We’ve discussed the name and the menu, but before the new restaurant at California/Edmunds opens this Saturday, we thought you might want to meet the people behind it.

Story and photos by Mary Sheely
Reporting for West Seattle Blog

Yaz Faour is so energetic he’s practically vibrating as he darts about his soon-to-open restaurant, Table 35, at the corner of California SW and SW Edmunds.

“Let me give you a tour,” he says in Montreal-accented English, a souvenir of his birthplace – he moved to the Pacific Northwest six years ago to help his brother run Salute of Bellevue, the Italian restaurant they sold several months ago. “We’re doing a facelift; we’re not changing the layout of the place.”

Table 35 retains much of the décor of the site’s former occupant, Ama Ama, but Faour points out a new row of metal beads that now separate dining and bar areas – the beads become a slow wave of glowing color when flooded with tiny lights. He motions toward a newly christened piano area: “Here there will be background music,” he says. He demonstrates how more colored lights (which TR Professional is installing) will accent an existing textured wall. The effect is rather swank, even a little dazzling. But though Table 35 will look beautiful, it’s obvious that Faour wants his restaurant to be anything but stuffy, especially when he explains how it got its name.

“In our old restaurant, table 35 was the family table,” he says. “We used to bring people to sit with us and sometimes we became best friends with them. So we said, ‘When we open the next restaurant, it’s going to be Table 35.’”

Talking to Faour and Sara Stewart, who will be Table 35’s combination marketing person, PR executive, and bartender, you get the impression that they want the entire place to be a de facto family table.

“I want to attract everyone, to be honest with you,” Faour says. “I don’t want only families. I don’t want only singles. I like varieties. I don’t mind to go to a place and have a drink with my wife and have a family next to me.”

He sums it up: “Everybody. Everyone who would like to come and have a good time and have good food is welcome.”

As with any restaurant, food will be the main draw. What Stewart calls “our amazing, super-diverse menu” drew responses that were just as diverse when we posted a link to it earlier this week. Comments ranged from “I think the menu looks fabulous… something for everyone” to “There is such a thing as *too* ambitious when it comes to a restaurant menu.” Stewart and Faour took the reactions in stride.

“We want variety for people,” Faour explains. “When you come in, if you want pasta, you can have it. If you want sushi, you can have it. And we have the chefs that can do that for you. We have someone who is going to be doing the sushi. We’re buying our fish always fresh from the market, so we’re prepared.”

The menu didn’t come into existence by happenstance – employees taste-tested everything, and plenty of items didn’t make the cut.

“We had a table in the kitchen and 10, 15 people around tasting, each has a comment about things,” Faour says. “We changed a lot of things depending on what people thought.”

“We’re adding some vegetarian dishes,” Stewart says. “I was talking to the chef today about having gluten-free bread products and other menu options. And the chef also really wanted to emphasize that if there are custom orders, he will do everything he can to accommodate them.”

Though Stewart refers to “chef” singular, there are actually three: Sam Faour, former chef at Salute of Bellevue; Bernard Wascher, a Bellevue native who trained with French Cordon Bleu chef Kirt Marinof, spent six years as a chef in Hawaii, and owned his own restaurant in Idaho; and Chris Smith, who has worked with the Faours for the past four years.

“You can see Bernard’s influence on the food, the Hawaiian influence,” says Faour, “and the Asian fusion touch to it, too. And of course the Mediterranean is from my brother.”

The love for variety crops up yet again when Faour discusses the planned entertainment, some of which he already tested with success at Salute.

“We’re going to have jazz bands, a piano player. We’re going to have opera singers perform. We’re going to have a show every week, a different show, variety of things. And a couple friends of mine own a dance studio and they might come and perform and teach people to dance, like ballroom dance. And it’s all free entertainment,” he says.

Sounds a little breathless, but it’s not going to be an over-the-top, can’t-hear-yourself think kind of show. Music will only be in the evenings, and is meant to accent the dining experience, Stewart says, not turn the place into a concert venue. And schedules will be posted in advance, giving patrons the option to dine on nights when the entertainment sounds the most appealing.

“It’s such a different concept than what West Seattle currently has,” Stewart says. “I think it will be interesting to see how people will react to that. I think it will be positive. I think it will be good and popular and different.”

Stewart lives in West Seattle, and first met Faour when walking her dog past the building. “We wanted to hire people from West Seattle and she came the next day with her resume,” Faour recalls.

But what made Faour, who currently lives in Bellevue, decide to open the restaurant here?

“We used to come here a lot in the summertime, and I like the area,” he says. “It’s really nice to feel this way – people would rather be here to support the community than go to Bellevue or downtown Seattle. So many people I notice passing by say, ‘We like this area and we want to come here, we want to eat here. We don’t want to go to other places, we want to stay in the neighborhood.’ This is a nice thing to have and we wanted to be part of this. Eventually we want to move here.”

Does he have any qualms about taking over a location that has seen two restaurants – Ama Ama and Ovio Bistro – come and go in the past four years?

“I think it’s irrelevant,” Faour says flatly. “Could be so many reasons [that restaurants go out of business]. I think it’s a great location and our concept is new to this area. We’re going to bring music and we’re going to bring good food, very affordable to people, and I think that’s very important with this bad economy. Our main courses are between 12 to 20 dollars tops. You’re going to be able to have an eight-ounce beef tenderloin for 19 dollars. You know, I don’t think you can get that anywhere.”

Except from your potential new friends at Table 35.

Table 35 opens to the public at 10 am this Saturday (January 9).