“Stepping stones” is the phrase Tim Whitehouse Jr. uses to describe his career as a restaurateur.
Graduating from culinary school would be the first. Managing Myhre’s in Port Orchard would be the second. Purchasing small-venue Lumberjack’s in Buckley would the third, and the slightly larger KC’s Caboose in Sumner would be the fourth — though the latter was also a step backward when it closed due to plumbing problems.
But Whitehouse described his latest venture — building a new restaurant from the ground up in the former Andre’s Bar and Grill building — as a leap over several stones at once. It has three times the seating space and three times the staff as Lumberjack’s.
“There’s been a huge learning curve,” Whitehouse said. “The other restaurants I’ve bought were latchkey. They had their equipment in the building, ready to go. There was no equipment here … so I’ve had to design the kitchen line from the ground up.”
Whitehouse got the ball rolling on the Whitehouse Restaurant and Lounge in October, a week after KC’s Caboose closed. He had keys in hand in December and set his target opening date for Feb. 1 — though he now says Feb. 15 is a more likely, if still optimistic, goal.
As it stood Friday, the interior of the building appeared near-ready. The furniture had been delivered, but not placed, and the kitchen equipment hadn’t yet arrived. The kitchen presented a bit of a puzzle to Whitehouse. He walked through the empty space, stopping periodically to imagine what piece of equipment would fit most logically, and where.
“When you set up the line, you have the place where the empty plate begins, the place where the finished meal ends, and all the science in-between,” he said. “And it’s a matter of space and what you can achieve per square foot. Any restaurant has to look at how many square feet are available in their kitchen, and design it to bring in the max amount of revenue per square foot that they can.”
The menu will be made up of the usual suspects of American family cuisine — burgers, sandwiches with and without dips, salads and more — with an eye toward quality.
Whitehouse, a trained chef, will be intimately familiar with his kitchen; he’ll be managing the kitchen directly, at least when the restaurant opens.
In fact, as the name suggests, Whitehouse Restaurant and Lounge will be a family affair. His mother will be the bar manager, fulfilling a promise from his childhood.
Whitehouse wanted to open a restaurant as early as the age of 12; he recently rediscovered a letter his mother had written him from that time, lauding his goal and promising to work with him in the family business. He said he was happy to have the close tie in the bar, an area of the restaurant business that benefits from a high level of trust.
The restaurant has segregated bar and general dining areas to comfortably accommodate both night life and meal-only patrons.
The bar will feature darts, pool and skeeball, a game Whitehouse has seen become popular at other drinking establishments.
Whitehouse has been well-occupied preparing his namesake restaurant for a February opening. But even with one eye and both hands on the short-term, he’s keeping his other eye on the future: should this location prove a success, he plans to make it the flagship of a multi-location franchise.
