Three Hearts brings “a little bit of everything” to Hilltop

Three Hearts brings “a little bit of everything” to the Hilltop neighborhood, according to co-owner Will Eder.

“There are times when it looks like a coffee shop cafe, but we also get a pretty reliable lunch rush everyday. People come in and do more of a restaurant thing and dine,” Eder said. “We’re also baking everything in house, so if people call us a bakery, we can’t really deny that.”

These in-house baked goods include laminated pastries, muffins, cakes, cookies and sourdough bread.

Eder opened Three Hearts on Oct. 22 with his wife, Jenah Garrett, and another couple, Jeff and Maggie Hellis, at 1116 MLK Jr Way.

“Jeff approached me with the idea. He wanted to open a restaurant, cafe, bakery thing and he knew that I had experience in coffee, beverage and some bread making,” Eder said. “He had experience in kitchen and restaurants and has worked in some bakeries as well. We kind of felt like our two skill sets together would work really nicely.”

Eder said they both have families with young kids and spending time with their families in the evenings was a motivation for opening their own place.

“He wanted to be done with restaurants and have his own operation that could be done earlier in the day.”

Three Hearts is located in the old Zodiac Supper Club, a Hilltop dive bar. Eder said they took advantage of some of the features that were left by the previous owners.

“We left the bar,” Eder said. “We’ve got six seats at the bar. We’ve got a full liquor license. We do a small collection of batch cocktails and we have a curated collection of beers and wines.”

Eder said the location was a spot that Jeff had looked at a number of times, even before he was involved.

“We knew we wanted to be in Tacoma. We knew we wanted to be in an area with plenty of foot traffic,” Eder said. “Hilltop is a great neighborhood to begin with, but with the three big buildings coming up here, we knew we had future regulars right here in the neighborhood.”

He said he was drawn to the location because he lives “around the corner.”

“We’ve both been in Tacoma closer to a decade,” Eder said. “We are really fond of the neighborhood.”

Eder said the name “Three Hearts” is in reference to the three hearts of an octopus.

“It’s kind of Tacoma’s de facto mascot,” Eder said. “Jeff’s kid is a marine biology enthusiast, he learned that octopuses have three hearts and was talking to his dad about it. He said ‘Dad, I think that would be a great name for your spot’ and we couldn’t agree more.”

The food they serve comes from the heart: the owners’ favorite foods.

“The inspiration for the food and a lot of the baked goods is nostalgia and just drawing on our experiences and what we have liked in our past and wanted to share,” Eder said. “I don’t think either of us are salesmen per se. We just want to share. We both really love what we do.”

A welcoming environment was a focus for them when envisioning and building Three Hearts, according to Eder.

“We have really busted our butts to get this space ready and get it cozy and accommodating. We put hospitality at the top of the list in terms of what we really want to share with people,” Eder said.

Eder said they have received a lot of positive feedback on their new place and have been reliably busy on the weekends and for lunch.

“We already have regulars, whose names we know, whose drinks we know,” Eder said. “People who are coming back on a regular basis are the lifeblood of a small business like this.”