Georgetown Liquor Company is Making Vegan Punk Again

Veganism, at its core, seeks to reduce harm to animals, the planet, and people via conscientious consumption. Central to the value set is choosing plant-based foods and beverages with the goal of putting a dent in the demand for animal products, particularly from animal agriculture and commercial fishing. 

It can be tough to be vegan in a country that prizes meat, dairy, and seafood every moment of every day. It’s even tougher to open a vegan restaurant where exorbitant taxes and commercial leases tend to hinder working class entrepreneurs in the industry.

Defying the likes of Tom Douglas, Ethan Stowell, and various other restaurant groups arose Alan, formerly of Highline on Capitol Hill. Highline was among the first bars in Seattle to offer a fully vegan menu in the Before Times (pre-pandemic). Some folks may recall their comfort foods housed in a venue that hosted live bands almost nightly. 

Alan Threewit came by owning Georgetown Liquor Company pretty organically in 2020, and the pandemic certainly played a part in the opportunity. After rising through the ranks at Highline and eventually becoming a partner, he took charge of the menu and experimented with DIY vegan foods. That same year, GLC’s former owner washed her hands of the place after more than a decade. Alan had already lived in Georgetown for many years and was enamored with the place. When he heard the owner was giving it up, he figured it was time to take his chances on a new venture. 

Alan in front of Georgetown Liquor Company / The Evergreen Echo

“I’m our biggest fan!” he says of GLC. “I’m extremely proud of the flavor and quality in what we do. We make it all from scratch. There’s nothing on the menu that’s straight from the package, not one thing.”

I sat with Alan one day; punk music in the speakers, the dim lighting a sweet respite from that day’s blinding sun.

Mary (M): How long have you been vegan? What was your deciding factor?

Alan (A): It was the beginning of January ‘99. I was vegetarian for 2-3 years and...I felt a void, like I wasn't doing enough. I asked myself what’s the point of being vegetarian and not vegan. It all came down to the music I was listening to: punk rock. I was very much into political punk, and a lot of it was very much into animal rights. Anti-establishment, pro-environment, everything. Animal rights, human rights, they’re all intertwined with each other. So that really got me heavily into that.  

M: Is vegan punk? Why or why not? 

A: YES. In my mind, 100%. And it blows my mind that so many punks are “too punk” to do the vegan thing. They think it’s too “PC” and a lot of punks want to be un-PC. I'm like, Why are you even punk? Where do your ethics lie? Are you in it for the chaos and the party? And all that’s fine too…no one makes the rules, that’s the whole point. But being vegan is political and is a stance. It's a boycott against the meat industry which is enormous. These days one of the biggest reasons food cost is so high is because of the meat industry. There's only like four or something huge companies that everyone buys from and they’re buying up vegan companies. They’ve bought so many over the years and are trying to this day to buy more and more cuz they want a monopoly.

Flag at GLC: “Love Beer Hate Fascism” / The Evergreen Echo

Me: There are a lot of folks who view animal and human liberation as separate entities, or are mutually exclusive. Can you speak to how GLC holds space for both?

A: That's a deep question. At Highline, we had a customer, a regular, he started to come in and order food, he was vegan. And this was pre-pandemic, so probably 2019. He came in for a couple months, and it was like whatever, then one day he came in and he had a hoodie or flannel open. He had a Trump shirt on! I didn’t know how to handle that. I was stuck in my tracks. I didn’t know what to say. Ya got this vegan, coming in for a while, he was nice, I never really had conversations with him or anything, he just came in, bought some food, ate it…maybe had a beer, whatever. And to me, supporting Trump is absolutely NOT supporting human liberation. Even though he was a vegan, saying he cares about animals. That threw me for a loop. I never saw him again after that.

A few weeks later, [a customer] shows me a picture of this guy, and asks me if he’s been in there. I said “yeah,” and she said, “We’ve been tracking local proud boys, and this guy’s a proud boy and he’s vegan. We were wondering if he’s been coming in here.” I said, “Yeah he was coming in here, I haven’t seen him for a couple weeks now.” And I never saw him since. It was bizarre.

I dunno where I'm getting with this, but it made me think about human liberation and animal liberation as one. How could you be against certain people because of the way they look or the way they are or chose to be, then have compassion for animals? You can’t have one without the other. I dunno how that is. It doesn’t compute in my mind how people are like that. 

Me: How have you noticed vegan food change over the years? What would you say to curious omnivores?

