Seattle Sun Newspaper - Vol. 8, Issue 1, January 2004
Copyright 2003 Seattle Sun. Please feel free to use the article below in your research. Be sure to cite the Seattle Sun as your source.
Beeson leads double life
as restaurateur, concert promoter
By JAMES BUSH
Ed Beeson's business card says it all.
Just after "concert production and marketing," comes Backstage Promotions Inc.'s more surprising offering, "food and beverage operations consultant."
Beeson is a businessman with a foot in two worlds. He's the owner of the Maple Leaf Grill, but the headquarters for Backstage Promotions is just up a flight of stairs on the restaurant's upper floor.
Most people, whether they know it or not, are familiar with Beeson's work. Perhaps you attended the recent performances he produced for singer/songwriter Lucinda Williams or gospel singers The Blind Boys of Alabama. Maybe you attended a Summer Nights on the Pier concert or the Bumbershoot Festival during the four years (1995-99) he was One Reel's major booker.
Or perhaps you attended the grand opening of the Experience Music Project (which he booked) or one of its live performances during its first sixth months in operation.
And most Seattle music fans vividly remember the varied artists of all genres that played The Backstage, the Ballard club Beeson owned and booked from 1988 to 1995.
He's now doing some shows at the Triple Door, the basement concert hall below downtown's Wild Ginger restaurant, featuring the likes of Joan Baez and Ani DiFranco.
But that's just his musical greatest hits.
As a restaurateur, Beeson started off with Duvall's Silver Spoon in 1978, before moving on to the Backstage, and then Hattie's Hat in Ballard (he was a co-owner from 1997-2001 before selling out to his two partners), and now the Maple Leaf Grill.
There's a natural connection between the two fields. Beeson was a restaurant owner first, with the Silver Spoon (a table top from that restaurant decorated with years worth of carved graffiti now hangs in the Maple Leaf Grill).
The Ballard High School grad moved his family to Duvall and had a major success in his first try as a restaurant owner. With 30 employees in a town of less than 1,000 people, "we were Duvall's No. 1 industry," he says.
Given the restaurant's location (the town's former grange hall), it was natural that Beeson branched out into folk music concerts. A poster featuring the first big-name artist he booked there, folksinger Dave Van Ronk, still hangs on his office wall. During his stint, such artists as Reilly and Maloney, Uncle Bonsai and The Dillards made the trek to Duvall to perform for appreciative crowds.
His next challenge came as both owner and booker for the Backstage. Beeson found himself working with a collection of both up-and-coming and established artists, which "took me into a level of the music business where I'd never been before," he says.
His first Backstage show featured David Lindley & El Rayo X. Beeson says he was able to create relationships with artists during his Backstage days that still serve him well in his current work.
But running a large club such as the Backstage began to cut sharply into his family life. Daughter Maggie (now 12) was about to join son Michael (14) in elementary school and the restaurant business has a way of taking over your nights and weekends, he says. "That meant I would see my children very little from that moment on," he says.
Beeson put the Backstage up for sale and sold it in mid-1995, then signed on with One Reel, an arrangement which meant that 1995 was his busiest year ever.
Beeson's a bit ambivalent about his work on Hattie's Hat. While fond of the joint, he says he and his partners took "a great old classic dive bar" and converted it into a hipster hangout, which he's not sure constitutes progress.
His link to his next business, the Maple Leaf Grill, came through one of his employees at Hattie's Hat, a chef known only as Rip. ("I sign his paychecks, so I know his full name," says Beeson. "But he's always just 'Rip' ")
Rip and manager Dave Albert, although not owners, "created the Maple Leaf Grill as we know it today," says Beeson.
Founded in 1989 in the former Schudie's Tavern, the Grill was first envisioned as a sports bar, he says. "It became probably the very first of the old neighborhood taverns to start serving really good food."
After 10 years in the former Schudie's storefront, the Grill moved up Roosevelt Way to its current location, a converted single-family home that once housed Java, an Indonesian restaurant.
When Beeson left Hattie's and bought the Maple Leaf Grill in 2001, he brought Rip along with him as his chef. The menu reflects his eclectic approach, adding the Why? Burger ("a hearty handmade patty of yam, quinoa, black bean and rice") to more standard offerings such as pork medallions and the Maple Leaf's traditional Mars' Oyster Stew. The grill also features a full bar and an impressive tap line of local microbrews.
It's a smaller operation, so there are fewer obstacles to family togetherness. Beeson and wife, Joanne, both work at the Grill. He's also close to his children from a previous marriage, Emily, who now lives in England, and Abe, who seems to take after his dad. He's got a five-nights-a-week jazz show on KPLU-FM.
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The Maple Leaf Grill is located at 8929 Roosevelt Way NE; 523-8449.