I still haven't eaten here
Posted: Sun Mar 17, 2013 2:45 pm
The ferry to Lummi Island is only about ten miles from my house, and I dined at the Willows Inn a number of times before Blaine Wetzel arrived. Enough times that Riley Starks, still an owner at that point, recognized me the day he and I ended up in an elevator in Downtown Bellingham together--post-NY Times claiming the Willows one of the Ten Restaurants To Go To Before You Die (which occurred in a different article shortly after their claiming it worth a plane ride), which caused the WSJ to name it one of five restaurants around the world to inherit the El Bulli mystique for impossible-to-get-reservations--on which occasion I nailed the Close Door button and refused to let him out until he promised to get me a table.
You see, once Blaine showed up with his ersatz Noma Pacific Northwest, it had become impossible to get a table--especially if you were a local. In their shortsightedness, they made it a prereq pretty much to book a room at the tiny Inn, which used to cost about $100-125 per night for one of maybe four rooms they had, but which were now joined by 12 others either newly built or cobbled together from nearby residences and cost $300 a night, such that the 16 rooms provided the 32 diners the restaurant now holds and a lot more income.
And such that the locals who helped keep The Willows afloat all those years are now invisible. Unless they book a room.
Riley admitted this was a problem and told me they were trying to come up with a plan. "After all," I said, "When you guys fall out of the favor because the private jetsters have moved on to The Next Big Thing, you might regret that you'd alienated us." He nodded in agreement. And then he sold the Inn.
So god knows if I'm ever going to dine at the new Inn. Every now and then I pick up the phone and try to get a reservation but the phone calls are getting farther apart. By the time the shine wears off of them, it might have already worn off of me. Still, it remains an interesting local phenomenon.
http://www.outsideonline.com/fitness/nutrition/Chef-Blaine-Wetzels-Quest-to-Become-the-Ultimate-Locavore.html
You see, once Blaine showed up with his ersatz Noma Pacific Northwest, it had become impossible to get a table--especially if you were a local. In their shortsightedness, they made it a prereq pretty much to book a room at the tiny Inn, which used to cost about $100-125 per night for one of maybe four rooms they had, but which were now joined by 12 others either newly built or cobbled together from nearby residences and cost $300 a night, such that the 16 rooms provided the 32 diners the restaurant now holds and a lot more income.
And such that the locals who helped keep The Willows afloat all those years are now invisible. Unless they book a room.
Riley admitted this was a problem and told me they were trying to come up with a plan. "After all," I said, "When you guys fall out of the favor because the private jetsters have moved on to The Next Big Thing, you might regret that you'd alienated us." He nodded in agreement. And then he sold the Inn.
So god knows if I'm ever going to dine at the new Inn. Every now and then I pick up the phone and try to get a reservation but the phone calls are getting farther apart. By the time the shine wears off of them, it might have already worn off of me. Still, it remains an interesting local phenomenon.
http://www.outsideonline.com/fitness/nutrition/Chef-Blaine-Wetzels-Quest-to-Become-the-Ultimate-Locavore.html