[Photos: S. Pratt]
Hollywood Tavern, the long-awaited next project from warp-speed empire builder, Josh Henderson, is finally upon us. Next week, there will be the standard practice runs and working out the kinkage before finally announcing to the public that "We've arrived!" by celebrating an official grand opening on Tuesday, November 12.
While the tavern part of the Hollywood Tavern is the original Mabel's from the 1930s, the dining room is a new addition. Other interesting things of note: lots of lamp shades dangling from the ceiling. "Director of Vibe" (real title) Matthew Parker explains the idea behind it:
The Lumineers played on SNL last year and the set that they had was filled with all these different lamp shades and it was so beautiful. The whole idea for this space was to balance masculine and feminine styles. The tavern is more masculine, while the dining room is a little more feminine. I thought a whole room of lampshades would really add that kind of homey, "grandma's house" kind of vibe. And warm it up, too. Whereas the tavern, we can get away with a little more attitude. I wanted there to be a lot of neutrality in [the dining room] with some comfort-levelness.
There's also a very colorful pice of artwork on the wall, inspired by an aerial view:
Once again we used the Electric Coffin boys, who we love so much. We told them we wanted them to channel agriculture, wheat fields...if you were going to fly over wheat fields, you'd see all those different sections kind of laid out. That's what their inspiration was and that's what they came up with.
And the tables:
Mike Marian, who did the tables at Westward, had done a table quite similar to [these] and I thought it mimicked the agriculture fields, so that was a vibe we were going off of from the very beginning: referencing the history of Woodinville and its place in agriculture.
And the tavern's original bones:
We tried to retain a few of the details from the old tavern, like the beer refrigerator that's behind the bar. We had that redone. And there's a bunch of Olympia beer swag from the 50s and 60s — these little taxidermy pieces. They're quite charming.
It's basically a roadside tavern, reimagined.
The food (courtesy of chef Angie Roberts) is super solid: a signature burger, roasted chicken with chimichurri, salads, sandwiches, Brussel's sprouts, cheese fries with kimchi and fried egg and...soft serve.
Check out the photos and make sure to plan a trip to wine country in a little more than a week. Once open, Hollywood Tavern will be serving daily, 11 am to 10 pm. Parcel partner, Woodinville Whiskey, is slated to open December 7.
· Hollywood Tavern [Official Site]
· Huxley Wallace [Official Site]
· All Eater Inside Coverage [~ESEA~]
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