Harvester restaurant gets a new owner, but with old Gig Harbor ties

Biscuit and gravy lovers, do not despair.

The Harvester Restaurant, which closed June 30 after nearly four decades as Gig Harbor’s comfort-food Valhalla, will live again, but probably under a new name, its new owner says.

Carl Swanes, 41, a Gig Harbor attorney who heads a group of investors that bought the restaurant July 30, said he hopes to reopen the spot with a new lessee “well before the holidays.”

Swanes practices law in Seattle now, but he’s Old Gig Harbor, the great-great-grandson of a Norwegian immigrant and the latest generation of the family that runs Northern Fish Company in Tacoma.

“I still consider myself a Gig Harbor guy,” Swanes told the Gateway last week. “I love the town and I love the people. Our family still has property out on the Key Peninsula.”

According to state tax records, Swanes’ group, Gig Harvest, LLC, bought the property at 5601 Soundview Drive for $1.35 million. Others in his family are among the investors, but he is the principal shareholder, he said.

“We’ve had our eye on The Harvester for a long time,” he said. “It’s a classic spot, and we think it’s got a great future.”

The Harvester has been a Gig Harbor landmark for 38 years, known for its American-style comfort food like country fried steak, beer-battered shrimp and six kinds of stacked hamburgers. Breakfasts were hearty — stuffed hash browns, eggs Benedict, corned beef hash, top sirloin, Tex-Mex omelettes.

It had a loyal crowd of regulars, including a group of fishermen who showed up for breakfast nearly every morning, said longtime owner Kirby Tweten, who opened the restaurant in 1984. His parents owned the original Harvester in the Stadium District of Tacoma.

But Tweten, now 68, told The Gateway he decided to close the restaurant after struggling through a year of the coronavirus pandemic. He wanted to retire, he said, and his two sons weren’t interested in the business.

“Restaurants are a tough business, and it’s even tougher now,” Tweten said. “It’s all changed. With Covid, suddenly we were told restaurants were the worst possible place you could go.”

Like many other restaurants, the Harvester tried outdoor dining, with tents and braziers in the parking lot, but with only modest results. In June, Tweten decided to close the doors.

“I gave the keys to the new guy,” he said. “I didn’t even ask what he was going to do with it.”

Swanes said he and his investors have been talking to several restaurant groups — “names you would recognize” — about taking over the Harvester, but haven’t yet picked one.

“We’re looking at an upper-middle menu kind of place,” he said. “Nothing fancy, but a good family breakfast, lunch and dinner restaurant. We want it to be as good as — or dare I say, better than — the Harvester”

The restaurant is in good shape and won’t need much renovation, Swanes said.

“It’s pretty much turnkey and ready to go,” he said. “All the kitchen equipment is there and in good order.”

Swanes (pronounced “Swan-esh”) is a 1999 graduate of Gig Harbor High School. He is an attorney with the Seattle-based Wall Law Group. His father, John Ross Swanes of Gig Harbor, who died in in 2020, was the fourth generation in the family to lead the Northern Fish Company, established in 1912 by Johannes Swanes. Carl Swanes says the family goes back even farther, to Oswald Swanes, a Norwegian immigrant who homesteaded on the Peninsula in the 19th Century.

“My family has really, really strong ties to the Gig Harbor area, so we’re super excited about this,” Swanes said. “We’re hoping to get a lease up as soon as we can — hopefully well before the holidays.”

This story was originally published August 9, 2021 at 5:30 AM.