This Vashon Island Restaurant and Butcher Shop Could Become a Dining Destination

Though its owners intend to build a community gathering space for Vashon Island, upcoming restaurant The Ruby Brink has the potential to draw visitors from around the region as a dining destination in the vein of Bainbridge Island’s Hitchcock and Port Townsend’s Finistère. The new business, which aims to open this winter, will combine a farm-to-table restaurant, artisan butcher shop, and cocktail bar, with some serious culinary firepower behind it.

The restaurant (17526 Vashon Hwy SW) is a joint venture from Lauren Garaventa, Rustle Biehn, and Jake Heil. In some respects, it’s an evolution of Meat and Noodle, Garaventa’s popular soup pop-up, as well as her butchery business. Biehn and Garaventa recruited Heil to run the bar; he moved to the island from Portland, where he managed the esteemed Multnomah Whiskey Library.

The trio plans to incorporate seasonal produce and whole-animal butchery, preservation, and pickling. Fans of Meat and Noodle will be able to relive the pop-up experience at a 10-person communal table in the butcher shop. Produce, dairy, and meat will come from Vashon farms and the wider region. There’ll be a retail space, too, where patrons can buy pasture-raised meat, cut to order.

“On Vashon specifically, our aim is to grow a demand that will fuel a new infrastructure for island meat, so that the great farms here, that are ethically raising healthy livestock, will have proper USDA access and will be able to supply island restaurants and grocers,” Garaventa says. For his part, Heil’s cocktail list will range from classic drinks to neat spirits to beer, Vashon Island cider, and wine.

The Ruby Brink is in the final stages of construction, with the aim of opening in mid-winter.

• The Ruby Brink [Official]
• All Coverage of The Ruby Brink [ESEA]
• Pop-Up Veterans Are Opening a Vashon Island Butcher Shop and Bar [ESEA]