Wong (Image: SCCC)
We’ve heard Skelly and the Bean’s February debut was a pretty standard restaurant affair as far as openings go. CHS wasn’t invited but these people checked it out. But the crowd-funded restaurant (OK, that part wasn’t standard) is now ready to roll out another of its community innovations with the first night of what Zephyr Paquette called her “incubator series.”
Next week, Seattle Central instructor and proud butcher Sarah Wong will take her first turn in the Skelly kitchen in a month of “Meatless Mondays”
Chef Sarah Wong is coming to us from Seattle Community College as one of their instructors. She is also a current inductee to the Butchers Guild. Chef Wong has spent time, among other places in her culinary history, at Cafe Flora the Harvest Vine and was a personal chef for two very famous Vegas based tiger lovers. She is bringing to us a varied and delicious menu to show Butchers have other skills as well.
Get it? She’s a butcher.
How’s Paquette facilitating the logistics around the money end of the restaurant business when it comes to rotating guest chefs? Enter Brown Paper Tickets. The $35 payment for this Monday’s first edition of the Wong series is being handled by the local ticketing company. You can (hopefully still) buy your ticket here.
I read almost all of this article. Twice. And I want to be excited about it, but I don’t really understand what it means. A little help?
Well, it’s a restaurant. And it features guest chefs. And there is a dinner there Monday night. Let me know if I can clear anything else up for you. You might also learn more by clicking a few links for more details. Or you might not.
For a casual neighborhood restaurant, the prices seem quite high…$24 for chicken, $31 for pork chop…yikes! At that level, the food better be damned good.
I guess they are going for the affluent north Capitol Hill demographic, but they won’t survive on that alone.
You are not alone in your confusion – I had to go to Yelp to find out if this is a normal restaurant or only open for these Mondays. It appears to be a normal restaurant, and it’s usually closed Monday and Tuesday.
Their website adds to the confusion – no menu and suggestions to call in a reservation. Required or not? Unknown.
Skelly and the Bean is offering the space to outside chefs who would like to be a more prominent part of the restaurant scene. We are operating the restaurant as our own Wed-Sun and yes, on our usually closed days-we have other chefs come in and cook their schtick. The website is currently being worked on as websites are not cheap and that we are community funded some things are on the priority list ahead of others. Reservations are not required but are suggested. Also, our food is farm to table and mostly local and that pork chop is double the normal size you usually see out. The neighborhood seems to be happy so far and we are thankful for them. Thanks for the input and suggestions and J, sure would be nice to see you for dinner
Awesome, thanks for the details! Will definitely check it out.
I’m with you! Not in my realm of affordable at all. Maybe they’ll offer half-portions. Love the name, though.
I’m a little tired of so many restaurants/chefs touting “farm-to-table”, organic, local, sustainable, etc. as a rationalization to charge high prices. I don’t care how large the pork chop is…$31 is way out of line. And most diners would rather have a more normal-sized pork chop at a more reasonable price. Same thing for your chicken….$24 is way too much!
Sir, a farm-to-table restaurant like this sources ingredients of unsurpassed quality. You would spend much more trying to secure them yourself, and honestly, would probably remain unsuccessful. They are “expensive” sure, when compared with commodity priced meat and conventional (read: bland, homogenous, and potentially dangerous) produce that almost every “inexpensive” and a number of “somewhat expensive” restaurants use, but commitment to the health of the community and to the economic well-being of local, NW honest, and similarly idealistic farmers, ranchers, and growers means just that, commitment. We need many more chefs like Z. Paquette.
(Oh, yeah, and farm-to-table, it’s actually a really, really, really old thing. Cool, huh?)
I think I just coined a phrase via the omission of comma. But it has a nice ring to it. :)
Food is not cheap these days as you may have noticed the last time you were at the grocery store. Let us imagine that you want to roast yourself a chicken and perhaps make a salad. I would bet that you would spend at the minimum of 40 dollars. 8- 10 dollars for a free range bird another 10 or so on the salad fixings..( and perhaps end up throwing some of it away) …lets not forget that bottle or wine. The good thing at the store is you do not have to pay labor tax, a health permit, liquor permit, sign permit, a buisness license, web site, menus, insurance, maintence of equipment etc etc. the list goes on and on..oh and all the utilities? There are more taxes and permits and costs that you just don’t realize. Restaurants pay for people to cook for you, wait on you and clean up. We pay for the lights, the linen, and the opportunity. We pay for the opportunity to try and please you. If you had to pay for all for these things it costs us you could not afford to cook at home. This is real food, and it is not cheap. pay now or pay later. Its not expensive . Expensive is the latte that costs 25 cents and you pay 3 dollars plus for and get no nutritional value. I encourage all of us to rethink what places like Skeely and the Bean are doing and what it takes to do it. Restaurants are a service and it simply costs more. A lot more. Go Z.
OK, your comments are helpful. But please tell me why this place is charging $31 for a pork chop, when every other restaurant in town would charge perhaps an average of $18?
It’s great to support quality, local purveyors, but not when the prices charged exclude many people of modest means.
That’s $31 pork chop don’t come with wine….
I notice that the $31 pork chop now costs “only” $29….sorry, nice try, but it’s still way over-priced and a fair price would be $10 less than that.
The chicken price is unchanged at $24….also way too much.