Young Restaurateurs
Check out this little feature! Bringing some life to Spokane as Young Restaurateurs…
“With six years of college, four different majors, and no degree earned, Matt Goodwin still had no idea what he wanted to do for a living as he started bartending at Fast Eddie’s Bar & Grill in 2000.
“I applied at Tomato Street and Fast Eddie’s, and they hired me first,” Goodwin says. “My first shift was the day I got hired. The first Long Iced Tea I made was blue.” The alcoholic drink gets its nickname because of its resemblance of taste and color to actual iced tea. There’s nothing blue about it, Goodwin says.
Despite that drink buyer’s objections, Goodwin, now 38 and one of those nominated for inclusion in the Journal’s Rising Stars special section, immediately fell in love with bartending.
Today, he owns and co-owns a total of seven different Spokane-area restaurants and taverns, and those businesses employ a total of about 120 employees, he says. He co-owns Fast Eddie’s Bar & Grill downtown, at 1 W. Spokane Falls Blvd., and Press, at 909 S. Grand Blvd. on the South Hill, together with business partner Jeremy Tangen.
Goodwin also owns the Volstead Act at 12 N. Post St. in downtown Spokane, the Backyard Public House at 1881 W. Broadway, and The Boiler Room at 6501 N. Cedar, in North Spokane. He says he also owns two Spokane-area Papa John’s pizza restaurants. Goodwin has been on a good run since he and Tangen opened Press in January 2009.
Goodwin’s businesses are part of Goodwin Group, Inc., with each establishment being its own LLC, he says. Even the MarQuee Lounge Goodwin and Tangen once operated at 522 W. Riverside downtown enjoyed a five-year run before they shut the nightclub down.
‘I don’t want anything to do with that anymore,” Goodwin says of the nightclub business. “You basically have nine hours a week to make money; Thursday through Saturday from 10 at night to 1 in the morning.'”
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