Even after all these years, Primo Grill remains a go-to spot in T-town. Here’s why

Primo Grill is precisely the kind of restaurant that every city needs, and in an ideal city, every neighborhood deserves to have a place like Primo.

The kind of restaurant that has been around the block — in this case, literally. The kind that honors the valleys and the tides that provide perfect red and blue berries, a sunset of tomatoes and mussels so fresh they nearly pulsate. The kind where sitting alone at the bar with a glass of wine and an impeccably thin pizza crafted with a decades-old biga feels as right as reserving a table for a multi-course meal to celebrate the monumental. The kind that has regular customers and regular employees because consistency in staff yields consistency in food and hospitality. The kind that simply impresses — night after night, year after year.

After 25 years, Primo Grill has still got it.

Charlie McManus and Jacqueline Plattner opened their Mediterranean restaurant, by way of the Pacific Northwest, in 1999. The original location on Pine Street stood out in Tacoma and the South Sound, according to a News Tribune at the time: open kitchen with a wood-fired oven and a chef's counter, a "funky relaxed" aesthetic that included custom steel and copper fixtures from local artist George Capestany. Wines were and still are largely from Washington state, but food was always the focus.

"I thought we were super cutting-edge — I don't think we are now," said McManus in October. "But we are a super-quality, consistent restaurant, with a creative niche."

At least one of his uncompromising choices that definitely cutting-edge in Y2K America: making pasta from scratch. That, along with the prized pizza dough, herbed focaccia and flatbread, is part of pantry duty, which remains a mandatory first stop for everyone in the kitchen.

"Every single cook that works at Primo starts in pantry," said McManus. If you can't understand the dough, you won't understand everything else. "There are numbers and being fast, but very good chefs understand ideas."

The owners' ethos originated in their own appreciation for seasonal, local food. That magic resides in using the best ingredients available and treating them — and your staff — with respect. (Primo was one of the earliest restaurants in town to institute a service-charge model, in 2015, which McManus said has helped them offer health insurance to staff starting at just 20 hours a week.)

"I've always had this style of really letting ingredients speak for themselves," said the chef, who started his culinary journey as a dishwasher at Il Bistro at Pike Place Market in 1979. He has trained only in the field, having left his native Belfast to join Scottish-Italian cousins he had never met in Seattle, when the city was "like 4-point type on the map." He cooked his way through every station, eventually hitting the top.

Plattner was dating one of these cousins when she met the young Irishman.

"He had a heavy brogue and a leather jacket," she said with a smile.

They married in 1986 and moved to Tacoma four years later when McManus took the head chef gig at the Sheraton Hotel downtown (now Hotel Murano), while she worked as an abuse investigator at Western State Hospital.

They decided to pursue their own place with the lift of short-term loans from friends and family as well as a Small Business Administration loan.

"Why don't we try our luck? Charlie had already had machinations about what he would do," said Plattner.

Indeed, "It was a lifetime goal," said McManus.

PRIMO'S LOCAL COMMITMENT

Their success on Pine allowed them to purchase the Sixth Avenue building, where they opened Crown Bar in 2007 . They sold that business the year after moving Primo to the coveted corner .

The new space was originally three different buildings, connected by a wooden-beamed alley in the middle. The floors are refashioned telephone poles and the tables reclaimed Douglas fir. They designed a long bar, jumping straight into the cocktail movement. Behind it, Tacoma Community College students and Humanities Art program chair Marit Berg painted a 30-foot mural that depicts "the richness of the Puyallup Valley and all of the beautiful things that come to us," McManus mused. (They have donated around $175,000 to an arts scholarship at the school over 25 years, said Plattner.)

The bright hues anchor the otherwise minimalist space.

They still print the menu two to three times a week. The fish frequently changes.

"Sometimes you have to pick a different fish, or find a different purveyor," noted McManus, because "we always use fresh, wild-caught fish."

Seasonality is not just a buzzword. The end of halibut season means a new one is always on the horizon — "the start of a new season of cooking," he continued. "Other people might say they like to create, but I also like to fine-tune, and to do it with other people. It's about repetition and skill and cooking as part of a team."

They are one of the oldest customers of Kamilche Sea Farms in Shelton, receiving mussels mere hours post-harvest, to be surrounded by a chive-curry cream sauce.

Regulars and staff alike have adored the fruit from Terry's Berries, which in 2015 transitioned ownership to Wild Hare Farms that largely sells direct-to-consumer. Also, Paul and Diane's Tomatoes that would nuzzle into a bowl of capellini with compatriot fungi from Adam's Mushrooms, or slip into an iconic gin and tonic.

'' & CONSISTENCY IS KEY

Amid minor adjustments, some dishes haven't left the menu in a quarter-century, including the pan-roasted calamari in a saffron garlic sauce that I admitted to drinking out of the shallow bowl. The mussels? Holding strong. The carbonara? Still there — although McManus recounted the horror that customers didn't really "get it" in the early days. Now it's a best-seller.

Fans love the penna alla vodka and the simple pumpkin ravioli in sage butter, finished with Grana Padano. It returns every fall, and they retain it through the new year — "longer than we should," joked Plattner. As sous chef Jorge Balam-Chuc said, "The ravioli has to be perfect because there's nothing to hide behind."

In an America now full of Neapolitan-style pizzas, the Primo pie might have very well been a revelation in 1999. Today it remains so, if you, like the owners and their staff, appreciate an attention to detail that so often goes missing in the heft of burrata or whatever else. It's thin and crispy and tangy, topped politely with bacon, smoked onions and gruyere or sausage and mozzarella.

The menu has leaned a bit more into Spanish and North African influences in recent years, as evident in a cauliflower appetizer with a trio of dips: harissa, hummus and almond piquillo. But it's in the quiet heroes — the drizzle of Villa Manodori 8-year-old balsamic vinegar, the Trampetti extra-virgin olive oil, the snap of a fresh green bean under a beautiful piece of wild king salmon — that one finds peace in the little things that make a restaurant last.

They attribute their success very little to themselves.

"Our servers are known for being very personable, and very real," said Plattner. Added McManus, "It's really about our customers, not us. They cared about us succeeding."

Both now in their 60s, the time to let go will come, but they don't yet know when. They are still there most days, Plattner and her bubbly welcome weaving through tables and McManus "suiting up" as he says when he's about to get behind the line.

For anyone out there with the dream and the wherewithall: "My opinion about the restaurant business is that it's very, very difficult," said McManus, but create "a restaurant that you can grow into, and you can grow with ... that, after two years, you don't feel like you're working for wages." Avoid outside investors and wobbly partnerships. "That's the most important thing: It has to be yours."