Tina’s Place reopens, ready for the year ahead

After three weeks away for a mid-winter vacation, the crew at Tina’s Place reopened their doors last week, rested and ready to head into the first full busy season in their new location.

The break was especially hard earned this year.

Eight months ago, in the middle of the most demanding and competitive time of the year for Island restaurants, owner Tina Keane learned that the building from which she had run Tina’s Tacos since 2017 was for sale.

“Within seven or eight days the building sold,” Tina explains. “So we were homeless. We were going out of business. I had 30 days [to find something else].”

As luck would have it, something else found her instead.

Not long after learning that her building had sold, Tina happened to run into Stacey Brown, the long-time owner of another local restaurant, the Hungry Clam. In the course of their conversation, she asked him when he planned to have his closed restaurant up and running again. To Tina’s surprise, Stacey explained that he wasn’t interested in bringing the Hungry Clam back for another season, but would instead leave it closed permanently, opening up restaurant space on one of the most highly trafficked corners in Friday Harbor.

“It just felt like it was meant to be,” she says.

It also meant a monumental task had been placed in front of Tina, her daughter Tabatha, and her son Jacob, who were the restaurant’s only year-round staff. They had to keep Tina’s Tacos operating normally, prepare the space that would eventually become Tina’s Place, and then seamlessly transition from one to the other in less than a month’s time.

“We started remodeling this place while we were still open at the other place,” Tina remembers. “We would work there all day, then the kids and I and my mom – who flew in to help – would come here and work on this place in the evening.

“And we did it – in 27 days and 32 gallons of paint.”

It’s not often the case that a restaurant moving just six blocks experiences a fundamental change in clientele, but Friday Harbor is not your average town. Where Tina’s Tacos was tucked on a dead-end side street off Blair Avenue, Tina’s Place sits right above the ferry waiting lanes on the corner of First Street and A Street. It’s one of the first places people walking off the ferry see as they head up East Street and one of the last places they pass as they pull into the waiting lanes to catch the boat back to the mainland.

“It’s completely different,” Tina says. “I absolutely loved the other spot – and I get a little emotional talking about it – because we really catered to the locals. I love my locals. We would not have made it without them. I miss that feeling of being the local hangout spot. I’d look out the kitchen window and the kids would be running around playing in the back yard. It was such a unique situation and it was just really lovely.”

Locals are still a major part of the business at Tina’s Place, she explains. But with so much foot and ferry traffic right outside its front door, “This is a completely different beast.”

That beast won’t run at full speed for the next couple of months, thanks to an unfortunate disc golf injury that has forced Jacob out of the kitchen. Until he returns, Tina’s Place will be open Wednesday through Sunday, from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. each day – except Sundays, when they’ll serve only breakfast and close at 11 a.m.

Tina aims to serve Islanders six days a week. She also wants to stay open until 7 p.m. because there are no Mexican food options on the island in the evening. But as with so many local businesses, the plans for Tina’s Place depend on finding extra staff ahead of the summer season – and keeping them all the way until its end.

“It really depends on if the universe wants to bring me the people to do it,” she says. “But you know what? We will be fine. Either way, we’ll figure it out.”

And either way, they’ll continue to occupy a unique place among the restaurants of San Juan Island.

“We’re happy to be a place for worker bee families, for middle class families, who are somewhat overlooked around here,” Tabatha says. “I like that mom and dad and their three kids can come in here for food, for drinks, for the whole experience, and they’re only paying 60 or 70 bucks tops. There are not a lot of places like that on the island.”

Tina agrees. “Our goal is just to provide good homemade food, consistent every time, with a smile when you come in the door,” she says. “We’re happy you’re here. We’re happy you come into our restaurant.”

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