Side Piece Kitchen

Side Piece Kitchen started the way the best places often do, with two restaurant workers, a $2,000 payday loan, and more nerve than sense. They turned a run down pizza shop into a brunch spot the neighborhood helped build, crowdfunding the rest from the same community that now lines up at the door.

The food earns the loyalty. This is comfort brunch with a creative streak, from a beef wellington biscuit sandwich to pork belly, a fig poppa, and cheesecakes worth saving room for, alongside the eggs benedict and biscuits and gravy the regulars come back for. It runs Wednesday through Saturday mornings, so you plan around it.

Side Piece Kitchen is a Tacoma underdog story you can taste, the kind of independent kitchen a city is lucky to keep.