Wooden City owners to move popular downtown restaurant, open new concept on Pac Ave

Wooden City, which quickly became one of Tacoma's most popular restaurants when it opened in 2018, will move to a bigger downtown location at 1102 Broadway, likely next year.

It's welcome news for anyone who has tried to pop by, even for a stool at the bar, seemingly any day of the week. And it gets better: Owners Jon Green, Abe Fox and Eddie Gulberg are planning a new, yet-to-be-revealed concept at the original address, 714 Pacific Ave.

On Wednesday, they showed their management team around the 7,000-square-foot empty shell, which has high ceilings, steel structural beams and a mezzanine that will be able to host private parties. Like the first, it will also have an open kitchen, but the wood-fired pizza oven will be more front-and-center.

Green, the chef of the ownership trio, is eager to expand the menu just a touch, potentially to include a third homemade pasta and a full-time steak main.

"People are excited," said Fox in an earlier October phone call with The News Tribune. "Employees are getting tons of questions and concerns — they're worried that it's not gonna be the same and all that."

The foundation of Wooden City, they said, won't change: thoughtful hospitality, a great atmosphere that suits both special occasions and casual hangs, top-notch cocktails with a focus on the classics, familiar foods executed at a high level. (See: the now-classic lamb bolognese on homemade rigatoni, the juicy double-patty burger, the messy but unduly satisfying peel-and-eat shrimp, the blistered wax peppers with cheese and chive oil .) But the move something of an upgrade, noted Fox, and there are "some elements that we've been wanting to test."

Put simply, the kitchen at their Pac Ave restaurant — their first as owners — is not wholly equipped for what they do now.

"We're actually busier than we've ever been," said Fox.

"There's still carpet on the floors, and some engineering work to be done," continued Fox, but much of the floor plan and overall design is fleshed out. They also have far more experience building out a restaurant than they did in 2018.

Indeed, there are soon-to-be five Wooden City restaurants in three states.

In 2020, they landed on the other side of the Cascades, renovating the historic Genesee Block building in downtown Spokane . In 2022, they debuted in another salvaged downtown space with around 100 seats in Chattanooga , Tennessee. Last year, they took over Greenlake Tavern in Seattle and this year have been busy in Birmingham, Alabama.

Tacoma, the flagship, is actually the smallest at just 2,500 square feet and around 50 seats.

Amid all that activity, they were exploring an expansion in the mid-sized city — still their home base, personally and professionally — that started it all.

The developer of the Broadway building, J Squared, approached them more than a year ago. (The News Tribune leases office space from J Squared). Managing partner Jeff Mitchum said he and his colleagues were "thrilled when they engaged [and] we're ecstatic now that they have actually signed the agreement."

"They knew we weren't in a hurry," said Fox. Then the gossip started rolling, and they decided to share the news in an Instagram post in late September that was shared nearly 500 times, "which was insane."

Mitchum described their new tenant as a "gamechanger" for the building, which originally was Fisher's Department Store and until the early 2000s offices for Columbia Bank — and this particular nook of downtown.

As it stands, said Mitchum, the Theater District feels like "just an office community," where most activity stops around 5 p.m. J Squared and MDR Development, which owns Tacoma Centre nearer to the convention center, recently began collaborating on a retail-and-restaurant initiative they're calling Best of Broadway.

Presuming people fill the thousands of new apartments coming online, "They need places to go and things to do," said Mitchum.

Wooden City, along with established nightlife in the corridor that includes line-dancing destination Steel Creek and nearly four-decade sushi stalwart Fujiya, will create an important anchor point for an "18-hour district."

It was in part this vision that convinced the Wooden City team to say yes.

"That section in particular is my favorite street in Tacoma," said Fox. "We're not starting that growth — we're gonna be a part of it."

The team, many of whom have worked at the original outpost for five or so years, is hopeful for a smooth transition with no pause in service when move-in date arrives.

At 714 Pacific Ave., they will still hold a lease of several years.

"We have the name, we have the concept, we know what it's gonna be," teased Fox. "We'll announce that really soon."

Let's just say it will be very Wooden City-esque, oriented around the bar, and "still really casual, but easier on the kitchen."