Mac and Jack’s Brewing Has Been Sold to a Wine Company

Mac and Jacks — pronounced as one word, “macnjax,” if you’re ordering the brewery’s flagship African Amber at a bar — has been sold to a local investment company that owns several wine companies, the Seattle Times reports this week.

The buyer, Ackley Brands, is a relatively new company, founded in 2016, that owns several wine brands in Washington and Oregon. This is the first beer brand that Ackley is buying, though the company president Brandon Ackley said that it might make more moves into the beer market. The price of the sale wasn’t disclosed.

Co-owner Mac Rankin told the Times that he and fellow co-owner Jack Schropp approached Ackley about buying their 30-year-old brewery because they “wanted to have a little bit more structure from the management side of our business,” and also wanted financial flexibility in the event that a zoning change forces them to move their operations.

Not much is likely to change for Mac and Jacks drinkers. Rankin and Schropp are staying on for the next year to help with the transition, and Ackley told the Times that he intends to keep the brewery’s 25 employees.

WeRo is doing a tasting menu now

It’s been a busy year for chef Wes Yoo at Wero. This spring Yoo launched Bapshim, a rice bowl takeout operation, out of the Ballard space. Now, according to an emailed statement Yoo sent out this week, he’ll be doing “ the only Korean inspired prix-fixe menu in Seattle” starting Tuesday, October 10. “The dishes offered will continue to reflect [my] Korean childhood while incorporating PNW culture and ingredients as well,” Yoo said in the email. “Embracing global techniques and local ingredients while maintaining distinct Korean flavors is my mission at Wero and the prix fixe menu will be an awesome platform.” There will still be a number of a la carte items on the menu. The prix fixe will be $55 and comes with three courses, all of them savory.

Made in House branches out into dinner

In more Korean restaurant news, Fremont’s Made in House, a lunch spot with an incredible “Daily Bento” plate, is dipping its toes into the dinner waters. It’s now open on Fridays and Saturdays until 8:30 p.m. and serving items like braised short ribs with japchae noodles, vegetables, rice, and pickles.

Seattle scores high marks on a “Best Foodie City in America” survey

We get blasted with a lot of press release that purport to rank Seattle and Washington State using every possible metric — did you know Washington is the number-two state in the nation for careers in search engine optimization? — but we got an interesting one this week from WalletHub. The personal finance company crunched a bunch of numbers to find that Seattle is the 10th best “food city” in America, just below Austin, Texas, and just above Denver. (Orlando, Florida, is number one.) Notably, Seattle was the number one city in a couple categories, “restaurants per capita” and “affordability and accessibility of highly rated restaurants.” The survey was done in advance of October 16, which is World Food Day, a holiday that we personally celebrate every day.