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The sad news of the pizzeria closing made me think of The Doors lyric “This is the end, beautiful friend,” from one of the countless classic rock songs that provided ambiance in the Rock Wood Fired Pizza in Renton. (It’s not completely the end for the Rock, as their Auburn restaurant will remain open.)
In a sneak peek of their artistically-designed restaurant in April 2009, I said the Rock Wood Fired Pizza felt like Hard Rock Cafe meets Pirates of the Caribbean. I published this blog entry at the time about my excitement for the new Renton restaurant.
I’m saddened to hear this classic-rock-themed restaurant will be closing soon. It’s been the site of countless gatherings with my family and Boeing colleagues through their long and melodious run at the Landing.
Thank you to the owners and staff of the Rock for all the great food, drinks (buckets of them), and fun you’ve provided to our community over your 16+ years here in Renton. We will miss you.
Here is a screenshot of their Facebook post with the news:
I’d love to know what happened. We’ve lost many good restaurants because of overexpansion: Terrrible Beauty comes to mind.
Inside baseball: The Rock group of restaurants was big enough to fall under the new wage laws, so tips were not included in the minimum wage calculation.
Servers went from making $30 per hour to about $45 per hour on average, sinking them. They held on for as long as they could.
Expect to see more hollowing out of the middle-tier restaurants —fast food can make up for the volume, and fancy places are immune to price comparisons.
We lost Hop Garden (Dog and Pony) in North Renton.
Thank you, Randy, for remaining quiet during the end of the election season. You could have shown people why Mary is fantastic. You could have pointed out all my problems, which would have cost me votes. But I knew you were a good boy.
With love, CR.
PS. I’ll give you a special treat during our next one-on-one as a thank you!
I try to keep my blog posts focused on issues, performance, and results. I’ve been clear in my posts that many things in Renton need to get back on track to assure a bright future for our city.
The results during the four years that Councilmember Rivera has served have not been great. Some examples include: record high crime rates; increasingly overwhelming homelessness; near-miss of an asphalt plant on our sole-source aquifer that required intervention of thousands of citizens because the city barely fought it; needless eminent domain taking of 42 homes and businesses near Renton High with no pushback from the city; failure to respect the needs of our North and South Renton neighborhoods (that add livability and vitality to our downtown); deathtrap blighted buildings at our city gateways; four-year delay in Sound Transit BRT service and ten-year delay in parking for it; small businesses and Renton pilots kicked out of Renton Airport to make space for out-of-town business jet owners; loss of the Pavilion Event Center and the Red Lion Convention Center; tear-out of the Piazza park and its mature trees and iconic water features; Renton Historical Society and their priceless artifacts kicked out of the Museum, which now sits empty; hundreds of volunteers “fired” from Renton River days with paid city staff taking over; discontinuation of July 4th celebrations and early closure of Coulon Park on the holiday; endless lengthy construction delays and lane closures on Rainier Avenue; sending resident’s land-use appeals to Superior Court instead of Council handling them quickly and inexpensively (and learning from them); reduced speaking time for residents at Council Meetings, followed typically by little-to-no response or interaction; property tax payments to the city increasing 30 percent in four year. I’ve covered most or all these issues in earlier blog posts, including how Councilmember Rivera and other Council Members could have chosen differently.
If anyone influenced me to hold back on sharing my negative opinions of Councilmember Rivera’s performance during this campaign season, it was Mary Clymer, not Councilmember Rivera. True to her collaborative and caring nature, Ms. Clymer has urged her supporters to keep this campaign season positive.
I hope she succeeds, but it’s generally thought that you don’t win elections against well-funded incumbents unless you give the voters a reason to switch.
I’m happy for Mary that she’s a nice person. However, as we saw in the last election with Carmen, playing nice doesn’t work when she is willing to say anything to anybody to grab power.
Think of what Carmen must have said (and done) to get the old men of the police guild to endorse her…
If we are to stop allowing ourselves to be manipulated, we must abandon the idea that telling the truth is a potentially harmful opinion.
Of course, this is my opinion.
How did “not going negative” work for Mary? There’s a tiny chance the very late negative campaign will pull it out of the muck, but it’s not looking good.
At least half of Renton knows that Carmen Rivera’s a domestic violence abuser now. Maybe it’s time to let her workplace know. You can’t have somebody like that working arround children can you??
Former employee here. I left two years ago and the company was hanging on by a thread even before then. In 2022, they faced a lawsuit for not giving us breaks and taking away tips to pay credit card surcharges. Mill Creek closed because of that and Lynnwood went after that. Late last summer all of them had mold, roaches, rats, you name it. The company did not tell anyone the closures were happening, so everyone lost their jobs cold turkey.