Month: March 2011

The West Seattle Herald just published this great story about the success and planned second location of Renton’s “A Terrible Beauty”. This outstanding downtown pub has been drawing larger and larger crowds of diners and minglers, as the venue has become increasingly widely known for their great food, engaging staff, frequent live-music, and entertaining vibe. They are open to people of all ages during dining hours, and they become an over-21 popular nightspot in the evening hours.

For those who have wondered, they take their unusual name “A Terrible Beauty” from that “other person” that can steal your heart away. (As in “a terrible beauty stole my husband”)

Cathy and I dine here often, and it is a favorite among many of our friends. Below is a snap-shot from one of our visits.

Congratulations to owners Jenna Shannon Garvey-O’Brien and Paddy O’Brien for their tremendous success. They deserve our gratitude for bringing additional fun to downtown and stimulation our economy. They also deserve sincere thanks for their strong commitment to the community– they are frequent fundraisers for those in need.

General Manager Robert Morrow welcomes customers to the new Panera Bread restaurant at the Landing. Mr. Morrow comes to us from the Gig Harbor Panara Bread location, and he reports that he is very impressed by Renton.

Renton’s new Panera Bread restaurant celebrated it’s opening with a “bread breaking” ceremony today –instead of the traditional ribbon cutting.

The inviting and aromatic bread-sandwich-pastry-beverage business has hosted large crowds of diners from the first hours of it’s opening last Friday morning. And don’t be discouraged by the line when you go there to eat… general Manager Robert Morrow assures me his staff work to see that orders are taken within five minutes. They use a pager system that allows you to place your order and then sit down at your favorite table in their sunny dining room– the pager alerts you when your order is ready for pickup at the counter.

Cathy and I had a great lunch at this restaurant yesterday, and more great snacks there today during the opening celebration. We will be going back often. The business is a great addition to Renton and the Landing.

Susan Bressler from The Renton Patch was on-hand to cover the festivities, and has further details HERE in her latest article. I was particularly excited to hear about the arrangement the restaurant has made to donate it’s excess bread to local feeding programs… Susan will be covering this further in a future article.

Here are a few more photos from today:

Talented, friendly staff and so many bread choices!…

My wife Cathy and friends having fun today at Panera Bread

My Mother as a graduate student in college, around 1957.

My loving Mom, a beautiful artist, teacher and Master of history who nurtured four of us Corman kids in a home overflowing with joy and laughter, is nearing the end of her battle with Alzheimer’s.

I’ve been having dreams about Mom lately; in the latest one she was standing at an easel painting while I was on the floor building with blocks and Lincoln logs. This was a pretty common scene in our home in Livermore California in the 1960s.

My family and I are not ready to say goodbye to Mom, but we know we will have to soon. She has been having difficulty eating and drinking. Please keep us in your prayers.

Here is a little more information about my Mom and Dad. (Dad passed 15 years ago).

At last night’s Committee of the Whole meeting we went over several major topics, including garbage and recycling, a federal grant for additional fire department staffing, the Strander Boulevard Extension from Renton to Tukwila, and Economic Development updates and emerging issues.

I’m really proud of our city staff, and I want to communicate about several of these items in the near future; better still, Jenny Manning from the Renton Patch will make it easier. She was at the meeting, and she has already covered the discussion on the Landing in great detail. Among the questions answered last night, and reported in the Renton Patch, were “when will Dicks and Panera Bread open.”

Click here to read the Renton Patch article about updates at the Landing . Then keep checking back for updates here and in Renton Patch for other economic development updates, such as activities in downtown, as well as stories on some of the other topics mentioned above.

Kenny and Anastasia Corman pose in front of an old-growth stump near May Creek in Renton
Virtually all the evidence of Renton’s old-growth forests has disappeared over the last hundred years. Logging was a big part of our city’s history, and around a century ago all of Renton’s big trees were cut for lumber. It’s easy to forget that the big trees we see in Renton now, such as the 80-year old firs that tower over my backyard, are really just juveniles. Douglas Fir trees and Western Red Cedars can keep growing for 800 years or more.

There is at least one ancient Cedar stump about a half mile from Kennydale Hall, which reminds us how big our native forests were. This stump is located at the confluence of Honey Creek and May Creek.

Hikers can get there by parking near Kennydale Memorial Hall and following NE 27th St eastward to the closed “Devils Elbow Road”. Walk Devils Elbow road down to the point it crosses Honey Creek, and then follow it about 50 feet up the other side. There is a rough foot-trail which will allow hikers to generally track Honey Creek down to May Creek (the trail is on Renton-owned public land.) As you get near May Creek, the main trail turns westward; at this point look for a smaller path to the right that heads north directly towards May Creek. The stump can be found where this smaller trail intersects May Creek.

Here are a couple historic pictures of logging in our area: The top one is near Panther Lake, and the bottom one is in Kennydale. Both show how large the native trees were.

The sources for the pictures are here and here.

Mayor Law is asking King County Executive Dow Constantine to help us raise the priority of protecting Renton’s bridges when creating habitat for fish on the Cedar River. The Mayor’s letter is attached below, and it adds emphasis and additional details to a request previously transmitted by our Public Works Director in a letter I covered in this journal entry (which includes pictures). Mayor Law points out again that expensive maintenance and extremely high economic risk are being created by logjams formed of washed-out woody debris that has been intentionally chained together with logging chains by King County. In addition, removal of rock armoring in some areas upstream on the river is leading to excessive wash-outs, putting far more full-size trees in the water than we would otherwise see. The resulting logjams cause risks to the bridges which connect our city, and to the bridges which connect our local airplane manufacturer with the airport.