Open & Shut: Anchorage adds a candle studio, a new Alaska Airlines Lounge, a Korean BBQ diner and the long-awaited Eye Tooth restaurant – Anchorage Daily News

Open & Shut is an ongoing series looking at the comings and goings of businesses in Southcentral Alaska. If you know of a business opening or closing in the area, send a note to reporter Alex DeMarban at alex@adn.com with “Open & Shut” in the subject line.

Open

Eye Tooth Tavern & Eatery: The long-awaited third Tooth restaurant opened its doors on Thursday.

A line of 75 or so people stretched outside just before the opening, said Rod Hancock, a founder of the company.

“We feel blessed and fortunate that people are excited to want to come and see what our new endeavor is,” he said.

The Eye Tooth is named after a climbing area in the Alaska Range like its predecessors, the original Moose’s Tooth Pub and Pizzeria and the Bear Tooth Theatrepub and Grill. It’s the only Tooth restaurant located in South Anchorage, at 8330 King St.

The new location will still focus on pizza, but with alternative varieties, said Hancock, a climber and self-described pizza lover.

It will be “its own unique collection of food, decor and concepts,” he said.

For now the Eye Tooth is starting with limited hours and a limited menu that includes many of the well-known pizzas served at the Moose’s Tooth, he said. But the menu will grow in the future, with new dishes released almost weekly, he said.

“We’ll be doing Detroit pizzas, tavern pizzas, Neapolitan pizzas, as well as the classic Moose’s Tooth pies,” he said. “So we’ve introduced some of those, but not all. There’s a lot more, culinarily, that we’re excited to do as we get situated and going.”

Already, the Eye Tooth is offering tavern pizzas with crispy, house-made sourdough crust, such as the Cup n’ Curl pepperoni with marinara and multiple cheeses. There’s also the Backcountry with goat cheese and other cheeses, yellow squash, mushrooms, red peppers and other ingredients. The New Haven includes sopressata, hot honey, cheeses, peppadew peppers and chives.

Chefs will also be able to make limited-batch dishes in a special “kitchen within our kitchen,” including seafood items and other plates, Hancock said.

The menu also includes hamburgers, sandwiches, fries and chicken wings, plus beers on tap, cocktails and a liquor menu that’s more whiskey-based than the other Tooth diners, he said.

The bar area features about 90 seats for dining or drinking, with a small stage for live music. Large glass doors open onto an outdoor beer garden.

A huge, gas-fed fire pit on the patio is made from the old the bull wheel from the former Chair 1 ski lift at the Alyeska Resort in Girdwood, he said.

A separate dining area, still being completed, will have an outdoor eating area.

The company purchased the building four years ago. Hancock initially hoped for a quick opening.

But the pandemic slowed plans. Hurdles included supply-chain issues, adding delays and cost.

“Doors were taking nine months to arrive, and then they’d come and be wrong,” he said. “There was also a fair amount of inflation in building materials. And so all the quotes were changing, and so we were re-crunching numbers and making sure that the project still penciled and made sense.”

The pandemic-era labor shortage also added serious concerns, he said. But that’s largely been alleviated. The Eye Tooth has hired around 50 people so far. That number could exceed 150 as the operation expands, he said.

The tavern is currently open 4-10 p.m. from Thursday to Saturday. Those hours will grow steadily starting soon, he said. The Eye Tooth should be fully operating by summer, he said.

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Gogi Korean BBQ: Helena Yun ran a hairdressing salon in the Dimond Center for decades.

But she recently started her first restaurant, to share the social experience of eating traditional Korean food around a table grill.

“I always liked to cook and share with friends and that is my nature in my life,” Yun said. “And we (were) missing something like this restaurant in Alaska. So one day I decided this is going to be good for the community.”

At Gogi Korean BBQ, guests or staff can grill high-quality meats such as wagyu ribeye, prime beef kalbi, marinated pork short ribs, bulgogi or fire meat. Sprawling combo plates come with several shareable appetizers, such as soybean stew, steamed egg casserole, and banchan, or side dish, with its array of items like kimchi, caramelized potatoes, pickled daikon radish and green onion salad.

One unique feature at Gogi are overhead table lamps with vents that draw smoke upward through the food, adding to the flavor, Yun said. Wet- and dry-aging fridges also tenderize and flavor the meat.

Launching the restaurant took time, she said. “Every corner I touched with my soul,” she said.

Yun refused to open until she found the best meat through suppliers, she said. She designed every aspect of Gogi herself, down to the clean, black-and-white decor. Tables come with call buttons to summon staff, and “Korean 101″ sheets with expressions, like “annyeonghasaeyo” for “hello.”

Yun grew up in Korea, but moved to Alaska as a young woman close to four decades ago.

People say she’s “crazy” for opening a restaurant at an age when many are thinking about retirement, she said.

“But I always wanted to see this kind of restaurant in Anchorage,” she said one day last week, as customers began flowing in for dinner.

Gogi is located at 7780 Old Seward Highway. It’s open 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. on weekdays and on weekends, 11-11.

Get Scent Studio: Chester Mainot starting making candles as a pandemic hobby and selling them at markets.

