Downtown Tacoma to see new charcuterie business from fast-growing national chain
A chain that offers customized charcuterie boards is coming to downtown Tacoma.
Representatives for Graze Craze have submitted a building-permit application for tenant improvements at the building on the southeast corner of South Ninth Street and Pacific Avenue. While the permit information is listed with 118 S. Ninth St., a “Coming Soon” notification on the company’s website lists the new Tacoma site as 901 Pacific Ave.
It would be the first South Sound location for Graze Craze. Other Washington sites include Bellevue, South Seattle and Woodinville.
Different locations offer different services, with some offering pickup, delivery and catering, and others without catering.
Graze Craze states on its website that “the grazing style of eating provides you and your guests with a diverse meal plan in the form of a charcuterie style grazing box, platter or table that meets the individual needs and wants of everyone’s personal palate and diet... .”
The trend of elaborate “grazing boards” boomed across the country during the COVID-19 pandemic, as savvy entrepreneurs from the District of Columbia to Columbus, Ohio and Detroit, Michigan realized they could sell charcuterie, with salamis twirled into rosettes and cheese triangles layered in little pyramids, to friends and family.
Some of those efforts caught the attention of public health departments, which cracked down on home-based businesses operating without proper food-handling permits.
A few that cropped up around Puget Sound have since closed, according to Instagram pages that have been silent for two or three years now. Others pursued the appropriate licensing paths, renting commercial kitchen space and in some cases expanding into event planning.
Adore Boards, for instance, continues to serve clients from a home base in South Tacoma, while Bomb Charcuterie opened a storefront in downtown Sumner, where owner Alicia Hall also hosts private events.
Graze Craze did not immediately respond Monday to a request for comment on the new site. Its application with the city calls for an interior remodel but “no structural changes, no added square footage.”
The application was submitted into the city portal on Sunday and had not yet been reviewed by city staff.
Graze Craze has close to 90 U.S. locations, according to its website listings, and is reportedly projected to open more than 50 locations nationwide this year.
