Ethan Stowell announces 2 new Seattle-area restaurants opening this summer

A longtime restaurateur in Seattle, Ethan Stowell, has announced the opening of two new Seattle-area restaurants following his departure from Ethan Stowell Restaurants (ESR) last year.

Stowell’s new restaurants are both slated to open this summer: Cut Club, a steakhouse in downtown Seattle’s Hotel Max, and Lime Social, a Mexican restaurant in Kirkland’s Village at Totem Lake, according to The Puget Sound Business Journal.

Stowell will remain as a shareholder and board member of ESR, but confirmed that his new venture would reclaim the “Ethan Stowell” title, with ESR to rebrand.

ESR CEO Ian Courtnage said a new name will be chosen this summer.

Cut Club steakhouse, Lime Social Mexican restaurant set to open this summer

Cut Club in Seattle was described by Stowell as a “new, nontraditional version of a steakhouse,” which will take over a 3,500-square-foot space at 620 Stewart Street. The location has been vacant for five years since Miller’s Guild’s closure.

The steakhouse will provide a variety of steak cuts and offer items such as beef tartare, salmon crudo, and hamachi crudo. Despite being a high-end restaurant, Stowell noted there will be strong value with “the best happy hour in town.”

Stowell is collaborating with business partners Brandon Karow and Travis Gerber on the project. Karow is a veteran within ESR, who previously served as executive chef before taking on the role of vice president of operations.

“I love doing restaurants, and I still love Seattle,” Stowell said, according to The Puget Sound Business Journal. “Downtown Seattle has been pretty vibrant. There’s a lot of people that want to do cool stuff in downtown, so I think over the next several years it will get more activated.”

Stowell and his partners don’t plan on opening dozens of locations in Seattle, but are looking around the Eastside and across state lines.

Lime Social to bring family-friendly Mexican dining to Kirkland

As for Stowell’s second project, Lime Social, it will be a family-friendly Mexican restaurant that will be launched by Ryan Donaldson, Rob Jensen, and Jim Neil. Donaldson also worked under ESR as a commissary operations manager from 2022 to 2024.

The restaurant will be serving light Mexican food, with Stowell claiming to provide the “best margarita you can get,” according to The Puget Sound Business Journal. Lime Social’s business model will put a concerted effort into higher volume instead of larger check averages.

The restaurant will sit inside a 3,500-square-foot space formerly used by the Lebanese-inspired Hanoon restaurant that closed in May 2025.

Good Table Hospitality offers consulting for struggling restaurants

Stowell is also launching Good Table Hospitality, which focuses on helping business owners adapt and understand the complicated operations within the restaurant industry. Good Table Hospitality is partnering with Paige Middleton, a former ESR partnership coordinator.

Good Table Hospitality will offer advice and training to operators on budgeting, debt, cash flow, and investment structure.

“I want to help small business owners figure out this climate,” Stowell said. “We’re working on some stuff that could potentially shed some light on how businesses can do things differently because the way you do a restaurant now versus 10 years ago is night and day.”

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