‘You can do anything’: The journey from Pacific to Palouse Wine Bar

Community is a guidepost for Amber Park: the community she felt in her early childhood growing up among “hippies and wolves” in the Okanagan of British Columbia, trading with neighbors, milking cows, preserving food and reading atlases for fun, the community she’s fostering at Wanderlust Delicato with her wine club and cooking classes, the community she felt serving residents their meals at a retirement home as a teen mom, or in the Perry District with her new wine bar, Pacific to Palouse, designed to feel like an extension of the neighborhood’s living room.

“It’s just another room,” Park said. “This is another room of your house where you can come and hang out. Have wine, have a snack, listen to Fleetwood Mac. You know, hang out by the fireplace, whatever.”

Park wants Pacific to Palouse to be for the neighborhood, and that expresses itself in many ways: a dog-friendly patio, so you can come by while on a walk with your furry friend, comfy vintage, thrifted couches, and a space open to all ages, serving nonalcoholic cocktails, a patio with live music on Tuesday and Saturday evenings from local artists and a mural by artist Sarah Rose that captures the spirit of the wine bar: the best the region has to offer, from Pacific to Palouse.

Park’s journey hasn’t been easy, but she credits her success with her stubbornness. Her family moved to Spokane when she was 14; she became pregnant with her daughter, Mariah Brown, at 15 and gave birth at 16. She worked part time at Harvard Park, taking meal shifts while attending Ferris High School and the Running Start program. Many were judgmental, but she could lean on her family, a few loyal friends, and the residents of Harvard Park.

“When I got pregnant, they didn’t care,” Park said. “They had babies at that age, you know? So, they were giving me baby gifts and birthday cards and Christmas cards. I had instantly 80-plus grandparents that loved me and didn’t care if I was pregnant.”

Teenagers from the NEWTech Skill Center handle food at Pacific to Palouse. Park’s background is part of why she made this choice.

“Taking a chance on these teenagers,” Park said, tears filling her eyes. “Sorry, but I want them to see that you can be a young female, you can even be a teenage mom, and you can do anything.”

Izzy Treece, a senior at both Lewis and Clark High School and NEWTech Skill Center, has worked at Pacific to Palouse from its start. Brown is the kitchen manager; she started working for Park teaching cooking classes at Wanderlust Delicato. Treece described it as the best job she’s had, and said working for Brown is like working for an older sister who is “super passionate and driven.”

Treece’s favorite items to make are the flatbreads, and her two favorites right now are the blue cheese flatbread and the prosciutto flatbread, but Pacific to Palouse’s fresh sheet changes every two weeks. Pacific to Palouse purchases local items from the farmers market, most often the Perry Street Market, keeping the wine bar hyperlocal. Ultimately, Treece hopes to open her own restaurant one day.

“I do think that’s like the end goal and Amber is definitely a very good role model for that,” Treece said.

Park primarily works at Wanderlust Delicato, leaving most of the day-to-day of Pacific to Palouse to Brown and other trusted staff, some of which came from Wanderlust to work there. Park said she essentially experiences Pacific to Palouse like a customer.

But the road to opening both wasn’t simple. By the time Park graduated high school at 19, she had her college degree and two kids. Her passion for working in hospitality continued, drawn to the same thing that fuels Park to this day: her love of talking to people.

She worked at Cyrus O’Leary’s for about three years before taking a job with the Davenport Hotel, where Park started as a server. While working there, Park’s close friend was working in France, and asked Park to come visit.

“It definitely solidified my love of just overall travel in Europe and wanting to be in the wine and food beverage industry,” Park said.

Growing up around hospitality, Brown had fond childhood memories of the Davenport.

“The security guards would take me into all the haunted tunnels, like show me all the secret little places,” Brown said. She also recalled the gingerbread houses going up during Christmas.

Now, her son Landen, who is 9 months old, is passed from her arms to her mom’s to her brother’s and back in the Pacific to Palouse living room.

“He’s crawling like a madman, he’ll be walking any day,” Park said of her grandson.

When Davenport promoted Park to bartender, she loved her job and felt ready for a romantic relationship, but was having trouble finding someone working in that environment. She voiced the difficulty to a regular, and he provided fortuitous advice: If you want to meet nice guys, you need to take up a nice-guy activity. He suggested golf. One of the women Park worked with also worked at a golf course, as did her girlfriend. Perfect, they would teach her to golf so she could meet her nice guy.

