“It’s a cultivation of a relationship…”
— Adam Chumas, Sommelier and Owner
Adam Chumas, Sommelier and Owner of Pop Pop Bottle Shop
Adam Chumas and wife, Christina McFadden, moved to Vashon Island 5 years ago with their 2 children and dog, Rudy. Adam started in restaurants back in high school in New Hampshire and in Seattle worked for Maria Hines as a General Manager, Tom Douglas Company as Beverage Director, and Elliott Bay Brewing as Operations Manager. After years opening restaurants with other companies, Pop Pop Bottle Shop opened in April 2022 after a family-led renovation of the building which shares space with Glass Bottle Creamery and a stellar collection of arcade games. They are the only known bottle shop, natural wine bar, teriyaki joint.
Excerpts from a conversation at Pop Pop Bottle Shop on an afternoon in February 2023
What does hospitality mean to you?
It stems from being ‘others focused’. And having a willingness to do that. I think the best way to achieve it is inside of a box. This place is a box of hospitality and it has boundaries. And if you're willing to get into the box, then it's gonna be the best box that you got in today. It's empathy, really. It’s putting yourself in somebody else's shoes and making them feel good about the shoes they're in. Listening and learning and cultivating relationships, whether that relationship is a three second relationship or a 20 year relationship. It's a cultivation of a relationship.
I have a very long set of experiences with hospitality. And so it comes very easily to me. But I think there has to be a willingness for “participants”, depending which way that skews, right? Sometimes it's like, I'm 99% willing and you're 1%. And sometimes it's the other way. People want things that we don't have and you know, that skews in the other direction. Some people might think that's inhospitable, but I'm generally unapologetic, [for some of the] common things that come up like, “Oh, do you have chicken breasts?” I'm like, “No, we have chicken thighs”. Some people might think that's rude but we chose to not have that. So. I'm not sorry that I don't have it. These are what we have. This is our box of hospitality.
What is the experience you’re trying to create?
Welcoming. Happy… It's not for everyone, but it's for anybody who wants it to be for them. Our menu is our menu. It’s limited, it's tight, it's small. We bang it out with quality every single time. Amazing craft beer. We have fantastic curated wine picked by two sommeliers with a collective 40 years of experience in the industry. I think anyone can enjoy that. Every single person is welcome in the door here. We have people who come in and are uncomfortable and overwhelmed and don't get what's going on…but I am 100% confident that every single person that walks in the door here can have a good experience.
How did you decide on the menu?
Teriyaki is my comfort food. That didn't happen until I moved to Seattle…I have visions of Saturday mornings laying on the couch watching TNT movies for television and eating teriyaki…When we [BJ and I] were writing the menu…we sat down and wrote the menu in like 10 minutes. And then we recipe tested and pretty much nailed everything on the first go. And it's been the same ever since…it's simple, it's fairly easy… we're fussy about some of the stuff. We make our teriyaki sauce in house; we toast scallion butts and ginger and garlic and deglaze it with sesame oil and sake and very specifically use gluten free tamari because how easy is that to do? Every single person that walks in the doors asks if we have gluten free stuff - literally the only things that you can't have are the things that look like they have gluten in them like the bread and the noodles. Don't eat those…
The other thing that plays into it is the ease of what we're doing. All of our veggies are prepped and ready to go. Rice is scoop and serve. Chicken is prepped and ready to go. We just bang it out. So people are super impressed. Island life out here; people are very accustomed to waiting 30 to 90 minutes for their food. Then people are just like, dang, I just got my lunch in like five minutes. We're like, Yeah, we're on it.
So all of those things kind of factored into that but teriyaki is just the right answer. There isn't teriyaki [on Vashon]... I think like yeah, we're the only bottle shop natural wine bar teriyaki joint that I've ever heard of. I think the food is distinctly Seattle... every neighborhood, every person you talk to has a teriyaki joint right? No matter what neighborhood you live in, you’ve got your teriyaki [spot] like Teriyaki First on 85th across from Chuck's is primo…it just makes sense and it can be done with minimal labor…I think there's something kind of cool about keeping that venue really tight and just focusing on it. We're still getting better and better and better and better at it every day. Now we're in this place where it's just aces… We're not worried about changing the menu every month and it also gives us room to play.
How does owning your own establishment feel different from all of your other experiences in hospitality?
The weight is different, you know? I joke around that before I was married, had kids and owned a home, I had three figure problems. Then I owned a home and it was like, now I have four figure problems. But now that I’m a commercial building owner and a business owner, I’ve got five figure problems and the weight of those is heavy. I think the biggest weight is that I have nine staff. Three of them are full time and rely on this place to pay their bills, to pay their mortgages and that weighs. There's something very rewarding though about pushing send on the payroll.
You own Pop Pop Bottle Shop with your wife, Christina. What is it like running a business together and raising your two daughters at the same time?
Christina and I don't really run the business together. Christina has a [different] full time job…it's a juggle. We have young kids constantly going all over the place. Christina goes off the island two or three days a week. Yesterday, my kids were in the office watching Netflix on my computer… I mean, it's tough…We're constantly on the go. We have a family scrum every Wednesday morning at 7am to review our finances, the state of the state of business, our childcare… Christina has a huge influence on what we do here…all of the non alcoholic stuff Christina drove… the entire aesthetic is really driven by her. The only notch I have on that is the fridges. I was like, “I want these fridges’. And she was like, “White? You're crazy’. And then they showed up and she was like, “okay, okay”. But she picked the furniture and leveraged all of her relationships to get all this stuff and the flooring and the lighting and all of that…
What do you wish people knew when they come to Pop Pop Bottle Shop?
I wish that they just knew we were going to take care of them. There's a lot of small town businesses that aren't backed by the level of experience [we have]. I wish people knew the amount of thought and effort that we've put into every literally every detail of what is going on. …pretty much everything has happened on purpose. We know what we're doing.
What's your most memorable meal?
The most memorable meal that I've had was last week. My cousin Taylor for his birthday likes to have a bowling and Chinese food extravaganza. That is his birthday demand. So we went to West Seattle Bowl and then me, Andrew and BJ and Christina and my brother in law and his wife and Taylor. Eight of us went to Honey Court. And Andrew is the king of the ID [International District] and knows all the servers and knows everything and knows what to order and knows how to get all the things that no one else knows how to get. We just sat and, I mean, the food was delicious, but we were an 8 top with a lazy susan, just drinking and hanging out, you know?
I went to a restaurant when I was in DC recently. It was delicious and the wine program was fantastic and everything about it was great. But it was so fussy. We were greeted with, “Have you been here before?” Anybody who's coming to your place, they specifically picked it out, and also there are better ways to get to this [piece of information]. To me, you have failed at hospitality if that’s your response. Also, when people walk in the door, they tell you if they have a reservation. This goes back to the empathy piece. Like when I see you walk in the door. My first thing is to say, “Hi, how are you? How’s it going?”, and when I say that, you’re going to say, “We want to have dinner here.” And that’s great. Let’s do it.
What's your panic meal? When an unexpected guest shows up at your house, what are you serving?
Spaghetti with sardines and chili flake and parsley and breadcrumbs. Always have all those [on hand]... and there's always a bottle of crispy white. Because you can drink it anytime of day. It goes with the pasta. It's really the only thing that I want to have. Generally it goes with just about everything.
