Cafe Yumm is coming back to the Puget Sound region, about three years after it shut down its downtown Seattle restaurant over what the company called unfavorable business conditions. The Eugene, Oregon-born rice-and-bean bowl chain plans to open a new location in Tacoma's North End neighborhood in early 2027, taking over a 2,800-square-foot space at 2601 N. Pearl Street.
Connect CRE reported that Big Chicken, the fast-casual chicken concept co-founded in 2018 by basketball Hall of Famer Shaquille O'Neal, was set to open at the Tacoma address. According to MyNorthwest, a tenant improvement project for the new Cafe Yumm location is slated to begin in November and will cost $200,000, per city filings cited in the outlet's report.
Cafe Yumm's last Seattle address was 717 Pine Street near the Washington State Convention Center, where the chain operated for about a decade before closing in 2023, citing unfavorable business conditions. The brand originally opened that downtown location in October 2013, according to Cafe Yumm's own company timeline, and kept it running for ten years before the permanent closure that November.
Why North Tacoma, and Why Now
Ted Morgan, Cafe Yumm's director of marketing and communications, said the business conditions are now right for the company to expand into the Puget Sound market, per the Puget Sound Business Journal as cited in the same report. Morgan said the chain is seeing greater demand from the region and is looking to expand further across Puget Sound, the station's report notes.
Unlike the downtown Seattle storefront it left behind, the new Tacoma address sits in a high-traffic suburban retail corridor. The Westgate North shopping center where the restaurant will open sees more than 31,200 vehicles passing by each day and serves a trade area with average household incomes exceeding $123,300 within a three-mile radius, according to commercial property disclosures from JLL. The firm's data also shows that commercial real estate investment company Phillips Edison & Company acquired the grocery-anchored center for $37 million in April 2025.
A Brand Built on Rice Bowls and Yumm! Sauce
Cafe Yumm turns 29 years old this year, having been founded in Eugene in 1997 by Mark and Mary Ann Beauchamp. The couple had previously operated Wild Rose Café & Deli, and Yumm! Bowls and Yumm! Sauce began developing a following in 1993, according to the company's timeline.
More than half of all food served across Cafe Yumm locations consists of certified organic ingredients, built primarily around rice and bean bowls topped with Yumm! Sauce, cheese, salsa, olives, tomatoes, avocado, sour cream, and cilantro, per Wikipedia. The chain currently has 22 locations in total, including five franchise locations, though the upcoming Tacoma restaurant will be company-operated.
Grocery Shelves Kept the Brand Alive in Washington
Even while Cafe Yumm had no restaurants open in the Puget Sound area, it maintained a significant local presence through grocery stores, with its bottled Yumm! Sauce sold at Metropolitan Market and Whole Foods. The sauce was previously distributed only within the Pacific Northwest but has since expanded into California as well, per the MyNorthwest report.
The company built out that retail side of the business well before its Seattle closure. In October 2021, Cafe Yumm launched its own e-commerce platform, Yummsauce.com, to ship the bottled sauce nationwide, according to Cafe Yumm's company timeline. An earlier 2009 packaging change from glass jars to lighter plastic tubs reduced shipping costs, according to Packworld.
Beyond Oregon, Cafe Yumm currently operates two Washington locations, Mill Plain Crossing and Cascade Park Plaza, both in Vancouver, along with restaurants throughout Oregon and a single location in Idaho. That Idaho outpost traces back to January 2019, when the chain expanded outside Oregon and Washington for the first time by opening its 23rd overall location in Eagle, at the Lakemoor development, according to a company announcement at the time.
Neighbors in the Shopping Center
Cafe Yumm will share the Westgate North center with Habit Burger & Grill, another fast-casual chain already operating in the same complex. Habit Burger & Grill first entered the Washington state market in 2015 with its inaugural location in Kent, per MyNorthwest's reporting, giving the North Tacoma strip a fast-casual lineup that spans both coasts' better-known regional chains.
