This article gives the history of the Wedgwood Broiler restaurant in Wedgwood at 8230 35th Ave NE, in a two-acre shopping center at Wedgwood’s main intersection.  In 1959 a grocery store was the first building to be built on the site.  Other shops and the restaurant itself, were added later.

The Wedgwood Broiler restaurant added outdoor seating during the pandemic.

Potentially in the year 2024 a major redevelopment plan may get started, but there’s a very long timeline. It could take up to two years just to get through the Design Review process at the City of Seattle, for a new layout of buildings on the shopping center site.

Long-time owners of the shopping center are in negotiations to sell to a developer, Security Properties.  Here is a link to the Security Properties website  for redevelopment plans.

The Security Properties plan is that the Wedgwood Shopping Center would be redeveloped, with all of the present buildings demolished.  The current tentative plan shown here, has north at the left.  On the left side is a grocery store building which would take the place of the QFC which is presently vacant (it closed on April 24, 2021.)  On the right would be additional retail spaces at ground level with apartments above.

Tentative plan as of June 2022 for replacement buildings in the Wedgwood shopping center.

This article will be updated as plans continue.  Security Properties has invited the present retail stores on the shopping center site, to come back in the new development but of course they would have to either close or move elsewhere during the construction.  At present we don’t know if most of the shops would do that.

Read on for the history of the Wedgwood Broiler restaurant.

Albert Balch, Community Builder

Albert Balch 1903-1976

Albert Balch, the developer of Wedgwood, liked to call himself a “community builder,” meaning that he didn’t just built houses.   Although he was primarily a builder of residential homes and not of business blocks, he wanted to help provide places for services that the Wedgwood neighborhood would need, such as stores, banks and medical offices.  The business center of the neighborhood at NE 85th Street, along 35th Ave NE, was created by Albert Balch.

In 1942 Albert Balch acquired the land on the east side of 35th Ave NE, the southeast corner at NE 85th Street.  This site from the corner of NE 82nd to NE 85th, had been held by a long-time owners, the Fulton family, and had never been developed.  Balch used that corner site as a staging area for his lumber and construction equipment throughout the 1940s and 1950s.  During the 1950s while the site was mostly vacant, neighborhood Christmas tree sales got their start on the lot.

Beginnings of businesses at the present Wedgwood Broiler site

The Tradewell Grocery Store as pictured in 1962, was built in 1959 at 8400 35th Ave NE. Photo courtesy of Seattle Municipal Archives image 76718.

Finally in 1958-59 Balch began leasing out space to businesses at the corner-NE 85th Street site, east side of 35th Ave NE.  The present grocery store building was the first building, built in 1959 by Tradewell, then became Matthew’s Red Apple in 1989 and then QFC in the year 2000.  QFC closed on April 24, 2021 and the building is currently empty.

In 1958 space which Balch owned was to be leased for a hamburger drive-in at the present site of the Windermere office on the west side of the street at 8401 35th Ave NE, but the drive-in was disqualified by zoning regulations.

Balch then ventured into the restaurant-building business himself when he started the Sir Wedgwood at the present site of the Wedgwood Broiler, 8230 35th Ave NE, on the south side of the grocery store building.  Today the Wedgwood Broiler is in the heart of Wedgwood in a shopping district which includes a bank, hair salon, coffee shop and other business offices.

Beginnings — before it became the Broiler

The first, very small restaurant at this site was run by two guys, Lou Dapas and Donald R. Mills, who were also responsible for Lou’s 19-cent Hamburger Drive-In, Burien.   In the struggle to get going as a “real” sit-down restaurant, in July 1967 Don Mills applied to the City of Seattle to expand the Sir Wedgwood building and to serve liquor.   The application to the Board of Adjustment failed in a split vote, 3 to 2.   Mills gathered more supporting statements, including an endorsement from the Wedgwood Community Club and from Albert Balch himself, and was successful in an appeal to the City Council Planning Committee.

The door handles of the cocktail lounge at the Broiler have the initials “S W” for the original restaurant name, Sir Wedgwood.

Balch saw the need for professional restaurant management, so at the end of 1968 more experienced restaurant owners acquired the lease of the Sir Wedgwood.

In 1969 the restaurant was expanded and was renamed the Sir Wedgwood Broiler, because Glen F. Jensen, owner of Blazes Broiler in Ballard, helped redesign the space.   That rather awkward, long name, Sir Wedgwood Broiler, was kept through the end of 1972.   The change to the shortened “Wedgwood Broiler” came in 1973.

The current owner of the Wedgwood Broiler, Derek Cockbain, began working there in 1981.   Over time he did every job from dishwashing to cooking, and he became owner on March 1, 1996.    Under Derek’s guidance the Broiler has continued with great food and great ambiance, a neighborhood gathering place truly in the heart of Wedgwood.

Source notes:  

A banner from the old Blazes Broiler in Ballard now hangs in the rafters of the next-door business, Limback Lumber at 2600 NW Market Street.

Update on Blazes Broiler:  This once-popular restaurant at 2622 NW Market Street in the Ballard neighborhood closed in the year 2001.  The former restaurant building was divided into two retail storefronts.

Next door at Limback Lumber, 2600 NW Market Street, an old Blazes Broiler banner hangs from the rafters.

Source notes (continued):

Seattle City directories:  various years, tracing the names of the Broiler and its owners; accessed at Seattle Public Library downtown on the 9th & 10th floors.

Newspaper articles:

The Blazes Broiler, 2622 NW Market Street in Ballard, closed in 2001. The building is now divided into two retail spaces.

Classified ads (for restaurant help) of 1972 used the name “Sir Wedgwood Broiler.”  Listings in classified ads beginning in January 1973 showed the name as Wedgwood Broiler.

“Board Denies Zoning Variance to Restaurant in Wedgwood.”  Seattle Daily Times, July 29, 1967.  Page 15.

“City Council Planning Committee Recommended Granting of a Variance.”  Seattle Daily Times, August 31, 1967.  Page 27.

“Wedgwood Broiler.”  Restaurant review by Gregory Roberts, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, July 22, 2000, page 5.

The Wedgwood Broiler on Facebook.

A restaurant review of the Broiler, January 20, 2016 in the Seattle Times newspaper.

The Wedgwood Broiler’s food challenge beaten after 47 years.

Obituary of James R. Anderson (1930-2021) who was owner of the Wedgwood Broiler and the Blazes Broiler restaurants with Glen F. Jensen.  The two men met in 1955 while serving in the Air Force.  Mr. Anderson sold the Wedgwood Broiler to Derek Cockbain on March 1, 1996.

The annual car show held in August in the parking lot of the Wedgwood Broiler