Wheel & House: Pedal Up to Southern-fried Hospitality in the Northwest Neighborhood
Story & images by: Richard Porter.
When was the last time you experienced true hospitality at a restaurant or café? Like, you felt like you weren’t just a paying customer, but a person?
Meet Wheel & House, located in the Northwest Neighborhood. This place is part bike shop, part café, part vintage boutique – but really, it’s something all its own: a cozy community hub where you feel seen.
At Wheel & House southern-fried hospitality is the norm. Relax and enjoy the quirky vintage décor and a big splash of color to warm up your chilly gray PNW soul – you’ll feel like you’re right at home. And perhaps you’ll leave with both a full belly and a gold lamé ballgown from the 1970s. It could just be your lucky day like that.
The first thing you need to know is that Wheel & House is the essence of owners (and partners) Betty and Johnny. Betty has been collecting vintage clothes since the age of fourteen. And Johnny has been a bike mechanic since age fourteen. They hail from Virginia and Texas respectively, and their background is obviously expressed in the flavors of their cooking: part down-home Southern staples a la black-eyed peas and greens, part spicy Tex-Mex with a side of brisket-y BBQ. All of it topped off with a dollop of hand-scooped ice cream in a waffle cone. In a word? Comfort.
Oh yeah, and they also make virtually everything from scratch.
The net result is something that’s not quite your grandma’s vintage-clothes-and-soda shop -- but kinda is, in the best way. With a bike shop built in. To step inside the bright building is to feel nostalgia. Or, as Betty puts it, “We try to make a joy bomb here.”
The menu is written in colloquial Southern-isms, like your aunt is talking to you from the counter, describing what kind of grub she can rustle up. This is completely on-brand for Wheel & House.
I ordered the corn bowl and my wife ordered the beans and rice with a side of greens. Our coffee came with a small pitcher of hand-whipped cream cut with a zip of lemon juice. Small dishes packed with big flavor.
Johnny’s bike shop is off to the side. There’s a wall full of tools at his disposal. He can tune up your bike and he also sells fully-refurbished bikes. Wheel & House is located in a very bikeable patch of Rucker Avenue, near the pedestrian bridge to the waterfront, as well as the bike lanes on Hoyt Avenue. Consider cycling in; it can pay off – cyclists who pedal in from 2:00 to closing time on Wednesdays get a dollar off their first beer or cider.
The building at 1502 Rucker has long been an important part of the Northwest Neighborhood. Many locals still refer to it as the C. Vans building, after the grocery store that occupied the corner lot for many years. The vintage charm of the building (well-loved floorboards, beadboard, thick molding) is echoed in the interior design, which Betty has curated to represent the 1940s-1970s.
Everett residents may remember this place as Café Zippy, the beloved neighborhood hangout that occupied this space before Wheel & House moved in. Like Café Zippy, Johnny and Betty have created a hub where you can linger at the family-style dining tables (made from repurposed doors) and enjoy the company of your neighbors. In fact, the whole idea of a “hub” notches in with the bicycle shop: Wheel & House is made of many lines of interest that converge at the C. Vans Building.
And ultimately, I think that’s the main value proposition of this new venue. It’s got from-scratch vegan treats and smoked meats for foodies, vintage clothing for the fashion-forward, bicycles for the urbanist athlete, and an all-around welcoming atmosphere where you’re free to be yourself.
Wheel & House is what happens when hospitality comes first and everything else—food, bikes, style—falls beautifully into place.
Don’t be surprised if you leave feeling a little more at home than when you arrived.
Wheel & House
1502 Rucker Ave // Everett, WA 98201
Follow: @wheelandhouse
Richard Porter is a marketer for Snohomish County’s Executive Office by day, and a freelance writer. He lives with his wife and daughters in Everett. When he’s not writing or drinking coffee, he’s probably binging podcasts while running or hiking.
