BY KENDALL HANSON
editor@kingstoncommunitynews.com
On April 9, Main Street Ale House in downtown Kingston celebrated the tenth anniversary of opening its doors for business. Owner Rohn Rutledge had frequently wondered if those doors would ever open.
“This was a long labor of love and I remember a lot of sleepless nights worrying if it would ever get to be open,” said Rutledge. “Would it make it financially? Would I realize my dream? It was stressful because the entire load was on me. But that just made me want it more and fight harder for it.”
At that point in 1999, Rutledge had devoted most all of his working life to the restaurant industry, beginning as a busboy at Hiram’s at the Lofts on Shilshole Bay in Ballard when he was just 14. “It was the greatest job in the world,” he recalled, “because I discovered my passion for customer service. My personality is just very suited toward making customers happy, and it gives me my greatest pleasure.”
Rutledge immersed himself in the industry and studied the successful owners. He learned to cook, to host, tend bar, wait tables, to “absorb as much as I could about the business from every aspect. Not just the front of the house but the back as well, and how it all came together and how each piece integrated to make a successful restaurant.”
Chance brought him to Poulsbo in 1997, but he would pass through Kingston almost daily as a commuter. “I spotted this old building about to fall over – the Town Tavern – and I began to dream about how to make it something unique,” he said.
In 1998, he learned the space was available for lease and put together a 26-page business plan. “I hadn’t realized there would be such demand for it, but what mattered most to the owners was that we had an idea which fit the town.”
The existing structure, originally built in 1896, had innumerable problems. The walls, for example, leaned six inches off vertical. The entire subfloor had rotted. “The only part of the original structure we were able to save was the beadboard ceiling,” said Rutledge.
Rutledge’s business plan had included his concept for the restaurant as well as a construction plan for what he wanted to do to the building. “My idea meant essentially we had to gut the building and start over. There are brand new steel studs in the walls, the subfloor is new, the hardwood floor, the roof – literally everything but the ceiling.”
The cost, he said, kept going up and up, but he was determined to find a way. “I really wanted two different concepts in this small space: A space for food and dining, and a cocktail lounge like you’ll often see in Seattle where it’s not a seedy room but a place where you want to come in. I wanted the lounge to have a speakeasy feel and become a gathering place.” It was important to me to have that ‘Cheers’ kind of vibe where everybody knows everybody. It sure turned into that.”
Rutledge also wanted entertainment to be a centerpiece of the lounge. Since opening, he said, Main Street Ale House has had at least four nights of music every week, sometimes five. “And always karaoke on Friday and Saturday nights. In ten years we’ve never missed having karaoke on those nights,” he said.
The focus on entertainment and music has brought people together, he said. “ It was important to me to have that ‘Cheers’ kind of vibe where everybody knows everybody. People have met her and gotten married, including myself.”
He met his wife Carin at the Ale House a little over six years ago. “Since then, she’s been involved in the restaurant practically since day one when we met. She’s cooked in the kitchen, she’s bartended, she’s waited tables, done paperwork – everything. She’s really been my partner for the last six-plus years here.” In fact, Carin is now the manager and executive chef for the couple’s restaurant, the Olympic Timber House, in Quilcene.
Although Main Street Ale House has been the site of so many memories, most residents think first of the Fourth of July parties at the restaurant. “The year after I opened,” Rutledge explained, “I heard that the concerts on the Fourth had stopped for various reasons. I had gotten to know a lot of musicians and bands, so I thought I’d try my hand at putting together a Fourth of July concert right in our parking lot.” He went to his neighbor at the Coffee Exchange for help, and together they sought sponsorship donations from other downtown businesses.
“People were very generous and helpted us with some of the cost of staging a small concert,” he said. “A local family donated a stage that they towed down behind a truck. We always had three live bands and would finish by watching the fireworks from the deck.” The concerts lasted for several years until the Port began to hold them again, but Rutledge said he is always ready to do it again if necessary.
Rutledge is still looking toward the future. “Mike Woodbury, a childhood friend who’s a contractor here, has helped me put together a plan to add a second story while keeping the restaurant open,” Rutledge said. Within that plan, the first floor could be devoted entirely to dining and the upper floor could be an expanded lounge with a small dance floor and performance stage. The downstairs deck could be enclosed and another deck built above it. Rutledge, however, has not decided to go ahead with the plan yet. “It’s always been cost prohibitive, but when the economy picks back up, who knows?”
Right now, he said, every penny counts. “Our most important job is to keep to standards we’ve set, keep our quality high, and not to cut back on portions. We’ll do more specials, I think. You’ll see more happy hour specials and half-price appetizers this year.”
The anniversary, he said, is generating its own momentum. “People have been sending in their photos and special memories and stories, so we’re compiling them into a scrapbook that we plan to keep on the bar, and then we’ll bring it out every year to let people see it,” he said.
When evening came on April 9, almost 100 customers showed up to help the Rutledges celebrate Main Street Ale House’s tenth anniversary. With that kind of loyalty, the next decade should fly by.
