The Barrel bids bon voyage to seafaring theme

They hung up their nets in 1982.

And they remained up there – laden with buoys, faux fish and little plastic ducks – for more than 30 years. Those old fishing nets were signature pieces of décor at the S.S. Beryl, an iconic nautical-themed seafood restaurant on Spokane’s North Side.

Three decades later, new owners are re-imagining the restaurant.

The ship’s going down.

In the year since Nelson and Phelps Hospitality bought the place, the S.S. Beryl has become The Barrel Steak and Seafood House. The new owners have already revamped the menu. But they’re still in the process of trading the restaurant’s long-standing maritime motif – think “The Love Boat” meets Sea Galley – for a more modern, streamlined look.

“Everything was mauve and brass. It hadn’t been touched since 1982,” said Liz Nelson, who owns the eatery with her husband, Curtis, and business partner Todd Phelps. “Our goal is to completely redo all of this.”

When they bought the business last fall, the partners promptly shut it down for two weeks for an initial round of renovations: updating the kitchen and bathrooms, cleaning up the overgrown garden and patio, and removing some of the seafaring furnishings.

The nets were among the first to go.

Other items installed when the restaurant took on a life aquatic had to go, too: an oversized wooden ship’s wheel that kept watch over the lounge as well as a couple of model ships, also large and wooden. There were seashells, too – and anchors.

“They kind of went overboard,” Nelson, 54, said of the previous owners’ penchant for “shippy” décor. (She also said she didn’t mean to make a pun.)

The brassy, shiplike look was trendy in the early ’80s, when Styx was setting an open course for the virgin sea and inviting listeners to “Come Sail Away,” and the chorus for that Christopher Cross song was getting stuck in people’s heads: “Saaaaaaaiiiiiiiling takes me away to where I’ve always heard it could be.”

But, “It’s tired now,” Nelson said. “We want to reflect our community today, not our community in the 1980s.”

The new owners installed new carpet, gave the place a fresh coat of paint and bought new tabletops. They did away with the brass rail separating the bar from the rest of the lounge, changed the restaurant’s name and put up a new sign in late summer.

“What we’re trying to do is breathe a little fresh air into this place and make it feel newer,” Nelson said, noting the facelift is a work in progress. It could take a couple of years for the new owners to fully renovate the restaurant.

Meanwhile, some remnants of The Barrel’s saltier days remain. Rope still cordons off the parking lot. More rope can be found trimming chairs in the dining room, where wood paneling hugs the walls, accented by brass light fixtures and a colossal crab – faux, framed, and mounted front and center.

‘This was the place’

The establishment started across the street from its current location in the mid-1940s or ’50s and operated as a tavern under a few different names – Spa Tavern, Leahy’s Tavern, The Beryl Tavern – before it was converted into a steak and seafood restaurant.

Its namesake, the actual U.S.S. Beryl, sailed the South Pacific during World War II. According to several naval history websites, the ship was acquired by the U.S. Navy in late 1941 and commissioned a few months later, in mid-March 1942, as a patrol yacht. The ship returned to the West Coast in late 1945 and was decommissioned a year later.

Around that time, its north Spokane neighborhood “was considered the edge of town. This was a dirt road out front. It was out in the country,” Nelson said, noting there weren’t many nearby watering holes or eateries. “This was the place to go on the North Side.”

She remembers the tavern – and later restaurant – as a happening spot. Back when Jimmy Buffet was singing about “Boat Drinks,” “Stars on the Water” and “One Particular Harbour,” this was the place her parents and their friends went for cocktails after work and couples celebrated anniversaries. It was also the place she and her husband held their own rehearsal dinner in 1989.

“They were packed all the time,” Nelson said. “It was very popular.”

‘Slow rebranding’

She’s hoping it becomes popular again.

The Barrel experienced a drop in business after its initial modifications. Some longtime customers complained about the new less-than-sea-loving look. They missed the garden gnomes that kept customers company on the patio and the nets on the windows with the dangling plastic ducks. At least one diner expressed concern about the removal of a half-dead tree and the trimming of the bushes surrounding the outside seating area.

“They didn’t like the change,” Nelson said. “Change is hard.”

The new color scheme is neutral: tan, cream, charcoal.

Long-term, the plan is to sell off the brass fixtures, turn the bar area just inside the front doors into the main dining room and move the lounge.

“It’s a slow rebranding,” said new corporate executive chef Frank Comito, who was hired in April to oversee the updating of The Barrel’s menu as well as the kitchens at the other restaurants in the group.

They are: Steelhead Bar and Grille, opened in downtown Spokane in 2006; Morty’s Tap and Grille, established seven years ago on the South Hill; Fieldhouse Pizza and Pub, opened four years ago in north Spokane; a second Fieldhouse location, opened in spring 2016 in Liberty Lake; and Selkirk Pizza and Taphouse, opened three years ago on North Division Street.

Phelps also owns The Screaming Yak on West Francis Avenue.

Altogether, the restaurants employ about 150 people.

Overhauling The Barrel isn’t the partners’ only project. They’re also converting a historic building at 706 N. Monroe St. into the group’s corporate headquarters, test kitchen and events center.

“After that, we’re hoping to let the dust settle a bit,” said Nelson, who also owns Nelson’s Towing Repair and Auto Body with her husband.

She said she was honored when the S.S. Beryl’s former owners, Patty and Robert Roloff, approached Nelson and Phelps when they were thinking about retiring and selling their business. The new owners recently returned the iconic ship’s wheel and replicas of wooden boats to the Roloffs, souvenirs of their time on deck.

Like the old S.S. Beryl, The Barrel still focuses on seafood. But now there are fewer fried foods on the menu. Offerings change seasonally. Distributors are local and regional. Recipes are original.

“Frank is just phenomenal,” Nelson said of the chef. “He knows how to do everything.”

The prime rib is popular. So are the steak bites, steamer clams and seafood fettuccine.

“The clam chowder is made fresh every day,” Nelson said.

Also look for calamari, crab cakes, coconut prawns, grilled salmon and seafood cob salads, BLT, fish and chips, and a grilled three-cheese sandwich.

The restaurant seats about 80 indoors and, when the weather’s nice, another 50 outside. Everyone’s welcome – even salty types. If they want to, they can even wear their boat shoes.