Nick Yahn proved he could perform under pressure Thursday morning, but the real test will come next week.
Yahn, a bartender at WildFin American Grill at The Waterfront Vancouver, displayed a chemist’s precision as he created a Black & Blue Martini for a trainer and nearly a dozen colleagues. Yahn stirred a combination of Rose City vodka, Wild Roots Marionberry-infused vodka, blackberry basil lemonade and a balsamic glaze, all garnished with fresh-cracked pepper ($11.95).
“It’s definitely a step up from where I was before,” Yahn said of his new employer and surroundings.
Yahn was among 125 WildFin employees who continued training Thursday for the restaurant’s opening Monday within an ice cube toss of the Columbia River. Across a walkway near the prow-jutting Grant Street Pier, about 60 Twigs Bistro & Martini Bar employees also prepared for their Wednesday opening. The restaurants’ openings will be among the first indicators that The Waterfront Vancouver, after more than a decade of planning and preparation, is open to the public. The project’s developer, Barry Cain of Gramor Development, led media tours of restaurants and nearby project amenities on Thursday.
In addition to the two restaurants, Maryhill Winery has announced plans to open a tasting room next to Twigs. And Barlow’s Public House is set to open in a space over Twigs.
This will be the fourth WildFin, joining locations in Issaquah, Renton and Tacoma. While they share the same menu, the restaurant strives to source locally, said Chris Bryant, executive chef and operating partner.
“The bounty in this region starts with rhubarb and it goes to asparagus and then to strawberries,” Bryant said. “It just keeps going and going and going.”
About 20 signs arrayed on a wall over the food preparation area lists the name of WildFin suppliers, such as Copper River Seafood of Cordova, Alaska, Rose City distillery of Portland, Siri & Sons Farms of Clackamas, Ore., Rogue Creamery of Central Point, Ore., and Vancouver’s Loowit Brewery and Trap Door Brewery.
“I spend a lot of time during the year going and meeting the farmers, getting my boots dirty and shaking their hands,” Bryant said, though on Thursday morning, as a restaurant group co-owner, he was hunched over a laptop in the buzzing dining room, reviewing financial reports.
WildFin can serve 200 customers in its 7,600 square feet, with additional seating for 130 outside.
The restaurant group that owns WildFin also owns Stack 571 Burger & Whiskey Bar with three Puget Sound-area locations.
WildFin signed a lease agreement in early 2016 with Gramor, said Attila Szabo, president and operating partner, who is a restaurant group co-owner with Bryant and two other partners, Chris Anderson and Bob Acree. WildFin was founded in September 2011 and Issaquah was its first location.
“It was a cold rainy day,” Szabo recalled, and construction was a year from starting. “But you could stand here and understand what their vision was.”
Twigs holds the distinction of being the first commercial entity to sign a lease agreement, in December 2015.
Trevor Blackwell, president of Twigs, recalled the several design iterations that have unfolded since then. He’s been pleased with his patience.
“I was happy they could pull off the vision that they had,” said Blackwell, of Spokane, who co-owns the QOL Restaurant Group with his wife, Jayne Blackwell, and his father, Jeff Blackwell. Twigs Vancouver becomes the 11th Twigs restaurant in their group, whose name derives from “Quality of Life,” and also includes two Tortilla Union Southwest Grills, in Spokane and near Salt Lake City. A Twigs opened in Bridgeport Village in Tigard, Ore., in 2013.
Each Twigs features a giant quotation on a wall attributed to a 1929 essay by author Virginia Woolf: “One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well.”
That’s one element of the 250-seat Vancouver Twigs that will remind Michael Penttila of the Twigs he left behind in Kennewick.
More than a year ago, Penttila hear about his employer’s plan to open the Vancouver location.
And he saw an artist’s drawing of Grant Street Pier. After working seven years at the Kennewick location — starting as a busser and working his way up to assistant manager and then bartender — he knew he had to be in Vancouver. His partner, Rhiannon Johnnson, also a bartender, agreed. Two other Kennewick employees also made the move. The restaurant has 55 to 60 employees.
“We wanted to be able to experience big-city life without the big-city problems,” Penttila said. “It’s a bigger, better version of the Tri-Cities.”
