Dockside Bistro changing hands after 17 years. What’s next for the waterfront restaurant?
After 17 years as the owner-operator of Dockside Bistro on Percival Landing, chef Laurie Nguyen will retire, leaving one of Olympia’s most popular waterfront restaurants in new hands.
Manager and sommelier Will Edwards, a 20-year hospitality veteran who joined Nguyen in 2020, will become its new proprietor as of April, the two parties confirmed this month.
Nguyen also has owned The Wine Loft since 2015 but sold it last year.
She will serve her final special menu on Valentine’s Day (reservations are required and already are quite limited). During the transition, she will “be around to guide him,” she told The Olympian in a phone call. “I want to pass my recipes down to him, and all the technique I could, and make sure he is comfortable on his own.”
Though she promises to remain as a consultant as needed — and to pop in for a guest-chef appearance now and then — she will return to Seattle, where she lived for 19 years before moving to Olympia. The decision is two-fold.
“It is a destination for people to celebrate, and I’m really proud of what we did,” Nguyen, 60, said of Dockside Bistro. “But I think it’s time for somebody to take over.”
In addition to just being ready for her “next stage,” she said, she also wants to be near her 86-year-old mother, who has dementia.
Nguyen told her staff a few months ago, “I’m thinking of retiring soon.” When Edwards approached her about buying the restaurant, she asked in her no-qualms, pragmatic way, “Do you have the money?!”
She let it linger for a few weeks, but she knew the right person might only come along at the right time once.
“I’ve had people approach me,” said Nguyen. “If I sell the restaurant, I can only sell to the people that I think can carry on — I’m not going to sell to somebody that’s not going to maintain it. … Will knows about customer service, he knows wine, and cocktails, and I know he loves food.”
A new era for Dockside Bistro
Edwards is new to Olympia but not to hospitality: He worked in the industry for two decades, mostly in Oklahoma City, as a server, bartender, wine buyer and manager.
“It’s always kind of been the dream to have a small restaurant,” he told The Olympian.
He began visiting the area when his father retired to Grays Harbor. As the story often goes, he met his partner here, and when they started their family, they decided Olympia was a better fit for them, both from a lifestyle perspective and proximity to grandparents.
The chance to take over Dockside — a high-end waterfront restaurant that helped nurture Olympia’s status as a beacon for local, seasonal cooking — was a classic “when-opportunity-calls kind of deal,” he said. “This place is too special to close.”
Neither that mission nor customer-favorite dishes (whitefish with pistachio crust and arugula pesto, the Elk Duet) will change, but Edwards anticipates incorporating fresh menus each season and engaging more frequently on social media. Not straight away but soon, he plans to paint, highlight work from local artists, and refresh those many “little things” that a restaurant needs over years of wear and tear.
It was last updated in 2011, when Nguyen took over the neighboring unit at 501 Columbia St. NW. She added a banquet room and a second bathroom, expanded the wine program and developed wine dinners. The addition doubled the restaurant’s capacity from about 1,700 square feet and 40 seats to 2,600 square feet and 88 diners.
The kitchen has always been modest, she admitted, but that’s where this home cook — a former government employee turned real estate agent — learned to thrive as a chef.
Reflecting on the day she discovered Dockside was for sale, she noted, “Back then, there wasn’t really fine dining on the water,” at least aside from Anthony’s, a regional chain with more ties to Seattle. “I said to myself, ‘Why don’t I do this?’”
For the first five years, she managed the front-of-house and hired a head chef for the kitchen. When consistency fell short of her expectations, she recalls, “One night I just took it over, and I became a chef.”
Her style hinges on freshness, she said, and doing things the right way — from making demi-glace in-house with veal bones, to butchering whole fish.
And the meal must not go without a proper pour.
“I think wine and food should be husband and wife because you cannot miss one or the other,” she said laughing. “If I cook a beautiful shellfish dish, it has to be a particular wine with it. If I don’t have it in my cellar, I need to go out and buy it. If I’m craving a piece of meat, a particular cut that I want, I need to get it. Any friend that I invited over to my house — they never said no.”
Edwards seems well-poised to continue bolstering the list of around 200 bottles. His big challenge come spring will be securing the right chef for Nguyen’s longtime job.
Dockside Bistro & Wine Bar
▪ 501 Columbia St. NW, Olympia, 360-956-1928, docksidebistro.com
▪ Thursday-Saturday, lunch 12-2 p.m.; Tuesday-Saturday, dinner 5-8 p.m.
▪ Reservations: recommended, very limited remain for Valentine’s Day