John Park was a videographer for TV news at the time, but because he was working the morning show, he was off by 10 a.m., so he also took a job as a cook at Qualchan Golf Course. John met Amber when her friends took her to get ready on the front 9. John joined the group for the back nine.

“We played some golf and talked a little bit and just kind of went from there,” John said. “… She had a couple of great kids, and I’ve always liked kids. They were 8 and 10 and when we first met, and now they’re 23 and 25. Oh gosh, they’re growing up so fast.”

The two saw the world similarly, and shared a love of travel and good food. During a trip to Seattle, they drove over the North Cascades and went through Leavenworth. While there, they stopped at a wine and charcuterie shop.

“And I was like, ‘I love cheese and charcuterie,’ ” John said. “There’s nothing like that in Spokane, you know, we need to think about that. So, it was something that had been in the back of our head for a long time.”

Amber moved into management with Davenport, where she learned more about fine wines and dining.

“When I left the Davenport, I did not leave voluntarily, and there was no cause,” Amber said. “I applied for unemployment, and unemployment said, ‘You qualify for this new program that we’re doing, this integrated business and entrepreneurship program at SCC, and we’ll send you school for this program for free, and we’ll pay your unemployment.’”

Amber completed the nine-month certificate program, and it was there she learned the business acumen that would later allow her to open both Wanderlust (in 2019) and Pacific to Palouse. But first, she became a wine rep for Cru Selections. In this position, Amber built relationships with winemakers and honed her craft.

“I just had a hard time finding specialty cheese to go along with my fun wine and my tastings, so I decided to be my own cheese monger,” Amber said, laughing.

Pacific to Palouse is for the neighborhood, Amber said, and this is exemplified by the mural on her building, designed and painted by Rose, a family friend who did yearbook with Brown.

“I actually wanted to do a mural project to apply for the Spokane Arts and traffic calming departments asphalt art projects,” Rose said. “The deadline was in a week, and I asked Amber if she knew of any place where I could do a mural. And she said, ‘You silly goose. I’m opening a new business, and I have this big open wall, and you are more than welcome to use it.’ ”

Rose’s design started with the Pacific to Palouse logo, but, “I had a vision for what could be all Washington-themed wildlife, wine, plants, flowers, vegetation,” Rose said. “So, I asked her if I could take over the whole wall and she said yes. And, it’s been a really fun process ever since.”

Rose’s canvas up until then had been 6-by-8-inch canvases, her medium watercolors. Another new thing? Input.

“I can’t describe it, when I get to see neighbors walking by day after day that get to see my progress and tell me how much it means to them to have specifically bikes represented in my artwork,” Rose said. “This is a very walkable bike neighborhood, and there are other bikes kind of as a motif going down the Perry District strip here.

“So, it feels really nice to do something for the people in this community, and alongside them, as well.”

John owns Fix It Guy Handyman Services, and did the build-out for both eateries, which he co-owns with Amber.

Before Wanderlust Delicato had opened its doors, Amber had been watching the location now home to Pacific to Palouse. She remembered it as Hai’s Market, which she visited as a teen.

“I’ve had this draw to this neighborhood and to this building in particular for a long time,” Amber said.

“When we saw the ‘for rent’ sign in the window, it was just excitement,” John said.

They didn’t need another Wanderlust Delicato. They wanted a selection that celebrated what the region has to offer in wine. Even though the wines are regional, Park brings her Wanderlust Delicato lens to her wine selections.

“It seems like cabernet and syrah get all the love in the state, but you can grow amazing albarino from Spain, and it’s one of our top glass pours,” Amber said.

You can get a cabernet or a chardonnay if you want one, but Amber hopes people will be adventurous, and she has a tasting flight to make it more accessible. It’s also important to her that she’s at a reasonable price point, keeping her glass pours at $12.

“I don’t want to do $20 for a glass pour, but I also want to drink good wine,” Amber said.

As a teen, Amber went into Hai’s Market, on her way to or from serving a meal at Harvard Park. Now, when she gets done at Wanderlust Delicato, she can stop by Pacific to Palouse, enjoy a glass of wine, and play with her grandson.