A mercantile up front, with a bar in the back. Image via E. Smith Mercantile’s Facebook page.
Here’s yet another new project destined for Pioneer Square, though this one seems to have a foot in food and booze, the other in style and shopping.
Jessie Poole has a background in apparel and design. Her mother, Kate Poole, is a wellness consultant. Both of them love food and drink. Now mother and daughter are turning a quaint little space at 208 First Ave S into E. Smith Mercantile, a destination that’s half purveyor of dry and pantry goods, half watering hole.
The setup—and the name—was inspired by Jessie’s great-grandparents and a similar mercantile in their small hometown of Atlanta, Idaho that served as a local gathering place. E. Smith will have a cocktail bar in back that seats about 14 people. The retail portion up front will sell home goods, apothecary-inspired bath and body products, and apparel, as well as locally made pantry goods like salt, jam, honeys, pickles, olive oils, and a special coffee blend from BioWilly’s Beans. “I personally want to be able to connect people to their products, so you are invested more than just liking it,” says Jessie. Plans even call for a denim bar.
Back at the bar, the drinks will lean classic, says Jessie, potentially with some housemade elements from the apothecary side of things. She’s hoping the shop will be ready by April, and the bar will be serving drinks by July (track updates on the Facebook page). Jessie says her parents, sister, and boyfriend all live in Pioneer Square and love the community. However she laments, “Everyone who lives there takes their money to other neighborhoods.”
With Matt Dillon’s Bar Sajor, Italian restaurant Tinello, the newly relocated Il Corvo, and a number of other intruiging projects in the works, it seems like that’s about to change.
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