Budd Bay Cafe marks 30 years of waterfront dining by reintroducing a favorite dish
First, let’s get to the food: A former popular dish at Olympia’s Budd Bay Cafe will return next month to help celebrate 30 years of business.
Co-owner Pam Oates said the dish — chicken Mediterranean — will be “auditioned” in August to see whether it once again finds a permanent spot on the menu. What is it? A combination of spinach fettuccine, feta cheese, artichoke hearts, kalamata olives and chicken, served with an ouzo cream sauce.
Oates called it the ultimate “comfort food.”
You might apply the term “comfort” to the restaurant itself, which has occupied a well-known spot overlooking Budd Inlet since August 1988, and makes an effort to treat customers like family. The waterfront restaurant has employed thousands over its 30 years, including about 100 employees this summer, Oates said.
Before becoming co-owner and general manager, Oates worked at the restaurant. She managed the business when Patrick Knutson bought it 17 years ago. She wasn’t a partner then, but over time she bought out Knutson’s other partners to become co-owner. She and Knutson also are partners at River’s Edge, a restaurant at Tumwater Valley Golf Course.
“I love the restaurant business,” said Oates, who once spent six years waiting tables and tending bar in the U.S. Virgin Islands. “I like the pace, the socializing. You’re paid to go to a cocktail party every night.”
Budd Bay is known for its seafood — it serves salmon seven different ways, Oates said — but it’s also known for steak. What would Pam get if she were dining at Budd Bay? She’d start with a crab cocktail and a glass of chardonnay, then move on to a New York steak with bleu cheese crumbles and tomato slices. And for her meal she’d switch to red wine.
Budd Bay has survived a lot in the past 30 years, the Great Recession and the Nisqually earthquake among them. But Oates said people keep coming back for the location, either to sit outside on a warm day, or to dine indoors and watch the rain come down over a bowl of clam chowder.
Employees, too, have remained loyal to Budd Bay, such as assistant general manager Linnea Bell, who showed up years ago at age 17, a troubled teen and a graduate of Thurston County’s Drug Court.
Bell, now in her 30s, was busy working on the employee schedule when she spoke with an Olympian reporter.
“I’m not sure what they saw in me,” she said about the owners, “but they gave me an opportunity and now I’m running the business for them.”
Budd Bay Cafe
- Owners: Pam Oates and Patrick Knutson
- Location: 525 Columbia St. NW, Olympia
- Online: www.buddbaycafe.com
- Do you have what it takes to wait tables? The keys to being a good server, according to Oates: You must be friendly, reliable, efficient, punctual and be able to sell.
- Other anniversary plans: To mark 30 years, Budd Bay plans to give away prizes, such as jewelery from Kluh Jewelers. It also wants to organize a reunion of former employees.
- Did you know? Budd Bay also caters and delivers food via Uber eats. Knutson runs a restaurant in Federal Way called Billy McHale’s.
This story was originally published July 19, 2018 at 2:25 PM.