Marcell’s Pie House has abruptly closed for what the owner refers to as a restructuring.
The restaurant and coffee shop opened about nine months ago at 3100 Columbia St., in Vancouver’s Carter Park neighborhood. It is normally open from 7:30 a.m. to 3 p.m., except on Mondays. On Tuesday morning, however, customers arrived to find the doors locked and the blinds drawn, with most of the lights switched off and no people visible inside — although pies and pastries were seen in the front display counters.
The closure appears to have been unannounced. There were initially no signs or other information about the closure posted on the exterior of the restaurant or its website, and calls to the restaurant’s number Tuesday and Wednesday were not returned.
Local band Newsat11, which often plays at the pie house, wrote in a Facebook post Monday that it had “just found out that Marcell’s Pie House is going to be closed for remodeling for a couple weeks,” resulting in the postponement of two upcoming shows.
In response to a message about the post, the band page replied, “Marcell said she’s reconfiguring the restaurant,” apparently in reference to owner Marcell Gareis. The band stated that it did not have further information.
By Wednesday morning, a sign had appeared in the restaurant door announcing the restructuring.
“Stay tuned, hang in there, be back soon!” the sign read.
This appears to be the second temporary closure for the restaurant. Several Yelp reviews and social media posts indicate that it abruptly closed in early March but reopened about two weeks later.
The pie house is the latest in a long series of businesses that have occupied the converted house on the corner of Columbia and West 31st streets.
Previous stories in The Columbian state that the property served as a neighborhood grocery dating to at least 1931. It was reportedly grandfathered in as a business despite the residential zoning of the surrounding area, and went through several business owners and iterations over the years.
Citing county records, previous stories have listed the names (not in chronological order) Bagley’s Market, Bauman’s Grocery, B&P Market, Lee’s Market, Debbie’s Corner Market, Your Corner Market, Freedom Fruit, Harris Market and Carter Park Store.
In late 2008, the building shifted from grocery to restaurant uses, reopening again as Marcell’s Hemp and Latte House. The property was rezoned Neighborhood Commercial to allow for food and alcohol service. The building was damaged in a fire a little more than a year later.
A Google Street View photo from August 2011 appears to show the building operating again as a market. A December 2015 story states that the property had reopened as the Commonwealth Cafe.
Later, Google Street View photos and subsequent stories in The Columbian indicate that the cafe closed at some point in 2016, and the building reopened in August of that year as a restaurant and bar called The Rusty Chain, which in turn closed in January 2018, citing inconsistent sales.
That appears to have been the building’s most recent transition until the opening of Marcell’s Pie House in late 2018.
State records indicate that the pie house is co-owned by Gareis, who also co-owned Marcell’s Hemp and Latte House — all of the businesses in between had other owners. County records show the building was most recently purchased in 2014 by William Irvin, owner of downtown commercial property company Billy Dean Leasing. Irvin did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
