Renee Erickson is such a culinary powerhouse—her name synonymous with integrity, freshness, and unfussy refinement—that it can be easy to forget her success didn’t happen overnight.
She was 25 years old when she took over Boat Street Café in 1998, transitioning from its chef to owner. “My mom was working in the dining room, my dad was in the kitchen,” Erickson recalled in an interview with Eater many years later, comparing the nuttiness of that time to “an SNL skit.”
In an interview with The Stranger last week, Erickson added, “There used to be a time at Boat Street like 20 years ago that I would make marinated olives, like, every day. At some point, I was like, ‘Oh shit, I could make them for like a month, and they’d be the same, or better even.’ There’s this time where you just don’t have the ability to consider things, and I think just having more people that are paying attention, and know what the goal is, will make it so much more successful.”
