More coffee, biscuits and potatoes in and around town

Morning coffee, afternoon tea and better St. Patrick's Day potatoes are now on tap in greater La Conner.

Cruser Coffee, 313 Morris Street, is a new source for your morning joe. Nicole Cruse owns and operates a stand with the same name on Memorial Highway near the Mexico Café.

Cruse likes the pace of her second location. "In the stand you only get two-minute interactions with people," she said. "They want quick, quick, quick get me out the door." Here, she is enjoying getting to know her customers.

"Not that I don't love my stand but I definitely like the café style way better," she said.

Acai bowls, a popular feature offered by previous occupant NW Fuel, are still on the menu. "Ours are a little different, because you can build your own bowl," notes Cruse.

She is looking forward to the tulip season, when she hopes tourists will stop in for coffee and offer some input on what her menu should feature.

The Wayfinder Market at the corner of First and Center streets is also looking for menu feedback.

Although trained in French cooking, chef-owner Scott Dean is offering a mix of comfort food with the occasional British afternoon tea.

Dean's inspiration for the Wayfinder is the well-known New York specialty grocery Dean & DeLuca. To the breakfast biscuits and sandwiches, paninis, salads and soups already on the menu, Dean wants to add top-quality jams, pastas and other culinary ingredients from makers around the country.

Eventually he wants to offer "lovely stuff, premade, to take home for dinner," he said.

Not yet, though. Already, the Wayfinder is a 7-day-a-week job. To keep the restaurant sustainable, he's adding new items slowly.

Co-owner of Pac Northwesty, Dean is leaning on partner Rich Murphy's expertise in social media to help find customers.

"Good food fast" is my slogan," he said. "I'm really glad to be here and hope to be embraced by the community and be a member of it."

New potato storage shed

John Thulen of Pioneer Potatoes isn't opening a new restaurant, but he's investing in a new way of storing potatoes that is better for his spuds.

Instead of storing potatoes in 13-foot piles inside or sometimes outside their potato sheds, Thulen is moving to a European-style bin storage system. The new 9,800-square foot potato storage building at La Conner Whitney and Downey roads accommodates this model.

Building air is forced down through bins rather than up from the floor through piles. There is plenty of room for new equipment from the Netherlands that fills each bin with up to 3,000 pounds of potatoes.

The bin system offers many advantages. Tall piles of loose potatoes can pressure-bruise the potatoes on the bottom. By relieving this pressure, bins let potatoes be stored longer and in better shape. That is good news around St. Patrick's Day, which brings a nice sales bump.

It's also easier to retrieve a particular potato type in the bin system.

Most important, the system prevents rot. "We can store potatoes by the fields they are grown in," Thulen said. "When we mix potatoes from several fields, one 'bad apple' can rot the whole pile."

The previous building had more square feet but was shorter. The new one has fewer square feet but is taller.

"When you can't back your tractors in anymore, it becomes a big space with not a lot of things you can put into it," said Thulen.

"On this site, my father had that pickle plant and my grandfather one of the pea stacks and stationary viner and before that my great-grandfather had cattle.

"I like to think we're adapting, but we're still here."