Fire Destroys The Herbfarm, Noted Area Gourmet Restaurant -- Owners Fear Zoning Laws Won't Permit Fall City Eatery To Reopen

FALL CITY - As she stared sadly this morning at the burned-out husk of her world-famous restaurant, owner Carrie Van Dyck thought about the disappointed guests.

"There are people who have been waiting so long to get in," said Van Dyck, who now worries that The Herbfarm may not reopen.

The fire at the little cottage with the big reputation, 35 minutes east of Seattle in Fall City, was reported at 8:36 last night and fire crews arrived three minutes later, said King County Fire District 27 Chief Chris Connor.

Efforts to save the restaurant - which was closed at the time - were unsuccessful. Every window was blown out, and the roof collapsed into the main office.

A second building housing a gift shop was undamaged, but virtually all the restaurant's furnishings and equipment were destroyed, and 35 employees are out of work. The cause of the blaze was an electrical short circuit, firefighters said today. Damage was estimated at $250,000.

The Herbfarm began 24 years ago when Lola Zimmerman "had some extra chives," according to her husband, Bill, a Boeing retiree. She put her home-grown-herbs bench by the Issaquah-Fall City road with a jar so people could pay when they wanted.

The business "just kept growing."

The Zimmermans' son, Ron, and his wife, Carrie Van Dyck, opened the restaurant nearly 11 years ago and the family saw their enterprise evolve into an institution known nationally and internationally for its food, shops, catalog and cooking school.

The restaurant is one of the six highest-rated in the country in the Zagat's Top American Restaurants Guide, based on restaurant-goers' collective opinions. It also is one of three Mobil Guide four-star restaurants in Washington state.

Twice a year, The Herbfarm opens phone lines for reservations, and lines are always jammed to get one of the seats for the nine-course, five-wine dinners and six-course lunches, served Fridays and Saturdays, and sometimes Thursdays at this time of year.

A few places are held open each week, and gourmands often fly in from around the world if they snag one of those rare places at the table. There hasn't been an unbooked table in a decade.

More than 100,000 guests a year visit the 12-acre garden, which is packed every weekend with customers who come simply to browse through the offerings of foods, plants and gifts or attend weekend festivals.

The tiny Victorian dining room, which seated 30, opened to the kitchen so guests could watch chef Jerry Traunfeld and his staff prepare courses. The prix-fixe meals were $65 per person for lunch and $129-150 for the five-hour dinners.

Ron Zimmerman and Van Dyck strolled among the diners, sharing culinary knowledge and herbal lore with the guests.

Menus were based on themes, such as "A Medley of Creatures from the Sea," with courses like wild matsutake mushrooms and local shellfish floating in a lemon-thyme-flavored consomme.

A touch of creation

Most of all, the award-winning restaurant had become famous for innovative recipes and an elaborate presentation based on seasonal Northwest foods. Traunfeld's delicacies have included sorbets made from Douglas-fir needles or lemon verbena.

"From the beginning, Ron Zimmerman and Traunfeld, his chef, were dedicated to an absolute purity of ingredients, especially fresh herbs and vegetables, and using them in imaginative combinations," said Seattle Times restaurant reviewer John Hinterberger.

"It's being described by officials as a total loss, but it really isn't a loss at all. The essential genius of The Herbfarm resides in its people, its creators, and they're all intact," Hinterberger said.

"They haven't lost any of their magic ingredients, just a somewhat small wooden facility that can easily be replaced."

`Grandfather' could die

But replacing the converted 1917 bungalow may not be easy.

Van Dyck said the loss was insured, but it may still be impossible to reopen The Herbfarm operation at its Fall City location.

That's because the business has been operating in an area zoned for residential properties and had come to be "grandfathered in" because it had been there so long.

Unless a conditional-use permit is granted, Van Dyck said, The Herbfarm may not be allowed to rebuild. If such a permit is denied, she added, the business probably would have to relocate outside of King County.

"I'm feeling like I can't believe it," she said. "I watched the last 10 years of my life go up in flames."

Bill Zimmerman, 79, who lives next door to the restaurant, made one of several calls about the fire.

"I was in bed when I heard the burglar alarm go off," he said, "and I figured someone had not set the alarm right. And then the alarm shut off. Then someone came and beat on my door and I looked out the window and the whole place was burning."

He dialed 911 and rushed out to look at the destruction.

"It seemed like 15 minutes to me before the firemen could put water on it," he said.

Van Dyck and Zimmerman said a fire hydrant directly across the street from the building, about 50 feet from the blaze, couldn't be turned on, so firefighters had to wait about 10 minutes to get an adequate water supply.

"A lot of time was spent watching the place burn," Van Dyck said.

Connor confirmed the hydrant wasn't operating but said the main problems encountered in fighting the blaze came from strong winds and the old-style construction.

Unhappy firefighter

Not having the hydrant working was a drawback, however, he said.

"I think you could draw your own conclusions," he added. "It took 10 minutes to get the hydrant. Yes, I was not very happy."

Connor said the hydrant worked when checked by firefighters last fall but apparently was turned off by a water district because of construction in the area, and flooding at the intersection caused by recent holiday storms.

This morning, The Herbfarm's resident cats, Snickers and Fraidy, prowled through the burned-out dining room. Nothing was left.

Staffers picked through the rubble, finding half the restaurant's files intact, including the treasured reservation book.

Around the farm doves cooed as they have for years and Bill Zimmerman fed his chickens in the misty rain. He held two brown eggs in his hand and talked of rebuilding.

His son, Ron, however, looked into the burned wreckage and shook his head. The family will have a fight on its hands with King County, he repeated.

"The Herbfarm is never going to be The Herbfarm again," Van Dyck said.

Seattle Times staff reporter Dee Norton contributed to this report. Links to The Herbfarm's Web site and Gourmet magazine's review of The Herbfarm are on The Seattle Times Top Stories Web site at: http://www.seattletimes.com