| Frank Tweten, who comes from a family of restaurateurs, has been involved in a dozen restaurants during his long career in the industry. But soon, he hopes his career will take a different turn: He is in the process of selling his last restaurant, the Clubhouse Grill in Port Orchard.
Tweten built the restaurant about six years ago, and had previously co-owned such well-known establishments as Tweten’s Lighthouse in Port Orchard and the Sunset Grill in Gig Harbor. He lost some of the restaurants through a couple of divorces, and candidly says that it’s due to the latest divorce that he is looking to move on.
“After you go through a divorce, you can change your life and make it whatever you want,” he said. “I am following my passions.”
Unlike most business owners who don’t disclose their intent to sell until the last moment, Tweten has been open about his intentions. He wrote a letter to his staff in October, saying he didn’t have the passion for the businesses he once did, nor the energy to open a new restaurant.
“Businesses are sold all the time and it’s kept hush-hush. I’ve been transparent with my employees,” he said. “They are the backbone of this restaurant.”
Tweten came into the industry by following into the footsteps of his parents. His father had quit a job managing a dairy to pursue his dream of opening a restaurant — which he did in Seattle. Other establishments followed, and soon Frank and his two brothers had their own ventures. Their father started the Harvester in Gig Harbor, now owned by son Kirby, who was also a partner with Frank in Tweten’s Lighthouse on the Port Orchard waterfront for a number of years.
After languishing several years and falling into disrepair, The Lighthouse, a local landmark, recently underwent a total interior renovation after being acquired by Frank and Kirby’s other brother, Tim, who also owns the Harvester in downtown Tacoma and well-known Fife landmark, the Poodle Dog, along with several other eateries. Everything at the Lighthouse is new — including the menu.
Bremerton’s landmark Sportsman Restaurant was another one of Frank’s successful endeavors, but was lost to the Navy, which wanted the parcel for an expansion project near the Callow Avenue gate several years ago.
Tweten built the Clubhouse Grill almost from scratch — literally and figuratively. He acquired what had originally been a Pietro’s Pizza and later a Mexican restaurant at the top of Mile Hill in Port Orchard, after the building sat vacant for almost a decade. Acting as his own contractor, he was the first brother to actually “build” a restaurant after gutting the entire building and starting from scratch with just a shell.
He came up not only with the “Clubhouse Grill concept” but his own recipes as well. The idea was so successful he ended up with three of them — including one on 6th Avenue just across the Tacoma Narrows Bridge.
Tweten acknowledges that running just one diner is not challenging enough, and he is not prepared to start another one — a potential multimillion-dollar investment that would create 80 jobs and set a person in debt, with fingers crossed that it all works out.
“It (selling) was a difficult decision, but once I made it, I embraced it,” he said. He has found a potential buyer for the $1.5 million business (including the property), a local family with industry background. He hopes to close by spring. He said he will miss his guests the most — through his 30 years in the business he has met many prominent and interesting people. He probably won’t miss the cooking as much: Tweten has a commercial kitchen at his Gig Harbor home, where he entertains often.
As for his career, Tweten is moving into construction. Building four restaurants definitely gave him hands-on experience. He owns a couple of commercial parcels that he hopes to develop, one in Manchester above the Manchester Inn that he plans to turn into condominiums, and another property in Port Orchard off Tremont Street that he wants to see turned into a medical complex. The Manchester condos, which are in the pre-application phase, could start construction in 2007. “The market seems to be demanding,” he said. It’s a ‘Field of Dreams’ — if you build it, they will come. It’s a unique setting.”
Tweten plans to work for his contractor as the project’s general manager, a first for an entrepreneur who has never held a “job.”
“This project will lead to the Tremont project, and the Tremont project will lead to — who knows,” he said. “It’s what I want to do.”. | 