If you haven’t heard, we recently got a review from the New York Times , and things have been a little busier than normal because of it! Hence my delays in a newsletter, you'll have to forgive me.

We’re all very humbled and excited to be included in so many great restaurants the NYT chooses to review, and no, we weren’t the first in Seattle, even if the Seattle Times claimed so (before the necessary corrections were made!).

Since things are a little busier than usual, and we’ve heard from some of our guests that getting those desired reservations can be a bit harder than usual, I wanted to give our loyal readers a few tips on getting in.

-First off, our standing rail is always available for last minute walk ins. We offer a 10% discount for those who enjoy a more Spanish style dining experience

-While the 7pm reservations slots fill up quickly on weekends, there’s often space for reservations, and walk ins, after 8 pm.

-We rarely fully book the restaurant with reservations, we often have our split counter, solo seats, and one of our two outside tables unreserved, so never be shy about walking in

-If you’re good at planning, reservations are rarely filled up two or three weeks out. So if you’re coveting that 7:30 Friday reservation slot, plan in advance and it’s yours.

Since we’ve been filling up our evenings quickly, we wanted to offer another opportunity for people to come in, especially our Industry friends..

We’ve decided to open for Monday’s starting June 15th, with an exciting twist. Jason Stratton, the James Beard nominated Chef with a lengthy resume, has been helping us on the floor, but I’ve convinced him to cook at Off Alley on Mondays. He’ll be contributing a few dishes to our menu, and we couldn’t be more excited to work together culinarily. So one night only, you’ll find Jason spending his day in the kitchen with a few of his creations mixed in with ours. It’ll be the same Off Alley experience as our other days of the week, just with a few more unique and rare dishes floating around, along with 10% off food for Restaurant folks.

We know there’s not a lot of options for dining around Seattle on Mondays, along with even fewer options here in South Seattle.  We thought this was a good way of providing a need for our community during summers months, along with a way for more of our industry friends a chance to come say hi. For now, we’ll be running this for summer months, and see how things go in the fall! So let’s have some fun!

Speaking of fun, you have all been asking about our next collaboration dinner, and very specifically, when we’re bringing Keiji Tsukasaki of LTD Edition  back for an Izakaya take over. Well, we’ve decided on our 6th year anniversary, Saturday 8/1. We’re working out the details, but because so many people tried to come our first time, we’re going to extend our hours and open up early. For our readers, you’ll get first access to reservations via our newsletter so keep an eye peeled on your inbox, because once we open those reservations up they’ll go fast.

Secondly, we all had a ton of fun with our Off Alley Supper club. With the onslaught of business from the NYT review, I’ve had to dedicate and focus my energies on normal restaurant service and running the business. I’m excited to start them up again, so for anyone who’s sent me an e-mail asking about them, I haven’t forgotten about you! You’re on my wait list, and I will be reaching out to people on a first e-mailed first response basis, once we get the supper clubs back going once we can find some more support in the kitchen, we need one more cook!

We’re excited for a busy summer, with the bounty of our farmers markets and a whole group of new farmers and purveyors bringing us the most fun and unusual products, hell we sold out of Lamb Fry’s in a day! More testicles in peoples mouths!

We hope you’ll join us on our patio for the nice weather and warm evenings, pop into the restaurant when the sun sets, try something new with us, and encourage a little Joie de Vivre amongst yourself and others.

Now, for me to stand on top of my milk crate for a few minutes.

You may have read my little comment in the Seattle Times  that I’m a little less than impressed with the James Beard Foundation as of late. For a non profit, they really seemed to be focused on money, and generating revenue for themselves. I can't say I've felt, or seen any support from them. Well, outside of what artists refer to as "exposure", but our recognition did nothing for our business.

This comment came briefly before the James Beard Foundation announced they were partnering with AMEX/Resy (who purchased Tock) , which I’ve already spoken about why I’ve distanced myself from them. AMEX is creating monopolies within reservations systems, and using this to leverage people to gain more points on AMEX cards to get the most exclusive hard to get reservations. This hurts businesses as AMEX has higher interchange rates  compared to any other credit cards, and we lose an additional  .25 cents to .75 cents per 100 dollars spent, which really adds up for any small business trying to survive, on top of already very high base interchange fees.

JBF has a motto “good food for good”, with a mission statement of supporting independent restaurants. So, you may understand why, from a business perspective, I don’t think the JBF is truly interested in supporting small restaurants, along with these awards that link with these corporate sponsors, encourage you to purchase their products to be considered. For those of us who don’t like monopolies and corporate giants, that often leaves us left behind. More and more, it feels like you have to put quarters into a casino slot machine just to hope to get lucky enough to be able to pay your bills, and I’m frankly sick of it.

That’s not to say the foundation is all bad, and I understand non profits often need corporate sponsors in order to operate, however this is a partnership that isn't good for anyone in our industry and I won't sit here idly saying "this is fine".

The foundation has in the past done incredible work, and highlights Chef's hard work, often creating huge boosts for small unknown chefs nationally, along with education and seminars around food and agriculture. Many very talented chefs careers shifted drastically because of the foundation.

However it feels as if this is a shift to a cash grabbing corporate scheme. For me, I don't see how this will do any good for anyone outside of lining certain peoples pockets, and highlighting restaurants exclusively within Resy/Tock platforms, whom take AMEX.

So, hardly a surprise to me. We still won't be taking AMEX, and you won't find us on those platforms. Nor, do I expect to be included in a JBF list again. But then again, my recognition does hang in our bathroom, so take that as you like.

Evan Leichtling

Chef / Owner / Frequent Dishwasher