Chef Derek Bugge Wins ‘Guy’s Grocery Games’

Welcome back to Eater News, a semi-regular round-up of mini news bites. Have info to share? Email intel to seattle@eater.com.

• Joe Chocolates — whose founders, UW alums Sam Tanner and Peter Keckemet, make caffeinated dark chocolate bark packed with coffee beans — is taking over Pike Place Market’s Local Color cafe, whose owner is retiring. For now, changes will be minimal, but after this summer, Joe Chocolates will make the space across from Beecher’s its own.
• Vashon Island’s Kurt Timmermeister, owner of dreamy Capitol Hill dairy Kurt Farm Shop, is planning to self-publish a sequel to Farm Food Volume 1: Fall and Winter this spring.

• The problem with a chef putting their name on a restaurant, as Alon Shaya is finding out in New Orleans, is the risk of losing the rights to that name — something all too familiar to fried-chicken fans in Seattle thanks to the case of Ezell Stephens.
• Chef Derek Bugge, late of 2120, tells Eater “I managed to claw my way to winning” an episode of Guy’s Grocery Games, “Five-Star Showdown,” beating out the competition with dishes like chicken-fried steak roulade with pomme robuchon and blistered corn salsa as well as grilled filet mignon with cauliflower puree. The owners of local food truck Anchor End Pretzel Shoppe pulled off the feat on the Guy Fieri show last year, too.

• Speaking of Food Network appearances, Wallingford bakery The Sweetside was on the show Ridiculous Cakes recently.
• Seattle-based Sansaire is shutting down, which means no new sous vide devices from the high-tech company.