NetShed No. 9

NetShed No. 9 is a breakfast and lunch restaurant built out over the water at 3313 Harborview Drive, owned since 2013 by Katie Doherty and chef Thad Lyman, who spent fifteen years as partners in Napa Valley Grill in California before coming north. Doherty grew up in the Gig Harbor area. Their other places here are Brix 25 and Iscreamery.

The kitchen has no grill and no open fire, a limitation of the building, so everything is cooked from scratch around that constraint. Lemon curd and blueberry French toast, ricotta and sourdough pancakes, a chop chop salad and a banh mi are the plates the menu is built on, and Visit Pierce County singles out the clam chowder and the cinnamon rolls. Coffee is locally sourced, there is beer and wine rather than a full bar, and dogs are welcome.

The building is the Novak Net Shed, put up around 1910 by Tony Novak for commercial purse seining and one of seventeen historic net sheds still standing on the harbor's western shore, the largest surviving group on Puget Sound. It was documented for the Library of Congress in 2009. The deck over the water stays open year round, with heaters and blankets through the cold months. Open Thursday through Monday for breakfast and lunch, plus Friday and Saturday evenings in summer.