WORLD

IS

YOUR

PEARL

Giant Steps didn't go out of business; it's now the in-house coffee service at the new Wieden & Kennedy building.

Ken's new Home Plate will offer some retail items, including 25 to 30 wines.

The Hoyt Street Cafe, a reasonable breakfast and lunch spot in the Pearl, recently closed up shop. A "for lease" sign in the window tells the tale.

BASIL CHILDERSGentle Readers:

Just how much more can the swelling Pearl District grow?

It sometimes seems the old warehouse zone plays host to more love of Reynolds Optical, more adoration of Pink Martini, more venture capital grubbing, monster-mobile driving and monochromatic dressing than even downtown Seattle. (Per square foot, anyway.) So the question on the tippy top of Miss Dish's broad mind is this: What do these people eat?

Certainly, lunchtime brings Byways' sloppy road food and Little Wing's crusty sandwiches, while dinner veers toward Oba and Fratelli. And starting May 30, a new option comes a-courtin'. Ken's Home Plate, that quick-stop shop for prepared meals on Hawthorne, is opening up another heat-'n'-eat emporium at 1208 NW Glisan St., the former home of Giant Steps coffeehouse.

Ken Gordon, who puts the "Ken" in Ken's, says he's been planning to open another shop since opening the original takeout joint two years ago. He sees this new home as "the convenience store of the Pearl." He'll cook from the Hawthorne kitchen and ship the goods over to the new site. Unlike the Hawthorne Ken's, Version 2.0 will offer quick breakfast bites and more grab-'n'-go goodies for those busy, busy Pearl divers. At first, the Glisan Ken's won't offer delivery service like the Southeast store does.

So is this the beginning of Ken's conversion to Ron Paulism? Gordon maintains that he doesn't foresee a huge expansion. "I don't want to have one in every neighborhood," he says. "We're not Boston Market." But he does believe the kind of set-up he's created, which allows all of the food to be cooked in one central location, does lend itself to satellites, which he hopes to open in the future. For now Gordon is assuring his regulars that nothing will change at the Hawthorne haunt. "I'm not abandoning the kitchen, and I'll mostly be centered in Hawthorne," he says.