A priceless promo at Shell Creek

Excerpts from her blog,

All You Can Eat

When I stopped by Shell Creek Grill in Edmonds (526 Main St., 425-775-4566, www.shellcreekgrill.com) one afternoon last week to introduce myself to owners Brian and Heidi Petoletti, their dining room was set and waiting for dinner guests. And when I came back for dinner later, the place was jumping, thanks to the Petolettis, who've felt the heat as the local economy has fizzled and decided to take drastic measures to do something about it.

Greeting would-be diners is a big banner that reads, "Priceless!!! Dine with us and pay what you can afford." And they've been busy ever since putting it up (big-time coverage of their promo on the evening news didn't hurt).

"Things had been going well for us going into our second year," said Brian, who bought the existing restaurant in January 2007. "But with the Boeing situation, three weeks into the strike we really started to feel it. It's trickled down, and now it's snowballed." That snowball effect has contributed to a serious slowdown.

And when the going gets tough, the tough do their best to tough it out.

"Heidi and I were driving to work one day and thought, 'What is the craziest thing we could do?' And we said, 'Well, we could not charge for anything.' " If that sounds insane, so be it, but the Petolettis' largesse allows customers to pay what they will and, for now at least, helps drive business and keeps Shell Creek's steadfast employees employed, said Brian.

On the first night of the promotion, patrons determined their own pricing on the bistro-style menu, and paid as they saw fit for nonalcoholic beverages. (State law requires patrons to pay for alcoholic drinks.) Here's how it panned out: "About 80 percent paid a little bit less, a couple tables paid the actual price and a couple paid more — which was certainly surprising, but welcome," Brian said.

But running a business with notoriously slim profit-margins, one has to wonder how long restaurateurs like the Petolettis can keep on keeping on. "Our intention is to do this moving forward," said Brian. "As business owners, we might not take as much as we did in the past, but the real benefit goes to our clientele — and to our employees."

Happy times at Dinette

Dinette (1514 E. Olive Way, 206-328-2282, www.dinetteseattle.com), that charming little dual-storefront bistro on Capitol Hill, has a new bar — as well as a new happy hour where there's priced-right snacks to enjoy alongside your adult beverage.

If you're not familiar with Dinette, you should probably know that people in-the-know rarely discuss the place without also mentioning the word "toast," which is what we used to call those schmear-laden constructs till we got all hip and euro and started referring to them as "crostini" and "tartines." Recently, I stopped in during the late-night happy hour, 9:30 to 11 p.m. (there is also a daily 4-6 p.m. happy hour) and guess what I ordered at $3 a pop? Toast.

While there, I had a nice chat with chef/owner Melissa Nyffeler, who gave up some real estate in her former kitchen work-space to install a cozy lounge with two bay-window tables and a bar with a half-dozen seats. That bar-top isn't marble — it's plastic-coated milestone, and the "zinc" around its edges is pressed tin. Just like the rest of us, Nyffeler is going for value over va-voom these days, and she's hoping the bar will help bring in additional business.

"We're usually booming in the fall and winter," Nyffeler says, but business has clearly slowed this season. In the dining room, where her rustic fare regularly gets raves, she's seeing fewer diners. And even on busy nights, those folks are spending less. "People are sharing things, and their checks are smaller," she notes. (And she's not alone, I recently heard Tom Douglas say essentially the same thing about his restaurants on his radio show.)

Luring warm bodies has reached new levels all across town, which, in part, explains why happy hours have gone from the juice that drives the pull-tab joints, to de rigueur at restaurants everywhere.

Stumbling Goat Bistro (6722 Greenwood Ave. N, Seattle, 206-784-3535, www.stumblinggoatbistro.com) just announced a new happy-hour menu in their Enchantresse Lounge, 5-7 p.m. Tuesdays through Sundays. Monsoon (615 19th Ave. E., Seattle, 206-325-2111, www.monsoonseattle.com) just added one from 5 to 6:30 p.m. nightly, with $5 bites serving as previews for the Bellevue Monsoon — slated to open next month. And Artemis (757 Bellevue Ave. E., Seattle, 206-860-2752, www.artemiscafe.net) recently added a late-night happy hour, midnight-2 a.m. Thursdays through Saturdays, to go along with their 5-7 p.m. happy hour.

Canlis names new chef

Last week 58-year-old Canlis restaurant (2576 Aurora Ave. N., Seattle, 206-283-3313: www.canlis.com) called its first-ever news conference, inviting the media to join third-generation owners Mark and Brian Canlis for some "momentous news." And the news of that news immediately led the local food media to muse, "What can it be? Are they selling? Opening an Eastside outpost?"

As Seattle's crown jewel of restaurants, Canlis is not going anywhere — which was no surprise to this hard-core fan. That was confirmed when I showed up Thursday morning at Canlis to find proud patriarch Chris Canlis posing as executive valet; a TV-crewman on the scene; someone webcasting the festivities; and various scribes with pens and champagne flutes in hand waiting for the big news from the Brothers C.

The Canlis family announced that chef Aaron Wright — conspicuously absent from the vacant chair on the dais next to Mark and Brian — was moving to Napa. (I had noted in my blog the previous evening that Wright was being considered for an executive chef's position at Napa's new luxury resort, the Bardessono Inn and Spa).

Then Wright's successor was brought forth and introduced: He's Jason Franey, executive sous-chef at Eleven Madison Park — exactly the fellow who was missing-in-action when I called his house of employ in NYC the day before, only to be told he was "out of town till Friday." Once behind the mic, the 31-year-old chef (whom I'd last seen wearing a toque and buying truffles off a truck in a photograph in The New York Times), said he's looking forward to putting his own seasonal "farm-driven" spin on Canlis' menu. He's slated to come on board Dec. 1.

Orient Express opens

Way back in March, I told you about the sale of Andy's Diner — closed since January — and developer Henry Liebman's plans for the South Seattle landmark. And in the wake of that post, I had a nice chance to chat with long-retired owner Andy Yurkanin, who promised to take me to lunch once the place reopened: He'll get his chance soon because the famous railcar-diner debuted as the Orient Express, (2943 Fourth Ave. S., Seattle, 206-682-0683, www.menu.oe-restaurant.com) specializing in Chinese, Thai and American food and offering (get this!) on-site child care.

New owner Gun Ting (late of Wild Ginger and known as Ed to many of his friends) greeted his first guests this week.

This material has been edited

for print publication.

Nancy Leson's blog excerpts appear

Wednesdays. Reach her at 206-464-8838

or nleson@seattletimes.com