Brewery, food truck, pickleball venue and Panera all have plans in Bellingham
Here’s a roundup of recent retail activity, focusing on openings and updates on soon-to-open businesses in Whatcom County:
▪ The Galley Fish & Chips has acquired a second food truck and is using it to offer seafood on Bellingham’s waterfront.
The second food truck is on Roeder Avenue, near All American Marine and Ponderosa Beer & Books. Owner Steven Engels said the original food truck at 6069 Hannegan Road has done well, allowing the company to set up a second location.
The menu on the waterfront will focus on fish-and-chips and cod sandwiches. The menu also has a Kraken burger, which involves deep-fried calamari.
The waterfront food truck is open 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesday through Thursday, staying open an hour later on Friday and Saturday and noon to 4 p.m. on Sunday.
▪ Volli Bellingham, which has built a 24,000-square-foot pickleball facility near Whatcom Community College, is having an open house this Labor Day weekend.
The open house is from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sept. 3-5 at 4190 Cordata Parkway. Along with eight pickleball courts, the facility will have a golf simulator, corn hole, darts and shuffleboard.
The facility will have a grand opening a few weeks after the open house event, said John Oldham, chief operating officer for the company.
▪ Stemma Brewing is making plans to grow. The company announced on social media that it has acquired a building at 1019 Iowa St., which is near the brewery.
What they plan on doing with the newly acquired property wasn’t announced because it is still in the planning stage, but the post said further updates are coming soon.
▪ Banter Hospitality is getting closer to opening its third restaurant. A social media post showed work being done in the former Fairhaven Pizza spot, which the company owned before closing it in March.
At the time of the Fairhaven Pizza closure, owner Emile Diffley said he wanted to take the restaurant spot in a different direction.
The other two Banter restaurants are in downtown Bellingham, known as Banter Cafe and Banter After Hours.
▪ Panera Bread hasn’t officially announced an opening date for its restaurant that’s going into Bellingham’s Sunset Square, but it is working through the permitting process. It recently applied for sign permits to go along with the remodeling permits.
▪ Sam Milne is moving forward with plans to open Larrabee Lager Company, but it will be in a new spot.
Milne said costs for remodeling the former Village Lighting building on North State Street became too high, so he opted for a new location: 4151 Meridian St., in the retail center that’s home to Burlington department store.
The project is still in the construction bid stage, so Milne doesn’t have a timeline in place yet for an opening date.
Milne was the head brewer at Kulshan Brewery before learning more about his craft by training in Chicago and Germany. He moved back to the area last fall and, drawing inspiration from his recent brewing experiences, is planning a brewery that focuses on lagers and ales.
▪ In “remaining open” news, Katz! Coffee & Used Books in Lynden is under new ownership.
According to its Facebook business page, Cutzi Simiano Jobes and Justin Jobes took over the business on Thursday, Sept. 1. The business was put up for sale earlier this summer as Ken and Sherri Stap decided to retire after 35 years of running the bookstore, which has been around 75 years.