A: The quality and flavor of vegan food has come a long way. It’s not just rabbit food, it’s not just flavorless tofu. It’s way more than that. It’s evolved so much. It’s delicious, it’s not like it used to be. And I think that’s the biggest thing for omnivores: it’s not like that one time ya had it ten years ago. That being said, here in Seattle, I think a lot of places are lacking a lot of flavor in their foods, and that’s turning off a lot of people who are trying vegan food. As much as it’s come a long way, it’s dialed back in the last few years. Cost of goods, cost of labor, most can’t afford what I’m doing. Try another place! There’s so much delicious vegan food out there. 

“[Also] seitan is magical,” he later raved.

Me: GLC’s food tastes like it could’ve been packaged for grocery stores (as in: delicious and comforting like some of the big brands), but y’all make it in-house. How did you learn to do that? What’s the R&D process like? 

A: Trial and error. Then other people’s recipes on the internet, various cookbooks, seeing what they do, take it from there, and make it our own with different flavors. At GLC, we have a very unique way of making food. So we try to figure out how to make it in this oven—that’s all we have. We have a couple of electric burners, but the kitchen is tiny. We have a small convection oven and we make the seitan in there, then a couple burgers…We learned to make [food] in that, which took a while. [Due to COVID it took two months to get the EIN needed to officially open for business.] …So that really gave us an opportunity. We spent two months working on each item. It takes a long time for each one to get it right. Right now we’re working on a brunch menu. And we’ve got a couple items that we’re pretty stoked on.

GLC’s nachos with seitan “bacon” bits / The Evergreen Echo

Me: How much creative freedom do the cooks have here?

A:

Me: Favorite item on the GLC menu right now?

A: I like everything, there’s nothing I don't really like. The reuben is definitely up there. I’ve never had a meat reuben in my life, but since I've been a vegan I've had it at various places around the country and I love the flavors in it. Most of those years it was a tempeh reuben, or tofu reuben, or this place (prior to me) put Field Roast in a reuben and it was so disappointing. Like it was cool cuz it was vegan so I could eat it, but it wasn’t quite right.

There was a place in New York City called Champ’s Diner—I don’t think it’s there anymore—but about ten years ago I had a vegan reuben there and it blew me away! It was seitan. And it was incredible. So at Highline we tried replicating that but we couldn’t slice it. This was prior to me having the experience that I have now; we couldn’t cut the seitan too thin cuz it would burn and we couldn’t get it right…and then coming here to GLC, we kept a couple of the same items but redid it. So here, with a different method of cooking, we were able to slice the seitan corned beef super thin. I can never get enough of it.   

Me: Do you get vegan customers coming in with their omnivore friends? How do the omnis usually react?

A: Yes. If they know it, sometimes it’s not really an issue, they just won’t eat. Sometimes they do; we get a lot of meat eaters here, a ton! Honestly I think the vast majority of our crowd here are non-vegans. They might be vegetarian, but vastly not vegans. And that’s totally fine by me; good food is good food.

People sometimes bring people in who don’t know we’re vegan, and they find out before they order anything—I will see people just shut the menu and sit here. They won’t even get a drink. Sit here with arms crossed like they can’t wait to leave. And they’re all watching their vegan friend eat something. I think that’s so unfortunate and really rude to their friend, cuz yanno what? Your vegan friend is going to all these nonvegan places with you and being the one stuck getting a salad or nothing at all.

There've been people coming in here that didn’t know it was vegan, then ate anyways and were blown away. We get that a LOT. That’s probably one of the biggest compliments to me—when a meat eater tells me (or I see a review online) that it’s so good. That makes me so happy…[knowing that] a meat eater was so impressed. And I've had people that have ordered food and they got told afterwards that it was vegan and they were like “WHAT?!” That's another huge compliment for me cuz I'm a huge fan of fake meat. Since I became vegan, whenever the fake meat started coming out, vegan chicken and whatnot, it was all I wanted, I loved it. Now I'm making it, it’s what I'm all about. 

Me: Here’s your chance for a shameless plug.

A: 100% vegan, 100% house made. A lot of people don’t know that we make everything from scratch. It’s plainly written on our menu. That’s the biggest thing I'd like to get across, is that’s what separates us from everybody else. We make everything from scratch. You will not find anywhere else like us. Most places are getting their food from Cisco or a distributor and putting it together, and that’s what most people are eating, whether they know it or not. But I think what we’re making here is gourmet. Brunch menu is also in development, aiming for a mid-October launch.

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Georgetown Liquor Company is for vegans and omnivores alike. Portland may have a more cohesive vegan food scene in general, but Seattle’s Alan gets bonus points for making a punk and pro-liberation restaurant work against all odds.