Purple Cafe and Wine Bar Launches New Restaurant in Bellevue, WA

Posted by: Tim Reha | Sunday, October 04, 2009 | 0 Comments |

I had the pleasure today to visit the new Purple Cafe and Wine Bar and Barrio restaurant in downtown Bellevue, Washington today. Purple Cafe is a wine bar concept with locations in Woodinville, Kirkland and Downtown Seattle.

Purple Cafe and Wine Bar
430 106th Avenue NE
Bellevue, WA 98004
P 425.502.6292
F 425.463.3287
Twitter: @HeavyRestaurant

HOURS
Monday thru Thursday 11am – 11pm
Friday and Saturday 11am – 12am
Sunday 11am – 10pm
Sundays featyre ½ off Wine by the Bottle Day!!!

Purple Cafe and Wine Bar in Bellevue, officially opens on Tuesday, October 6, 2009.

David Yusen, Purple’s Director of Marketing & Public Relations, invited myself and a guest to the pre-opening special event. I met David a few times in the past and most recently at the Kirkland, Taste of the Town event where Purple won “Best Appetizer”. Our lunch was “on the house” today as we were invited as part of the “friends and family” pre-opening event to work the kinks out of the new restaurant. In addition, one the Seattle Wine Awards partners, Randall PR, works with Purple as a client, thus my opinion is not “unbiased”.

Purple Cafe and Wine Bar Restaurant Experience

I have worked as a fine dining waiter for Luciano at the very Italian, Resturante´ Stressa in Kirkland back in the early 1990’s.  From my past restaurant “opening” experience, I know that there are one trillion things that can go wrong and that the restaurant business is one of the hardest to succeed in on the planet. Customers who are having a bad day will complain even if the food and service is perfect. This in this day and age of social media, mobile phones and Yelp.com, word spreads fast.

First Impressions - Purple Cafe and Wine Bar, Bellevue

The venue is located on the ground floor on the corner of 4th & 106th at the Bellevue Towers project in Downtown, Bellevue. First off you will notice the very clean and simple design of the front of the building. The large metal doors were “heavy” and tall, offering a solid branding statement as you enter the restaurant. This gave me a very “solid quality” overall first impression that this restaurant will be around for a long time because they put thought and a ton of money into every detail of the facility. The corporate company that owns the Purple Cafe is called Heavy Restaurants and they carry this into the “heavy feel” of the restaurants build and decor.

Tim Reha with Shannon Burke, General Manager, Purple Cafe and Wine Bar, Bellevue

We were greeted by three fun and younger hosts, two gals and one guy. The first thing you notice on your left is the cast iron spiral staircases that go up to the wide array of wine stored in beautiful racks. This reminded me of Corliss Estates, a super private $25mm, winery located in Walla Walla. What I liked is how they tied the decor and cast iron to create a totally “branded” environment. Rich wood and iron, heavy solid chairs and sturdy tables… 

When we were seated I could only sit for about three seconds before I asked the waitress to take a quick look around. There looked to be a wine bar on the left and then one around the main wine “spiral” in the center of the restaurant. My gut impression tells me that the Purple Cafe and Wine Bar in Bellevue will be slammed for lunch and dinners. They will also have a strong “wine scene” in the evening after dinner catering to the Bellevue crowd.

Spiral Stair Case and Wine Cellar

Purple’s sister restaurant “Barrio” is located in the same location and connected with an open walkway. I took a sneak peek and will have to come back to try their margaritas, red or green sangria, top shelf Tequila and Mexican cuisine.

The Purple Wine Bar

The designers and location scouts for the Purple in Bellevue worked in tandem to find the perfect location and then built the restaurant to fit in the the “Bellevue Terroir”. I liked the lineup of Purple’s appetizers that will pair with a wine array of local Washington State wines or any “right bank” Bordeaux from France. The wine selection at Purple in Bellevue is huge and spans across all price points (except two buck chuck). You pretty much should just go there to see and taste for yourself. Look out for deals like the “half priced bottle program” and the “fresh sheet” on the website http://www.thepurplecafe.com. Follow @heavyrestaurant on Twitter for other updates and deals.

The Dining Enclaves

Wow! There were two of these cool seating enclaves for about 18-25 guests in what I call the swirl dining coves. Large metal spiral walls start high and then swirl down to the floor create a round dining enclave. I suppose I could post a photo here but then I would spoil it for you and that would not be any fun. Let’s just say that the Purple Cafe and Wine Bars designers are brilliant.  Bellevue is hardly recognizable since I was skateboarding around the are back in 1980. The decore was “up town” but not unfriendly and snobby.

Cusine & Wine

We started out with the goat cheese appetizer. The cheese was melted on the plate and decorated with my all time favorite thin crackers that are toasted golden brown and crispy.

For lunch I had the lobster macaroni and cheese. This was served in a warm bowl and looked like it was baked to create a crispy and very pleasant crust. Yum! The first bite and I already had a mouth watering chunk of lobster. That made me happy that I did not have to dig into the bottom of the bowl to find the goods. The first impression really counts the most. The pasta was also less like what I would envision when you say “macaroni”. The noodles were white and laid out flatter than what I would envision to the be a macaroni noodle. This was the “pro” adult model of mac-n-cheese that was really rich and yummy. We had a second third guest stop by to join us and the staff was happy to move us to a new table where we were greeted by the Shannon Burke, Purple’s Bellevue General Manager.

Tim Reha with Colin Christianson enjoying a fine Sunday Lunch at Purple Cafe and Wine Bar, Bellevue

I had a decent glass of red wine with lunch but due to the early lunch time during our visit ti was not “wine 30”, so I will have to go back to rate my Purple “wine experience” in a follow up post.

Coffee is for Closers

The coffee was Cafe Vita and was served in branded “Cafe Vita” coffee cups, very classy. I thought it was brilliant how the cafevita.com website was embossed on the inside rim of the cup. Since I like Cafe Vita this created a “positive brand drift” from the Cafe Vita brand to the Purple Cafe brand.

Summary

We had a fun time and appreciated the lunch hosted by the new Purple Cafe and Wine Bar.  I suggest to visit just to see the decor if you want to see a rock solid integrated branding concept turned into reality. The food we tasted was excellent and the price points were in the range of what I expect for this type of restaurant concept. This is a good spot to take a date, host a business lunch or relax after work for happy hour and dinner.

Our waitstaff was learning the new menu and space thus missed a few steps to make the service perfect. As a past fine dining waiter, I pick up on what is missed rapidly and appreciate that Purple invested a lot of money to host a “dry run” to train the staff and de-bug the restaurant. Some things missed were basic like water to the table sooner than later, refill the natural sugars in the coffee setup when they are out (we had five cups of coffee for three people) and finish with “come back soon and visit us online at http://www.thepurplecafe.com ... Follow us at @heavyresturant on Twitter to learn about our specials and 1/2 off bottles of wine to share with your friends”. Note I would change the Twitter name to one that matches the Purple brand then setup a Twitter system like Cotweet to manage multiple accounts.

I want to thank Shannon Burke, General Manager, Purple Cafe and Wine Bar, for taking the extra steps to wish us well and take a photo as we left the restaurant. Purple understands that a great first impression with a strong last impression will be embedded in the customer’s mind. The new Bellevue location has all of the ingredients to be successful, make your reservations immediately if you expect to get a seat in the next few weeks or visit off peak hours.

Purple Cafe and Wine Bar, Bellevue, WA in Bellevue, officially opens on Tuesday, October 6, 2009.