Longtime Bellingham business owner ready to retire; new cafe planned on Lakeway
Here’s a roundup of recent retail activity in Whatcom County:
▪ After decades of serving customers while cultivating plants, Marcy Plattner is retiring from the Garden Spot Nursery and selling the business to her longtime employee Paige Lanham.
Plattner has been in the area selling plants since the 1980s, starting with pop-up stores around the Sunnyland neighborhood. By 1991 she had settled in the Garden Spot’s current location on 900 Alabama St., which is near Trader Joe’s. She started off selling Christmas trees before adding on all the garden plants and accessories that she has today.
For many people, the Garden Spot has become a place not only to stock up on plants and equipment, to but take a bit of a break from the stresses of everyday life.
“I think a lot of people come here because it feels good, checking to see if there is something new,” Plattner said.
Plattner is happy to have created a place that leads to a good experience for customers, saying that she wanted a place with the kind of feeling people get at certain other stores, like a book shop.
When she got started in the early 1990s, Bellingham was smaller and business was much slower than today. She said hiring good people helped build the Garden Spot to the kind of business she wanted.
Plattner said Lantham is the perfect fit to continue running the nursery. She’s been an employee at the Garden Spot for eight years and is a Western Washington University graduate.
“She’s smart, knows horticulture and I know there will be a strong heart and soul here,” Plattner said in a phone interview.
Plattner doesn’t plan any immediate changes at the nursery, which employs 12-15 people depending on the time of year.
“Marcy is a hard act to follow, but I’m excited to be welcomed into this community,” Paige said in a news release. “I intend to carry on her traditions and keep this amazing legacy alive.”
Plattner’s last day at Garden Spot is Wednesday, Dec. 30, and is encouraging customers to stop by and say goodbye. With its mostly outdoor setting, the Garden Spot has been able to stay open at some capacity during the pandemic.
For those that don’t catch her before Dec. 30, people will probably have many chances to see Plattner at the Garden Spot as a customer. She said her own garden is a bit overgrown and is looking forward to getting it back into shape.
▪ A state liquor license application was submitted to put in a new cafe in the Lakeway Center near Whole Foods. The proposed business name is Saigon Cafe and the applicant is Douglas Metzger. It is planning to go into the former Rhodes Cafe breakfast spot, which shut down during the COVID-19 pandemic and never reopened.
▪ A state liquor license application was also submitted for a taproom/restaurant at 2044 Main St. in Ferndale. The proposed business name is The Cave and the applicant is Leslie Marie Berendsen.
▪ Bellingham fans of Dick’s Drive-In burgers will have to wait a little longer for a visit from the Seattle restaurant’s food truck. The company announced on its website that it is still working out some details and is now planning to visit Bellingham in early 2021.
Bellingham was among the top five cities that garnered enough votes to get a visit from the new food truck and was expected to visit sometime in December.
The drive-in has been around since 1954 and currently has seven locations in the Seattle area. The company also announced that it is planning to add a new drive-in in Seattle’s Eastside area.
▪ The Whatcom County Think Local First Gift Cards have been strong sellers this month.
Since the campaign was announced at the end of November, more than $195,000 in gift cards were sold through mid-December, said Amy Vergillo, communications manager at Sustainable Connections. The goal was to sell $225,000 by the end of the year.
People buying the card can write personal messages to send to family, friends and colleagues by email, text or physical copy. It is redeemable at more than 220 local businesses.
Vergillo said they’ve adjusted the gift card purchase levels to include $10 cards because there’s a lot of interest in purchasing them as small gifts for others, including teachers, nannies and post office workers.
“Lots of employers are purchasing them for all their employees, too,” Vergillo said in an email.
▪ Tina and Troy Clark announced on Facebook that after 27 years they have turned over ownership of the Bellingham Grocery Outlet to their daughter, Chelsie Acton and her husband, Brett. The bargain store is at 1600 Ellis St., near Whatcom Creek.
The Grocery Outlet chain has more than 270 independently operated stores in Washington, California, Idaho, Nevada, Oregon and Pennsylvania.
▪ The Cabin Tavern in downtown Bellingham has applied for a permit to build a parklet for outdoor dining. The tavern at 307 W. Holly St. temporarily closed after the stricter pandemic restrictions started last month.
▪ A Bellingham building permit application was submitted to do some major remodeling work in the mixed-used building at 700 W. Holly St. Once home to Pacific Marine Exchange before it closed in 2014, the building is scheduled for a $1.6 million remodel of the retail space and the upstairs apartment units, according to the application.
▪ A Bellingham building permit application was submitted to build a three-story self-storage building at 1155 Lincoln St., near the Lakeway Fred Meyer store.
This story was originally published December 19, 2020 at 9:00 AM.
