:format(webp)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/39004020/esmith-logo.0.jpg){kind=logo}
Things are starting to perk at the future home of E. Smith Mercantile, a handmade store and bar coming to Pioneer Square sometime in early summer, if all goes according to plan.
Here are 9 things you should know about this, and any other business for that matter, that describes itself as, "Like the moonshine in Papa Smith's bathtub, we are handmade, small batch, and all American."
1. Owner Jessie Poole was a designer at Eddie Bauer, who literally quit last week to work on E. Smith.
2. A successful artist/mercantilist, she graduated magna cum laude from Cornish College of the Arts with a bachelor of fine arts, then took top honors in Apparel Design at SCC and pattern making at New York Fashion Academy.
3. Jessie's construction-expert dad Rick, (he works at the posh builder Schuchart Dow), will do the store's interior starting this week.
4. Her mom Kate, of Quantum Wellness Consulting, makes a line of products called Essential Apothecary, which will be in the apothecary part of the shop.
5. The bar is slating top shelf booze like Old Tom Gin and Punt e Mes, and the drinks will lean to pre-Prohibition cocktails. Jessie will bartend.
6. Like a pro, she is making her own bitters, tinctures and infusions for the cocktails. She has a secret source for organic, clean-distilled alcohol to start them (as opposed to the ever-rough Everclear the rest of us use for bitters and wood stripper) and will be wildcrafting some with naturally growing local plants.
7. Jessie will also make intriguing small plate foods for the bar—or as she puts it, "beautiful, simple, local and what's new" in eating. If we're lucky, she'll make her marinated cippolini onions.
8. There will also be antiques in the mercantile.
9. E. Smith will be in the spot that recently held Wessel & Lieberman Booksellers (pictured). The bookstore merely moved to the back of the building, facing Occidental Park.
· E. Smith Mercantile [Official Site]
· All Plywood Reports [~ESEA~]
[Photo: Future home of E. Smith courtesy of © 2011 Google]
