Wayside Cafe owners step up to save Olympia’s iconic Le Voyeur during pandemic

Mostly shuttered since March, downtown Olympia’s iconic Le Voyeur reopens Friday.

Wayside Café owners Kevin Rainsberry and Jamie Vulva swooped in to rescue the venerable bar, restaurant and all-ages performance space when the collective that had been running it since October 2019 was ready to give up.

It will be open only for takeout and only on Friday and Saturday evenings. “We just want to be able to pay the rent and the bills to keep it afloat until after COVID is done or manageable, and we feel safe being in a bar again,” Rainsberry told The Olympian. “If we weren’t doing that, it was going to just slowly die.”

And the duo couldn’t bear to let that happen.

“It’s always been my favorite bar in town,” Rainsberry said. “It’s the first place I ever came in Olympia, long before I lived here. I played a horrible show there, and I’ve seen a lot of good ones there since then.

“There’s nowhere else like it in Olympia,” Vulva added. “It’s a necessary fixture. It’s symbolic in a way for a lot of people, even some people who don’t go there. It’s a gathering place for a lot of people who don’t necessarily feel welcome elsewhere.”

It also was home to countless music shows, a variety of local performances, trivia contests and the weekly Vomity comedy night.

The new owners are far from the only fans of the space, which Ryan DiCrescenzo opened in 1997 and owned until last year, when a collective of his employees took over.

“I thought this wonderful punk refuge was a goner,” Kelsey Smith of Olympia posted on Facebook. “This is great news.”

“Le Voyeur offers vegan-friendly food, drunk-friendly drinks and punk-friendly entertainment,” according to The Stranger’s EverOut guide. “It’s also a good spot for some Olympia people-watching, as college kids and townies mix with K Records royalty and traveling crusties. Check the bathroom graffiti for some of the best radical political dialogue in town.”

In its new incarnation, the bar/restaurant — like the Wayside, which moved last month to the bright corner space at 500 Capitol Way S. — will serve only vegan food.

The menu has very little overlap with the Wayside’s, focusing heavily on Impossible Burgers, Field Roast frankfurters, Beyond Sausage brats and French fries, all with an array of toppings.

As at the Wayside, there are wings, but these are soy based, not the cauliflower taste-alikes for which the café has become well known. The Voyeur version is available with the same hot or barbecue sauces and a side of the Wayside’s classic ranch dressing or a new “bleu chz.”

“We’ll have a few of the same sauces,” Vulva said. “At Wayside, everything is made from scratch; at Le Voyeur that won’t necessarily be the case.”

One eye-catching way to have your vegan meat is animal style — which sounds like an oxymoron if you’re not familiar with the California-based chain In-N-Out Burger. It uses a Thousand-Island-like secret sauce on its burgers and animal-style fries.

“I absolutely love animal-style stuff,” Vulva said. “There are a number of people who have looked at the menu and caught the reference, and they’re really excited that they are able to get a vegan version of that.”

She and Rainsberry hope to keep the space going until a full reopening is possible.

While it might seem daunting for the duo to run not one but two restaurants during the pandemic, the owners said that task is actually easier now than it would have been pre-COVID.

“It feels more like an act of masochism than anything else,” Vulva said, “but this feels really important, and with Wayside having reduced hours, we have the ability to do this. We might as well try to save it.”

Le Voyeur

• Where: 404 Fourth Ave. E., Olympia
• Current hours: 4-8 p.m. Friday and Saturday for takeout only
• Want some? Order in person or by phone.
• More information: 360-943-5710, https://www.facebook.com/OlyVoyeur

The Wayside Café

• Where: 500 Capitol Way S., Olympia
• Current hours: 4-8 p.m. daily for takeout only
• Want some? Order in person or by phone.
• More information: 360-350-0233, http://thewaysidecafe.com

This story was originally published November 12, 2020 at 5:45 AM.