EVERETT — The Rustic Cork Wine Bar, the first of five new food and bar options at The Port of Everett, opened Tuesday as the city’s waterfront continues to transform into a culinary destination on the Puget Sound for residents and tourists.

Kelsey Olson, the owner of the new wine bar, said she is happy that her establishment is finally open. She signed an agreement to open at the port in February 2022.

“It’s been a long time waiting for construction,” she said.

The two-story wine bar has 2,600 square feet of interior space and another 2,600 square feet of outdoor, covered patio space facing the water, Olson said.

She said 30 to 40 Washington wines will be featured at the wine bar.

“Washington wine is underrepresented in a lot of our local restaurants,” Olson said. “And, personally, they’re just a strong favorite of mine over California wine.”

The new waterfront location will be the third for the wine bar, which already operates in Mill Creek and Lake Stevens.

The Rustic Cork’s Port of Everett location sits in a new 12,000-square-foot restaurant building next to Fisherman Jack’s, an Asian fusion restaurant, and South Fork Baking Company, a deli.

“We’re creating a dining experience down here,” said Catherine Soper, the port’s chief of business development and tourism.” So if you come to the port, you don’t have to eat at the same spot every time.”

The port still has its marine freight operations and the largest public marina on the West Coast. The new restaurants reflect efforts by port officials to increase the number of locals and tourists who visit the waterfront and bring added revenue. The port won’t own the restaurants but will collect rent from the new tenants.

The port anticipates $5.6 million in revenue from retail and industrial businesses, including restaurants, next year, compared to $4.1 million in 2025.

The port invested more than $15 million in constructing two new restaurant buildings, Soper said.

The building housing the Rustic Cork will also contain Tapped Public House, a brewhouse and restaurant, scheduled to open on Dec. 12. It will offer inside and outdoor seating areas on the second floor of the building, overlooking the water.

Menchie’s at the Marina, a frozen yogurt dessert shop, will be another tenant in the restaurant building. Port officials said they have one vacant first-floor space in the building and are actively seeking a restaurant specializing in breakfast and lunch to complement the other food and drink options.

A second 6,000-square-foot restaurant building at the corner of Seiner Drive and West Marine View Drive, near the Grand Avenue Park Bridge, is also nearing completion. Port officials said two restaurants — The Net Shed, a combination seafood restaurant and fish market, and a Mexican restaurant named Marina Azul Cocina & Cantina — are scheduled to open in 2026 at yet-unspecified dates.

Anthony’s HomePort Everett opened at the port in 1984. Scuttlebutt Family Pub opened in 1996. But only a handful of restaurants and bars operated at the port until 2023 when four new establishments opened — part of the ongoing transformation of an industrial waterfront that was once the center of Everett’s mill industry.

The last mill closed in 2012.

The restaurant expansion of 2023 saw the opening of Fisherman Jack’s, South Fork Baking Company, Woods Coffee and Sound2Summit Taproom. Also opening that year was The Muse Whiskey & Coffee, a coffeehouse by day, whiskey bar at night, housed in the 1923 Weyerhaeuser Building, which was the Everett-based mill headquarters for the Weyerhaeuser Company.

In addition to the two new port restaurant buildings, seaport officials are also seeking a high-end steak house or other experimental dining concept to enter into a longterm ground lease for a tenant-built restaurant at a site near the second restaurant building at Seiner and West Marine View Drives.

Port officials said the site can accommodate up to 8,000 square feet for a two-story building.

Soper said increased visitation to the port will help support the new restaurants. She said the port is seeing around 1.6 million visitors a year, double the number of a decade ago.

Shannon Affholter, chairman of the department of real estate at the University of Washington and former Everett city council member, said the increase in restaurants should attract even more visitors to the port.

“Each time a new restaurant opens, it creates more momentum,” he said.

One restaurant owner who is doubling down on the port is Sean Drought. He is the CEO of The Way Group, which will operate both Tapped Public House and The Net Shed.

“We think of it as a massive opportunity,” he said. “The port is an awesome area that is going to draw a lot of visitors from the region as well as families.”

His company already operates three locations of Tapped Public House: in Mukilteo, Mill Creek and Camano Island.

The establishment features several dozen beers on tap and casual food like hamburgers and a prime rib dip sandwich.

Drought said The Net Shed will sell seafood, with fresh fish from Hawaii, and offer a dining room.

Drought, who spent summers as a child on Long Beach Island in New Jersey, remembers the smell and taste of fresh fish from a combo fish market-restaurant called Marvel’s Market.

“It was doughnuts and seafood,” he said of the food offerings.

Drought hopes to recreate those memories at The Net Shed for a new group of customers.

“I always wanted to open a fish market,” he said.

Drought said he hopes The Net Shed could open by early 2026.

Randy Diamond: 425-339-3097; randy.diamond@heraldnet.com