After lengthy renovation, Terry’s Bar is back in business in Tacoma’s North End

Terry’s Bar and Grill opened (or reopened, depending on your perspective) on New Year’s Eve after an extensive 28-month renovation closely watched by longtime regulars and neighbors. The new Terry’s is unrecognizable from its 90-year-old self, but the response to its highly anticipated return has been evident in exuberant social media posts and tables full of happy people eating and drinking, even on a Wednesday at 3 p.m.

“The neighborhood reception to getting Terry’s back open has been incredible,” said Seth Colby, operations manager for the restaurant group that also owns Parkway Tavern, Hanks Pizza and Beer, Coles Bar and Grill and West End Pub. “Having people that loyal is a gift.”

It’s also kept the team, led by general manager Alana Tamminga, in good spirits and the owners, Jeff and Helen Fraychineaud, confident that their significant investment would be worth it — spiritually, at least.

Approximately every five minutes from August 2023, when the “office tavern” suddenly closed as construction began in earnest, to December 2025, a curious local would peer into the windows, said Tamminga last week.

Although she hadn’t yet posted the opening date on Facebook or Instagram, the bar — now painted two shades of misty green and butter yellow — began receiving inventory during the holiday in-between after the health department completed its pre-opening inspection Dec. 23. As three pallets of a food delivery arrived, Tamminga recalled, someone stopped to take photos of the boxes. She tried to track them down on Facebook or local neighborhood forums, but maybe the photographer simply texted them to a friend.

It was true that Terry’s was on the precipice of reopening, but they needed to train the staff, especially the kitchen led by chef Chris Foutz. They opened without telling a soul outside the building.

Just kidding.

Everyone in Tacoma, or at least the North End, knew: Terry’s is open.

On Dec. 29, Tamminga posted to social media the official return, with a wild choice of the biggest night out of the year.

The New Terry’s Bar

If you’ve ever settled into a stool at Parkway (remodeled in the 90s), Hanks or Coles (remodeled in the mid-2010s), you will immediately recognize the craftsmanship, the ambiance and the rhythm. Each feels like it’s been here forever, and in a sense, they all have. But the Fraychineauds have put an undisclosed sum into these 20th-century spaces, hiring Dylan Ashley Construction to transform them into their modern-day neighborhood pub personalities.

(The Fraychineauds bought West End Pub a few years ago but in that case don’t own the property, so for the time being, it resembles its old self, although they added a covered patio similar to the ones at Hanks and now Terry’s. With his wife Kim, Ashley bought and revamped Parky’s Pizza Tavern, a similarly ancient Tacoma haunt.)

The building at 3410 N. Proctor St. was constructed in 1936 for Stacks and Lyman Confectionery; it was also a pub. Two other families, including the notorious Carbone crime family, owned it through the decades until it became the “office tavern” under Terry and Carol Johnson. They sold the bar to Ron and Donna Graham, who declined a developer’s offer to tear the old man down for a three-story, 14-unit apartment building. In bequeathing it to the Fraychineauds in 2018, the Grahams told The News Tribune, “They get the neighborhood bar concept. It’s becoming more of a dying breed. You’ve got to keep these things alive.”

“For our company, that’s kind of always the M.O.,” said Colby, the operations manager. He took on the role a few years ago after more than a decade working at and managing The Parkway. “Jeff and Helen have always had incredible vision and are the stewards of history. They take these historic places in Tacoma that need a little life breathed into them ... This building gets to last for the next few generations.”

At the new Terry’s, “life” is perhaps an understatement.

The project, which incidentally almost began in 2020, according to permits filed with the City of Tacoma, originally intended to “give us a workable kitchen and bathrooms.” In 2021, they needed a land-use permit to adjust the property line, permits show. The on-site pace didn’t accelerate until early 2024, bleeding into 2025. Ashley’s team, meanwhile, was hard at work on the immense woodwork that surrounds the new interior. Tamminga posted updates on Facebook and Instagram along the way, with the caveat of “no date yet!”

Finally, in November, tipped by the installation of a new draft system, it appeared the end was near.

Out is the carpeted floors, the parquet walls that for decades were partly covered in shag carpet, the open-frame ceiling, the banquet chairs, the plain tables and the pizza oven. (Before you throw a Rainier at the new windows: Now that Terry’s is open, Ashley and his crew will soon begin work in a cinder-block building next door — the future home of Proctor Pizza, an all-ages pub.)

In is a cacophony of reclaimed wood, much of it salvaged from schools in Longview, said Colby, each piece meticulously planed and shaped into benches, tables, bar tops, smooth walls with custom corbel trim around the entirety of the tongue-and-groove ceiling with perfectly spaced schoolhouse lights. New taps and a stocked back bar. A covered and heated patio with roll-up garage-sized windows that spans the length of the building. A mostly new menu cooked in a new kitchen in an approximately 500-square addition to the original structure.

Terry’s new menu

Share a plate of hush puppies stuffed with sausage and cheese (limited availability), fried jalapeno poppers or cauliflower with salsa macha, deviled eggs or “When Pigs Fly,” hunks of pork fried and drenched in kalbi sauce. Main salads, such as the Cantina Bowl with “gringo beef,” roasted red peppers, house-pickled red onions and jalapenos, cheese and a spicy crema-style dressing, are generously sized. A refresher course of thinly sliced cucumbers in a sesame-soy dressing is a surprising accompaniment to a basket of fried chicken and jos, which have not left the building.

The kitchen now boasts two Henny Penny pressure fryers, which should speed up service of the beloved Pacific Northwest specialty ($18 for four pieces, $25 for eight or $32 for a dozen). Foutz’s recipe involves brining the bird, which the chef says is a step he never skips with poultry. “It just imparts better flavor,” he said.

He also has fashioned a fried-chicken sandwich (The Barn Burner, $17 with fries or jos, upgrade sides for $2-$4) that already stands out in the Tacoma scene with chipotle aioli, hot honey and pickles on a brioche bun.

Other sandwiches include The Lunchbox of grilled mortadella with Swiss, dijon and bacon-onion jam; a patty melt with homemade meatloaf on marbled rye; and a signature burger with LTO, cheddar and Terry’s “super secret sauce.”

Mains keep the old-school mentality alive through chicken pot pie, shepherd’s pie, country-fried steak with potatoes and baked mac and cheese.

On New Year’s Day, cheery folks nestled into the long booths and perched on stools at the high-top tables lining the middle of the room that seats 98 people. When The News Tribune arrived for photos on Jan. 7 around 3 p.m., the bar was busy. I commented on the crowds and Colby replied, “It just cleared out.”

By the time we left around 5 p.m., the place had filled up again.

Colby said Terry’s return has spurred “renewed interest” in all of the group’s bars. While many of the customers flocking back to the Proctor tavern in the early days of this new year have definitely been there before, many more maybe haven’t.

“These places are community centers — it’s what we build them for,” said Colby. “We have a wonderful supportive community, and we’re all looking forward to the neighborhood mantra shifting to: ‘So, when’s Proctor Pizza opening?’”

And if you want to keep calling it TOT or Terry’s Office, he added, “We are fine by it.” Just keep stopping by.

Terry’s Bar & Grill

• 3410 N. Proctor St., Tacoma, terrystacoma.com
• Daily 11 a.m.-2 a.m.
• Details: 90-year-old Proctor bar reopened after lengthy renovation with new menu and new space, plus covered/heated patio; sharing tables encouraged; family-friendly pizza pub planned next door
• Follow instagram.com/terrysoffice for updates