Select Gourmet Foods hopes to reopen by summer’s end

The butcher’s shop took damage from a fire last August but the owners are hoping to make a comeback.

After a fire last August, which forced Kenmore’s Select Gourmet Foods to close, the butcher shop is planning a to re-open by the end of the summer.

The business is owned by Mohamed Souaiaia and has been in the Kenmore location since 1996 after moving from Seattle. The fire that burned through the business resulted in a lot of damage to the meat retailer’s equipment, but the building was salvageable, said general manager David Ellis.

“We’ve just been trying to survive and build back up,” he said.

The store sold both commercially and wholesale and the rebuilt Kenmore location will focus on retail, while the wholesale butcher operations will be moving to Kent. With that move, the retail space and deli in Kenmore will be larger and offer a wide variety of seafood, duck, beef, lamb and chicken and pork.

“So heritage breeds, you know, a little more higher-end meats,” Ellis said.

For now, Ellis said they’re focusing on restoring the building to working order, including repainting the interior and rewiring its electricity. He’s not sure when the store will be open again but he’s shooting for the end of the summer.

The butcher shop is around 1,800 square feet and the fire that knocked it offline was started inside the shop’s meat smoker. The fire was not suspicious and much of the business’s shop inventory was in freezer truck trailers away from the building when the fire occurred.

Select Gourmet Foods is across the street from the Guest House, which opened this January on the corner of Juanita Way Northeast and Northeast 153rd Place.