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Just as chef Renee Erickson’s high-end shop for cream- and custard-filled doughnuts and rotating coffee roasts, General Porpoise, was opening its newest outpost in Pioneer Square last week, signs of the Capitol Hill-based brand’s next expansion surfaced on the official website: A Laurelhurst location is coming soon to 4520 Union Bay Place NE, near the eastern outskirts of University Village and along the Burke-Gilman Trail.
Erickson’s co-owner Jeremy Price told Eater he’s hopeful the Laurelhurst store will open in late Spring, also featuring a unique selection of coffee roasters (the Pioneer Square store currently features beans from Durham’s Counterculture, Bellingham’s Camber, and Grand Rapids’ Madcap). Naturally, the menu will also showcase sugar-coated doughnuts bursting with a seasonal selection of jams, jellies, curds, custards, and creams, from classics like vanilla custard to less-common options like peanut butter and jelly or rose cream.
Compared to the Pioneer Square location, which seats about 30, Laurelhurst’s version will be “quite small,” Price said, and designed in a more contemporary manner. It won’t have the stunning parade of paper lantern elephants, but “will have some cool (we think) neon signage and comfy upholstered banquettes.” And Price said it will obviously fit the mold of the Sea Creatures restaurant group (Bateau, The Walrus and the Carpenter, and more) and Price Erickson design sensibilities: light-filled, open, airy, and cheerful.
Sometime this year, General Porpoise is also expected to open its first non-Washington outpost, in Los Angeles.
