Hardware Store refreshes for late-January return

Published 1:30 am Tuesday, January 13, 2026

The Hardware Store Restaurant has long been the kind of place where the island’s small-town rhythms play out in public: birthday brunches, ferry-day lunches, reunion dinners, a warm booth on a gray afternoon.

Last week, the island institution went dark — briefly — to get ready for what its owners and new operating partner describe as a familiar place with a fresh lift.

Vashon’s iconic gathering spot closed temporarily beginning Jan. 5 for dining room updates and menu and recipe redevelopment.

They plan to reopen by the end of January, keeping the comfort-food staples and add seasonal touches that put local ingredients front and center.

Behind the new touches is chef Nick Green, the restaurant’s new operating partner, who joined the team in April.

“The Hardware Store Restaurant is truly the heart of Vashon,” Green said. “I’m deeply inspired by the historical significance of this building and honored to help steward its next chapter.”

The restaurant, built in 1890 as Vashon’s first commercial building and listed on the National Register of Historic Places, was transformed into a restaurant in 2005.

Current owners Rob and Janie Andrews will remain, while Green steps into a combined role as chef and general manager — a hospitality operator tasked with sharpening both the food and the feel of the space.

Green, a Seattle native with nearly two decades in kitchens and dining rooms, brings a resume that runs from the James Beard Award-winning Willows Inn on Lummi Island — where he served as chef de cuisine — to a year in Kyoto working at the Michelin-starred Kichisen, to Seattle’s Café Juanita and most recently a regional chef role with Noble House Hotels & Resorts overseeing five properties across Southern California, according to a press release.

What’s he doing on Vashon, one might wonder?

For Green, this small, wooded, nature-forward island is familiar terrain after years spent cooking on Lummi Island.

He said Vashon’s environment-forward sensibility is exactly what he wants to lean into — with menu changes that track the seasons and spotlight what’s growing locally and what’s coming out of Northwest waters.

“I love the community out here,” Green said. “I was just so blown away by the island and the vibe and downtown.”

Green said he was drawn not only to the island’s energy but to the building itself — the kind of space that carries a century of use in its bones.

“It’s just such a great community-facing business,” Green said.

He said he was drawn to what the building represents to the island — and to the space itself, with its quirky, historic character and beauty. “We’re really just accentuating the history of the space,” Green said.

That affection is part of why the January closure is focused as much on ease as on change. Green said the goal is to make the dining room more welcoming without sanding off the charm.

“This restaurant has been in business for 20 years,” Green said. “I know that they made some updates over the years and things like that, but I think we kind of agreed that it would be nice to make the space a little more comfortable for the guests.”

In the months since he arrived, Green has already helped shape some of the restaurant’s newer energy.

This summer, the restaurant introduced The Yard, a laid-back beer garden and outdoor gathering spot that serves island-inspired cocktails, boozy slushies and smoked meat sandwiches, according to the release.

The Yard has hosted trivia nights, live music and late-night DJs, and can double as an outdoor venue for private events.

Green said he hopes the indoor-outdoor space becomes a near year-round anchor for the restaurant — a place for programming that fits into the island’s robust arts and culture scene and feels at home among Vashon’s music and community events.

On the menu, the changes are meant to be noticeable but not jarring: additions that expand what the restaurant can do, without taking away what regulars count on.

“What locals and visitors love about this place isn’t changing — the menu favorites remain and the spirit endures,” he said.

Several additions include dry-aged steaks featuring grass-fed Angus beef from a small, family-operated ranch in Montana; fresh, seasonally driven seafood; an in-house sourdough bread program; and an expanded beverage program with craft cocktails and a Northwest-focused wine list.

The restaurant also plans continued sourcing from island farmers, purveyors and producers, alongside events and collaborations.

Green said seafood is a priority — a natural fit for a restaurant on an island in Puget Sound.

“We’re in an amazing area for that,” he said, adding that diners should expect specials built around oysters, king salmon and local clams.

“We’re just tapping into the wealth of what’s here,” Green said.

That means more close attention to what’s coming out of the ground on Vashon, too — and more intentional use of local vendors and the Vashon farmers market.

“If you’re not cooking seasonally, you probably shouldn’t even be cooking,” Green said.

In Green’s career, the seasonal instinct was sharpened in an island kitchen. He spent five years at the Willows Inn, from 2012 to 2017, he said — a restaurant that was once among the most globally celebrated in the region and later closed in 2022 after lawsuits and allegations of workplace abuse and harassment became public.

Green said the controversy started “years after I left.”

He describes his time there as formative: a hyper-seasonal restaurant that closed in winter, foraged ingredients and drew from an island farm — an approach that pushed him to refine technique, timing and restraint.

During the winter months, Green began spending time in Japan, which he calls his “favorite place in the world,” eventually working in Kyoto at Kichisen after leaving the Willows.

Later, the scale and logistics of hotel and resort operations at Noble House expanded his management experience.

He moved back to Seattle in 2023, he said, and soon learned The Hardware Store was looking for new leadership and an operator for its next phase. For Green and his wife, he said, the fit felt immediate.

Now, the challenge is a familiar one in small communities where a restaurant is not just a business but a shared space: how to evolve without alienating the people who have made it part of their routines.

Green and the Andrews are betting that the answer is to keep the restaurant’s core intact — the warmth, the welcome, the classics — while tightening the experience around seasonality and hospitality.

The Hardware Store also has expanded its catering offerings, according to a press release, responding to what it described as growing demand for weddings, private gatherings and group celebrations on the island.

When it reopens, the restaurant plans to continue operating seven days a week, with weekend brunch, a daily happy hour and future opportunities for expanded breakfast offerings, the release said.

An exact reopening date has not yet been announced.