Reporter ISSAQUAH | SAMMAMISH
Friday, July 20, 2012
www.issaquahreporter.com
Simple, Soulful Fair
Glowing results Survey shows Sammamish residents are happy, feel safe BY KEVIN ENDEJAN KENDEJAN@ISSAQUAHREPORTER.COM
Boarding House restaurant is a 39-year tradition BY CELESTE GRACEY CGRACEY@ISSAQUAHREPORTER.COM
P
assing a white fire place and fleur-de-lis wallpaper, a gentleman sits his spouse at what appears to be an old kitchen table, before returning to the worn wood counter. Two shortcakes, towering with thick whipped cream and brilliant strawberries, wait for him. His wife has already begun on her soup and fresh baked bread, when he returns. Lips puckering with excitement, he says, “This is what we come here for.” Everything at the Boarding House Restaurant reckons nostalgia for home – grandfather clocks, food made 10 a.m.-5 p.m., Mon.from scratch Sat.; 10 a.m.-4 p.m., Sun. and unbeat425-392-1100, boardable desserts. ing_house.webs.com For its loyal 317 NW Gilman Blvd. customers, #7, Issaquah the simplicity Cash only, $7-$10 outmatches sophistication. The beauty is in the tradition, and the Boarding House has been Issaquah’s tradition for 39 years. Appropriately centered in the Anderson house at Gilman Village, the historic home with its stained glass door and church pews maintains its old world charm. “It has its own soul,” says co-owner Jene Kramier. Although the restaurant’s pastry chef, she also runs front of house. When she’s not breaking change in a wooden cash drawer, she’s making rounds with a coffee pot. Four women started the business with a handful of good recipes. When Kramier took over 11 years ago, she learned past owners had altered them. She pared down the menu, brought back the original recipes and added a few of her own, including the shortcake. She admires the creativity behind the first owners. The business would have to close if it
Boarding House
Jene Kramier, co-owner of the Boarding House, came up with her own recipe for shortcake, pictured right. CELESTE GRACEY, Issaquah & Sammamish Reporter
ever lost its recipe for potato dill soup, she says. The thin cut apples in the crisp aren’t gooey sweet, relying instead on a heavenly topping, which has such unexpected ingredients it even surprised Kramier. Want a whole pie? Drop by your plate the day before. Their signature salad is a mouthwatering amalgam of flavors, including housemade three-bean salad. Kramier and Mary Anne Mizokawa, the second owner who prefers her spot behind the counter, did make a few additions to the menu, especially with the sandwiches. They roast their own turkey and added a BLT with guacamole. The pair began shopping local and organic, before it was cool. Regularly hitting Issaquah’s farmers market, they even make annual trips to Eastern Washington to find peaches for shortcake.
An insurance adjuster, it had been Kramier’s dream to open a restaurant since graduating high school. When she heard the Boarding House was in trouble, she scoped it out for nine months, before deciding to buy. “It needed a rescue,” she said. “We had to figure out how to save it.” She replaced the wallpaper, which reckoned the ‘90s farmhouse themes, with a French country look. The menu and its reputation for being a warm place made up the difference. “For them, it’s a wonderful feeling,” she said. “This really is a gathering place.”
The results are in, and Sammamish residents appear to be overwhelmingly pleased with the direction the city is headed. In a cell phone and land line survey conducted in mid May by Bellevue-based Hebert Research Inc., a sample of 400 residents returned high marks across the board. “This is pretty remarkable when you’re talking about a broad base of the public, to achieve this level of Jim Hebert homogeneity,” said Jim Hebert, president of Hebert Research Inc. The survey, which is conducted every two years, compared results from the same 32 questions asked in 2008. In nearly all cases, percentages were up. More than 88 percent of respondents said they either strongly agreed or somewhat agreed that they were satisfied with the overall direction of the city, up from 78 percent in 2008. More than 85 percent strongly agreed or somewhat agreed they were satisfied with the city council and administration, up from 74 percent in 2008. “The survey really showed that the citizens are overall very happy with the way things are going, that we’re doing things right,” Mayor Tom Odell said. “There still are some areas that we need to work on, there’s always room for improvement.” Citizens indicated they felt SEE SURVEY, 12