San Francisco has its Top of the Mark restaurant. A new Tri-Cities Restaurant will soon have its own version of skyline dining.
Mike Miller, a founder ofStick+Stone Neopolitan Wood-Fired Pizza at Queensgate, is preparing to debut a high-end gastropub in Kennewick. It will open on the top two floors of the Massage Envy Spa building on Columbia Center Boulevard.
OK, it’s the third and fourth floors but the 3,300-square-foot space offers two stories of floor-to-ceiling windows and an expansive deck with views sweeping from the Columbia Center corridor to the Columbia River bluffs of western Pasco.
Four years after Stick+Stone’s debut, Miller, together with his wife Meridith and his parents, is branching into upscale bar food in an untested location. The venture, called Proof Gastropub, is far from complete but Miller is optimistic is will be ready to open in December.
The 90-seat restaurant will serve top-notch bar fare and craft cocktails in a stylish, industrial chic setting. Miller acknowledged that there’s risk to opening a public restaurant on an upper floor.
Proof Gastropub is reachable by both stairs and elevator. It is across the parking lot from the building that formerly housed FrankenBurger’s Fry Lab, near the Three Rivers convention campus and Toyota Arena. Porter’s Real Barbecue of Richland plans to open there next spring.
Miller said he’s excited to be neighbors with Porter’s, a fellow local restaurant success story. The “Proof” name isn’t just a playful reference to alcohol, Miller said. He hopes it will disprove the old saying that Tri-Citians prefer chains to local restaurants.
“This is going to be proof that local restaurants can work in this area,” he said.
Miller is a 2004 Southridge High School graduate with a marketing degree from Washington State University. He worked in the restaurant industry all through high school and college, lapping up the fun, camaraderie and endless need for services.
He tried corporate life after graduation but after eight years at a desk, his inner entrepreneur emerged.