Online sales soared after a friend with a social media following pitched his products on YouTube.

Late last year he opened Get Scent studio in Midtown Anchorage. And this month he went all in, quitting his job as a GCI network engineer for full-time entrepreneurship.

“It’s terrifying,” he said. “But I’m excited about being my own boss and doing what I love to do.”

Get Scent is located at 5121 Arctic Blvd., unit F, just down from Alaskan Burger & Brew.

It’s part gift shop and part studio, with classes for candle-making and succulent gardening. There’s also jewelry crafting with an Alaska Native artist who works with natural items like porcupine quills, sweetgrass and moose antlers.

Mainot’s candles are made with natural ingredients like soy wax. Scents can be traditional, like vanilla or lavender. The Alaskan collection includes wildberry, forget-me-not, and mountain trail, with forest fragrances like pine.

Another line focuses on the Philippines where Mainot grew up before moving to Alaska with his parents at age 20.

The Sampaguita, named for the Philippines’ national flower, reminds him of the floral smells drifting from his family garden at sunset. Halo-Halo, translated to mix-mix, smells like the dessert of the same name, made with shaved ice, tropical fruit and other ingredients. Ube is named after the country’s purple yam.

“Its nostalgia to me, my Filipino collection,” Mainot said.

Get Scent also sells gifts like locally made jewelry, fragrant wax melts and sprays, and beard balm.

It’s open Thursday to Sunday, 11 a.m. to 7 p.m.

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Alaska Airlines lounge: The Alaska-born airline expanded its lounge at the Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport this month, following a short closure for construction.

The upgrade doubles seating to 140. It adds cozy chairs, modern charging stations and small computer tables.

More windows overlook the tarmac, brightening the room and expanding the view of taxiing planes beneath mountains.

There’s several new pieces of Indigenous artwork from across Alaska, too, curated by the Alaska Native Heritage Center. They come with QR codes to explain the work.

“Each one of the pieces represents one of the major cultural regions,” said Kelsey Ciugun Wallace, a vice president at the heritage center, during a recent tour of the lounge. “The diversity is important because a lot of people mistakenly think about Alaska Native peoples as a monolith.”

The lounge hadn’t been revamped in years, said Marilyn Romano, vice president of the Alaska region for the airline.

Access is available through a membership or day pass. It offers a buffet of locally made, seasonal foods, hand-crafted espresso drinks using Kaladi Brothers beans, as well as wines, craft brews, cocktails and mocktails. It’s open daily almost around the clock, from 5 a.m. until 1 a.m.

The changes are part the airlines’ $60 million plan to improve terminals and other facilities around the state, including in communities such as Bethel and Kodiak. The lounge is the most visible of the upgrades in Alaska so far, Romano said.

The lounge was the company’s first to open in 1979. Up to 1,000 travelers use it daily. It’s the airline’s third-busiest lounge of nine — behind two in Seattle.

SHUT

Moose A’La Mode: The cafe and sandwich shop closed in downtown Anchorage in December, after about two decades in business, said co-owner Brandi Rathbun.

She and her husband, Marty, purchased it during the pandemic. But a thinned-out downtown due to remote working, and struggles dealing with the homeless population, were factors in the closure, Brandi Rathbun said.

The couple still operates their Tiki Pete’s food trailers serving hot dogs, hamburgers and other fare. One will serve food at the the Last Frontier Pond Hockey Classic in Big Lake. The Feb. 21-23 event raises funds for the Scotty Gomez Foundation.

They also provide all the food concessions at the Sullivan Arena after it began doing public events last years, after its service as a low-barrier homeless shelter for much of the pandemic. That includes the baked potato bar, Pete’s Penalty Box with fare like chili dogs and mac n’ cheese dogs, and the Center Ice and Glacier grill with the Bobster burger with bacon and fried egg and the BrockStar burger with jalapenos and bacon.

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Walgreens: The Walgreens store in northeast Anchorage at 7600 DeBarr Rd. closed in December, reducing the chain’s pharmacies in Alaska, among other services.

The retailer continues to operate eight stores in Alaska — six in Anchorage and one each in Wasilla and Eagle River, according to the company.

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Party City: The party and costume supply store is closing its sole Alaska location on Feb. 26, a store representative said.

The national retailer announced in December it was shutting down. It has blamed competition from e-commerce and brick-and-mortar rivals, as well as inflation that forced its costs higher and slowed business.

The store is located in the Glenn Square in Northeast Anchorage, 3090 Mountain View Drive, No. 120.

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Joann: The crafts retailer is closing two stores in Alaska, but it isn’t leaving the state entirely.

The chain’s lone location in Anchorage will close, at 3801 Old Seward Highway. The store in Juneau will also close, according to a recent closure list. No date has been announced yet, an Anchorage employee said Friday.

Joann stores in Fairbanks, Soldotna and Wasilla were not listed for closure.

The shutdowns stem from a bankruptcy restructuring plan, the result of competition from e-commerce and rivals like Walmart.

Joann recently listed 533 stores for closure across nearly all U.S. states. It operates more than 800 stores.