After losing its humble leader, Spud’s Pizza looks to another 60 years in Tacoma

Since 1961, Spud’s — originally a Pizza Pete’s franchise — has been serving crispy pizzas on homemade crust, made along with bread for sandwiches just behind the restaurant in a small bakery, where the original owner Spud Hansen raised his family.

The coronavirus wouldn’t put a stop to that run, not if David Almonte had anything to do with it.

“He was really adamant that we were going to keep it going with takeout,” recalled his wife Lisa Almonte. “Because we already had done a pretty solid takeout business, we were confident that we would be OK.”

Now she, son Nicolas in the kitchen and daughter Gina in design and marketing are determined to carry her husband’s torch. On March 26, just 10 days after Gov. Jay Inslee’s order to close dining rooms across the state, David suffered a brain aneurysm and died two days later. He was 56.

His sudden death left Lisa and their Tacoma community of friends and fellow business owners devastated, she said in an interview.

“He loved Tacoma, too. He just knew every square inch,” Lisa Almonte said. “He knew what businesses were opening and closing, and had relationships with so many business owners in town and really enjoyed the history of the city.”

In a tribute in Edwards Memorial, she added, “He never knew a stranger and made new friends everywhere he went.”

Priscilla Lisicich, a founding member of Safe Streets, a nonprofit encouraging neighborhood and youth engagement, described him in a letter to the Almonte family as a “dedicated community member doing so much for so many, and often without recognition.”

Lisa’s mother had long desired to see a Pacific Avenue business district like those in Stadium and Proctor, and together she and Dave pioneered that project. Their first meeting was held, naturally, at Spud’s.

Pat and Gail Ringrose, friends and the owners of T Town Apparel in Proctor, have been printing T-shirts in support of local businesses during the pandemic, with $10 of each sale going directly to the brand, with the hashtag #tacomastrong on the back. Most are just one color, but in honor of Dave, they printed the retro Spud’s logo in white and orange on a dark gray shirt.

“This journey has me crying some days, but this one was hard to print,” wrote Gail Ringrose April 30 on Instagram. “I know Dave is never going to come back through my doors as a customer and friend. He was a big part of our tribe, and as I fold these I can hear his voice talking shop with me. I miss his, ‘Gail, do you know what you should do?’ or the ‘Yeah, it’s tough, I from the Eastside.’”

David moved with his family to South Tacoma from Chicago in 1969, when he was 6 years old. He graduated from Mount Tahoma High School and Western Washington University with a business degree, working for Motorola until 1999. In 1989, he reunited with Lisa (then Hunter), who had invited him to her prom at Lincoln High School many years before.

They married and bought their first home near Wapato Park, not far from Spud’s, where they both remembered eating pizza and hanging out with friends as teenagers.

“We all grew up going to Spud’s,” said Lisa. “We just had fond memories of the place. As lovers of South Tacoma and the community, we were excited to be a part of that. It had really great people working there, and it was so established that it just kind of ran on its own for a lot of years.”

DAVE’S LEGACY AT SPUD’S

The Almontes, with childhood friend Vickie Kehn and her husband plus another couple, bought the restaurant and the land around it in 2001.

Lisa recalled telling Dave at the time that “it was just the silliest thing that he had ever wanted to embark on.”

For a while, it hummed along under Spud Hansen and then managers who kept the menu as is. The sports teams continued celebrating their seasons at Spud’s in the “Trophy Room,” which now boasts decades of memorabilia.

“It had such a wide customer base, and people really asked us — pleaded with us — to keep things the same,” explained Lisa. “We didn’t have any intention of changing. It’s definitely got a real old-school vibe. Going in, it’s like walking into the past. Our customers really, really appreciate that. So many customers have stories to tell when they come in.”

She mentioned one 60s-something couple who met at Spud’s and visit every year on their anniversary.

“It’s just a really nostalgic place that holds a lot of memories for so many people,” she said.

In recent years, business declined and the restaurant cut back its hours to the point that people wondered if it was still open. Lisa said the family moved to University Place after the birth of their first child, Gina — and admitted that the success of their ownership team “didn’t really turn out the way we had envisioned.”

Two years ago, David left his day job to focus full-time on Spud’s. He became the face of the business, the affable owner who greeted you every time and poured you another beer. A lifelong Seahawks fan, he transformed the bar into a game-day destination, packing the house every Sunday. On Fridays, he added bar-stool bingo, and he resurrected pull tabs, a simple lottery card perhaps known to Spud’s early customers. Younger crowds inched toward regular status.

“My husband was the one who is really just such a people person and customer-service oriented,” said Lisa. “He was not in the kitchen. I don’t even know if he could have made you a pizza or a sandwich, but he knew all the customers and their names.”

Though business has, as it has for every restaurant, slowed in recent weeks due to the pandemic and stay-at-home orders, she is now adamant that Spud’s must go on.

“The last two years have been really, really hard, but what has made it all worth it is the appreciation that our customers show us,” she said. “We really feel like the groundwork that he’s done in the last two years has really paved the way.

“We really took it from being in a really bad place two years ago to just getting a little bit better and better every day. I have every intention of keeping it going.”

That Dave’s death coincided with the heightened stress of the COVID-19 crisis, she continued, “Honestly, it’s been kind of a silver lining for me. If it would have been business as usual, I would be in a heap in a corner somewhere right now. But because things slowed down, it’s giving me a chance to” — she paused — “wrap my head around everything that needs to be done.”

Lisa teaches English language learners at Lister Elementary School and has been simultaneously thrust into remote classes.

Both the global crisis and the personal tragedy have brought her family together in surprising ways.

Gina was laid off from her job as a designer in Los Angeles; she moved back to Tacoma with her boyfriend and has been creating a new website for the restaurant, taking food photographs and running social media. Nicolas, known as Nico in the family, started working in the kitchen a few years ago and has become one of their best pizza makers, according to Lisa.

“We’re really looking forward to when we can reopen,” she said. “We have been able to definitely stay afloat during this time, but I think we’re really going to take it to a whole new level.”

She trusts that Dave’s legacy, and the thin-crust pizza and thick-cut Spudders, their signature potato chip, will keep the pizza parlor and trophy room alive for another half-century, at least.

They closed the restaurant for just that one day. The next afternoon, a group of friends from high school gathered in the parking lot, pizza boxes atop the roofs of their cars, “doing their little socially distanced get-together,” said Lisa. “We really haven’t celebrated like I want to. I know that we will celebrate him when we’re able to be together again.”

As co-owner and friend Vickie Kehn recalled of their high school days, “Let’s all meet up at Spud’s.”

SPUD’S PIZZA PARLOR & TROPHY ROOM

▪ 7025 Pacific Ave., Tacoma, 253-475-3366, spuds.pizza

▪ Details: Monday, 11 a.m. to 9 p.m.; Tuesday to Thursday, 11 a.m. to 10 p.m.; Friday, 11 a.m. to 11 p.m.; Saturday, 9 a.m. to 11 p.m.; Sunday, 11 a.m. to 9 p.m.

For more food and drink stories with the tastemakers of the South Sound, sign up for TNT Diner’s weekly newsletter, Where to Eat, delivered to your inbox every Thursday.

This story was originally published May 8, 2020 at 5:00 AM.