It’s time for the next generation in Proctor as last-standing Italian restaurant to close

For a quarter-century, Pomodoro anchored Tacoma’s Proctor District with Italian comfort food, neighborly hospitality and a viable career for many of the same staff who will cook their last meals and serve their last customers at the end of the month.

Longtime owner Erin Behnke shared her decision last week to close the restaurant July 30. In its stead, veterans of The Table on Sixth Avenue, which snagged a coveted semifinalist nod from the 2023 James Beard Awards, will open a bistro and wine bar called Corbeau.

Just a few years ago, the neighborhood had three Italian restaurants, but Europa Bistro closed to make way for Millville Pizza and The Blind Pig , while ambitious newcomer Crudo and Cotto shuttered after a rough pandemic life.

For Behnke, who said she will take a few months off “for the first time in my career,” it’s a bittersweet moment that was somewhat unplanned but not unpredictable.

Pushing through the pandemic led her to consider the possibility of closing or selling the business, but ultimately her perspective shifted when her mother, Markeen Tower, died unexpectedly last year at 76.

“It just wasn’t the same,” Behnke told The News Tribune in a phone call shortly after making the announcement on social media. “The industry did change. It is coming back, but I kind of got burnt out at the end. In order to be successful in this industry, you’ve got to want it … Restaurant ownership I would say is always stressful. I just felt like it was the right time.”

While sad to see Pomodoro and a chapter of her family legacy end, she is eager for the new owners’ vision.

“This is a young person’s game. I’m excited that Trevor [Hamilton] is going to bring something that the District has never had. I’m excited for something new,” she said, adding that she and her husband Derek live two blocks away and have no plans to move.

POMODORO & THE BLEU CHEESE DRESSING

Pomodoro had been open for about four years when Tower bought it in 2001. It has been a bar or restaurant dating to the 1940s — as Casey and Lloyd’s Tavern, followed by Johnny’s and then Iggy’s. In 1996, Figaro’s Restaurant opened, and the next year it became Pomodoro, according to records from the Northwest Room at Tacoma Public Library.

Tower was 54 when she got into the restaurant business, and she was not Italian.

“It was a risk for her to take,” recalled Behnke, who at the time worked in the security office of Columbia Bank before joining her mom part-time in 2004 and full-time about 10 years later. “Her hard work paid off to make it successful.”

Her mom changed the menu “a lot” — as of late filled with favorites like toasted-cheese ravioli, fried green beans, homemade meatballs, pesto prawns and a charbroiled pork chop. But not even pasta out-competes Grandma Mark’s infamous bleu cheese dressing.

“I already have people asking me if they can have it,” said Behnke. Her response? “No! I will not share the recipe. I might be doing something with it,” she teased.

She recounted Tower clocking 16-hour days, taking off only once a week to help watch Benhke’s young grandchildren, who later would become emergency assistants — dashing to Restaurant Depot for more garlic, Sterino Farms for more lettuce or the Safeway across the street for more of the loaves the store baked fresh for Pomodoro every day.

Eventually, Tower was ready to relax. Around 2014, Behnke took the day-to-day reins so her mom “could spend her retirement years in Packwood doing the things that she loved, which was taking care of animals.” She kept mini horses, goats, chickens and pigs, which found a new home on a Buckley farm after her death, said Behnke between tears.

“I’m a little melancholy,” she admitted. “It was a very difficult decision because I have such an amazing staff that has made the job easier than it normally would be. We just have a track record of loyalty. Every one of my cooks and chefs all started with us as dishwashers. We’re a little more old-school … We just felt it was easiest to train from the ground up, and that just worked well for us. We would take personality over experience any day.”

Customers have shown dedication, with some visiting weekly.

“They know my staff’s stories. They know their families, and they know my family. They feel comfortable sharing their family photos with us,” she said. “I hope they’re able to have that with the next restaurant.”

Asked how she views the neighborhood from the late ‘90s to now, she replied that “change is always hard. Initially I wasn’t ecstatic about the new buildings, but, from a business perspective, I knew it would be a good thing. It might’ve changed the way it looked, but I think they did it in a really good way. I still think Proctor is a fabulous district.”

After her respite, Behnke hopes to return to working with disadvantaged youth, as she had volunteered before stepping in full-throttle to the restaurant.

“I’m not a person that can sit home and do nothing. I would like to find something where I am not in charge,” she said. “It’s hard to be a plumber, an electrician, a computer genius — you have to be it all when you run a restaurant.”

POMODORO PROCTOR

▪ 3819 N. 26th St., Tacoma, 253-752-1111, pomodoroproctor.com

▪ Monday-Thursday 3-8:30 p.m., Friday-Saturday 12-9 p.m., Sunday 12-8 p.m. Pomodoro will operate standard hours through July 30, its last day of service. Reservations are recommended, but walk-ins are welcome, especially at the dark wood bar.