What happened at Knapp’s, which is closing after just 9 months under new owner

On Monday morning, a typed sign with a frank message appeared inside the glass door of a diner that has served Tacoma’s Proctor District since 1938: “Knapp’s is closed. Thank you for the memories. We’ve enjoyed serving you.”

Then a handwritten sign appeared below it, announcing Saturday morning hours for “coffee only.”

“What essentially happened when I told everyone, especially the ones who had been there the longest, was that they needed time to say goodbye,” Billy Brewer, the restaurant’s owner since August 2025, told The News Tribune this week.

After informing the staff of about 20 people, they agreed to open for coffee 7-10 a.m. on June 13. The dimly lit lounge, where the barflies have chattered for decades over drinks and Reubens even as the cigarette smoke evaporated, will open for a few hours through Saturday night, too, he said — approximately 4-7 p.m. The kitchen will serve some food, but the main dining room will remain closed during this final hurrah.

The News Tribune first reported the closure June 8, shortly after the unceremonious announcement.

As with many restaurant endings, the money coming in simply didn’t match, let alone exceed, the money going out, as Brewer, formerly in tech sales and IT, told TNT Diner in a phone call on Tuesday.

“Over the last year, I think a lot of things went right,” he said. “It just all comes down to timing. It’s a big restaurant. It’s got a lot of costs — it’s expensive to kind of keep running. You’re kind of chasing profitability as fast as you can. We just never really got there. We just ran out of time.”

He had hoped to reinvigorate the brand by caring more for the food program and giving the staff more room to modernize the menu while retaining its something-for-everyone sensibility. They updated the chili recipe, added bacon jam to a burger and expanded the appetizer options. The goal was to attract a broader customer base, especially beyond breakfast.

The lounge had long been the only place to snag a happy-hour special, for instance, as the morning shift tidied up the dining room. Brewer expanded the specials — a $12 burger, $7 onion rings, $5 Caesar salad and slice of cheesecake — to the whole restaurant from 2 p.m. ‘til close. He tried Whiskey Wednesdays and “boozy brunch” on Saturdays in the banquet room with $7 mimosas, music and maybe dancing.

Brunch never took off (not necessarily unusual in Tacoma), and it seems other attempts to fill the space sputtered.

Brewer said they had “a lot of support” from the Proctor community and from other local business owners, but it wasn’t enough to keep going. He acknowledged the loss of an institution attached to 88 years of memories and moments.

“There will be people that feel, especially immediately, that it needs to survive and that it’s not the end, and …,” he paused, then laughed quietly. “I probably felt the same for a while. I probably tried a little too long to keep it going, so I can relate. It’s just … at some point, you have to put a limit on what you risk. Others who think they need this to exist: What amount of risk is worth that feeling?”

Knapp’s will close, but can it be saved?

Brewer bought Knapp’s Restaurant & Lounge last August from brothers Dan and Jonathan Tweten of Sound Restaurant Family, which still owns retro haunts including The Hob Nob in Tacoma, The Poodle Dog in Fife and Burs Restaurant in Lakewood. At the time, the Twetens reportedly had been seeking to offload Knapp’s for at least a year — a possibility that didn’t seem far-fetched following the 2023 closure of another iconic Tacoma diner in their portfolio, Harvester, which anchored a Stadium District block that has since been in redevelopment. The first South Sound location of Lil Woody’s, a Seattle-based burger chain, is expected to move into the old Harvester unit.

Might a similar redevelopment emerge in Proctor, often described as one of the city’s most desirable neighborhoods?

Knapp’s spanned several storefronts of the two-story, red-brick structure at 2701-2709 N. Proctor St. It opened in 1938 as a delicatessen and, through a couple of owners and several decades, expanded to add a bar and another dining room. On the second floor are 13 studio and 1-bedroom apartments, with rent starting at $1,200 per month, according to a listing. Property records value the building around $4.2 million, with a listed owner of Gamble Building LLC, an entity associated with Todd Clarke and Drew Frame of Kidder Matthews.

Reached by phone Wednesday, Clarke confirmed they were aware of the restaurant closure but “just learned about it last night.” He declined to comment beyond saying they would discuss next steps with the tenant.

When Brewer spoke to TNT Diner last fall, he had a vision of “really keeping Knapp’s the same, just elevating the experience” and connecting the personalities of the lounge and the restaurant. He also had a related, still-forming side project of developing other food business brands, but he said this week that Knapp’s had taken all of his attention.

As many small business owners will say as the doors shutter, “It’s difficult out there,” said Brewer, who will likely try to get a new job in his past profession. “It’s expensive, and you gotta come to the table with a lot of money and a lot of speed.”

He owns the Knapp’s brand and the business itself but declined to share how much he had paid for it. He said a “direct sale” at this stage is improbable, and any arrangement to operate in the Gamble building would be a separate negotiation with the property owners.

“It’s unfortunately much more complicated than that,” said Brewer. “There’s plenty of people in the community that want to see this brand stay somehow. It’s kinda back to the situation before I purchased it, which is: Is there enough need in the community for it to stay, and if so, who’s gonna take that on?”

Knapp’s will operate brief evening hours through Saturday, June 13, 4-7 p.m. in the lounge only. From 7-10 a.m. on June 13, the restaurant dining room will be open for coffee.