings. Our Beverage Director/Assistant Restaurant Manager Brendan Newcomb has created spectacular cocktails with input from the kitchen and Le Coin's head bartender, Matt Pachmayr, as well as Jordan. He also did the remodel of our front room."

They took over the space the first week of May. "We'd wanted to expand, and Le Coin is doing well. If you can do more than one place successfully, you need to look ahead. We'd been looking at obscure places and when we saw this, we knew. It was gnarly inside, in total disrepair, so even though we thought it would be good and loved the location, it was hard to visualize. It's a huge space and offers so many opportunities. The basement is institutional size, giving us so much storage which is at a premium in Seattle. I used to own a catering company, but decided to focus on brick and mortar, so I closed it. Now we can afford to look at catering again. We have all new equipment, and it's all on wheels. That way we can move everything around to fit what we're doing, like a big swanky evening or a catering job. We can make our own Chartreuse ice cream."

There are two rooms. The front room is intimate, 20 seats, and is open now serving dinner and drinks Friday through Monday. The back space is much larger and should be open sometime in the next three months. "With that large back space, I have dreams of a cheese cart, and large parties walking in and sitting down for family-style meals, like whole fillets of salmon and big seafood platters with crab, uni, oysters, and pickled shrimp. One section of the back room will be a big raw bar. And with two rooms, it will be much easier to host events. Our first event was a buy-out for a friend's birthday."

The space also came with a kitchen window on Market Street. "We served tacos this summer. My father's side of the family is Latin, as is half our staff. It made sense. There's no box for this window to fit into; chefs can take it and run. I can see us doing chicken and waffles during the Farmers Market. Our wine director is from Baltimore and is into chopped cheese. Purveyors will come to us and say they have all this skirt steak or beef shanks. It's economically smart to purchase if you have a use for it. The window is great for that. Looking at the window, you'd never know it's the same business. There's a divorce lawyer's office in between.

"We chose the name because it's my business partner's mother's maiden name, plus it means strong, fortified. Hospitality-wise, Garrison is the same as Le Coin. A high-end experience in a comfortable setting. One difference is that it's a 21 and over location."

Because Garrison is new and small (for now), it's advisable to make reservations on tock . You won't want to be disappointed!

Connie Adams/January 2024

The Garrison
2319 NW Market St
Seattle, WA 98107
206-695-2827