I was anticipating it like my own, planning international travel around it; telling friends, family, industry folks, and even Airbnb hosts. Sure, I was writing a story about the opening of Here Today Brewery & Kitchen, from co-owners Dave Riddile, Chris Elford, and Mario Cortes, but it was more than that. I’d never been on the inside, seeing a colleague and friend bring such a big thing to life, and it was a thrill to watch it emerge from the piles of washers and screws, metal and rebar, half-assembled furniture and stacks of glassware into a bright and open, fully functioning bar, full of people consuming the things they made themselves.
I’m not a baby person, but I am a food and beverage person. This may sound like an overstatement, but it felt kind of like watching my nephew or a dear friend’s kid grow up: seeing the business take shape and transform, from concept and framework to big, empty space to an actual place you can go; a living, breathing thing that requires multiple people’s constant, active participation to keep alive.
Like a child, a brewery, bar, or restaurant takes a village to raise right. You must feed it high-quality, nutritional ingredients and instill the proper ethical framework. I feel nearly as proud of their sourcing as I do when my nephew chooses celery instead of junk food; of their commitment to inclusion, reflected in the faces behind and before the bar, as I do when my friend’s daughter says something extra-polite.
Things like this used to also make me feel sad, always on the outside looking into other people’s lives, but something has shifted now and I felt it on opening day, as the salt breeze blew in from the Seattle waterfront on an unseasonably warm October afternoon. I was full of pure excitement for my friends, feeling the collective joy and celebration pooling within those walls, pouring out onto the sun-kissed patio and into the Sound.
I’m not birthing anything physical of my own, yet something more intangible and no less meaningful is taking shape. I’m building a life, assembling it from sense memories and feeling-states, pieces of other people’s dreams that resonate and things that make my heart leap; finally knowing who I am and what I want, celebrating those whose paths cross mine, and enjoying some delicious Saisons along the way.
