The Schumacher grocery store circa 1900 — note “Groceries” as the street name. (Photo courtesy Edmonds Historical Museum)

In the summer of 1890, when Edmonds was incorporating, the Schumacher brothers (William and Roy) finished erecting a building on what was then the corner of Fourth (Groceries) and George Street, to house their grocery business.  Note: George Street was later renamed Main Street, and Fourth (Groceries) was replaced by new buildings.  Fourth Street as we know it today was built further east in later years.

The building’s style was known as Western False Front.  The style had a well defined façade, with a parapet, which was higher than the roof which gave the building an appearance of being taller and grander than it actually was.

The Schumacher brothers ran the grocery store successfully for 14 years. In 1904, they sold their inventory, and rented the building to D.W. Griffith.  Only a couple months later, Griffith sold the business to William Kingdon, who had previously owned a small grocery near the Edmonds docks.

Kingdon operated his grocery store in the Schumacher building until 1907. In an interview, Esther Knowles, a daughter of William Kingdon, remembered living upstairs in the Schumacher building. “My father had me working as soon as I could see over the counter,” she recalled. When she lived there the building was lighted by acetylene lamps, and was one of the earliest Edmonds buildings to have indoor plumbing.

When a new building was constructed directly east of the Schumacher building, Kingdon vacated the space and moved the grocery next door (now the home of HouseWares). With the space vacated, E. H. Heberlein purchased the building from the Schumachers, and moved his newly acquired hardware business into the building.

H. Herberlein ran a very successful hardware business in the building over the next 15 years. During his tenure, he changed the appearance of the front of the building by putting up a faux brick pattern and installing multiple signs. Initially the business was named Heberlein Hardware but was later changed to Edmonds Hardware Co. with E. H. Heberlein as proprietor.

Near the end of 1921, E. H. Heberlein decided to sell the Edmonds Hardware Co. The new owners were Gove & Lauridsen. Gove & Lauridsen retained Edmonds Hardware Co. as the company’s name, and simply listed their names as the new proprietors under the company’s name in their advertisements.

Two years later, in September 1923, Gove & Lauridsen sold the business to Black and Benjamin from Oklahoma for a reported $20,000. Like their predecessors, Black and Benjamin retained Edmonds Hardware Co. as the company’s name and simply replaced Gove & Lauridsen with their names.

But just 10 months later — in July 1924 — Black and Benjamin departed Edmonds, selling Edmonds Hardware Co. to Clyde L. Jackson, who was coming to Edmonds from Montesano. A front-page article in the Edmonds Tribune Review noted that Mr. Jackson, although young, was experienced in the hardware industry.

The business prospered over the next three-and-a-half years in the Schumacher building. In October 1928, Mr. Jackson decided to move the business up to the new Fourtner building, where Starbucks now resides. That ended a 21-year period in which a hardware store had been present in the building.

After Clyde Jackson moved the Edmonds Hardware Co., the vacated space was apparently owned by a dry goods store for over a decade. The exact name of the business appears to be lost in history.

In the 1940s, the Schumacher building was home first to Miller’s Second Hand Store, and then the Edmonds Furniture Exchange. In the 1950s, Trafon Furniture and Edmonds Furniture Company — which was owned by Marv Behar — were tenants

Later, in the 1960s and 1970s, My Bag Manufacturing, Sound Art Manufacturing Co. Inc. (a manufacturer of recreational equipment and wear), and Spec-Gard Inc.  occupied commercial space in the building.

In 1984, Jochen Bettag purchased the Schumacher building, and funded a complete restoration project to return the building back to its original appearance. The renovation included additional structural support, replacement of all windows,  plumbing and fixtures. When he bought the building, the old façade had been covered with stucco and pseudo-Spanish décor. That was removed to reveal the 1907 façade.  Additionally, a window matching the front display windows was added on the west side and a new stairway was put onto the front. Otherwise, the restoration was true to the building’s original state.

Once the restoration was complete, Jochen Bettag opened Chanterelle Specialty Foods in 1986. Today, 37 years later, Chanterelle continues to be a popular eatery albeit under different ownership. The upstairs is also the home to several business offices.

In looking back at the variety of tenants that resided in the Schumacher building,  it is interesting to note:

• it was the home to grocery stores for the first 17 years.
• Then it housed hardware stores for the next 21 years.
• That period was followed by the presence of a dry goods and a second-hand store for more than a decade.
• Next, a number of furniture stores occupied the building for over 20 years.
• The following two decades saw manufacturing firms reside in the building.
• Finally, the building has been the home of Chanterelle for the past 37 years.

Throughout all the years, the Schumacher building has been an anchor in the Edmonds community and continues to be a valued asset. The building was deservedly added to the Edmonds Register of Historic Places in 2015.

Addendum: After the original article was published, I was able to garner further information regarding the history of Chanterelle which I was not able to establish at the time of the initial writing.

The following information regards the operations of Chanterelle within the Schumacher building from 1986 through April of 2023.

When Jochen Bettag operated Chanterelle Specialty Foods there was a deli in the middle of the dining room where one would place their order and then wait in chairs that were provided.  There was another small specialty grocery area off to the side that offered retail items for preparing gourmet meals at home.

After six years of running Chanterelle, Bettag sold the business  to Denise Linn and Russ Cliff, and at the same time he sold the building to Dena Blatt, who has been the landlord ever since. The dining room format did not change under their ownership.

Steve and Irene Stewart of New York bought the business approximately three years later.  The Stewarts did not work in the restaurant, but instead hired a manager to run Chanterelle. During that time they eliminated the deli in the center, and added an espresso counter to the left of the front doors.

The Stewarts sold the business to the Bakers (Brooke and Randy) in 1997 after two short years, and returned to New York.  The Bakers who had a strong restaurant background, ran the restaurant for the next twenty years.

One of the many changes made under the Bakers’ leadership was to create and construct dropped burlap-wrapped sound absorbing panels to absorb much of the noise bouncing off all the hard surfaces. Several restaurants in Edmonds took note and implemented similar panels.

In 2015 other updates included new signage, modeled after the original hardware store sign. At that point Chanterelle adopted the byline “Edmonds Hometown Bistro” which was more fitting then the original name of Chanterelle Specialty Foods, since the Specialty Food market shelves had been eliminated decades before.   The Bakers also updated and reconfigured the dining room to include a full bar in 2016.

After a little more than 20 years of successfully running and expanding Chanterelle’s reputation and business, the Bakers sold the restaurant in October of 2018 to Hoa Tran.  Hoa Tran owns the restaurant as of this writing, and his daughter Tiffany serves as the general manager.

— Article was researched and written by Byron Wilkes. The Edmonds Historical Museum, Sno-Isle Genealogy Society and Lynnwood Library assisted in the research of this article. Thanks also to Joe Davis, who provided valued information on his maternal  grandfather Clyde L. Jackson, owner of the Edmonds Hardware Co. from 1924-1928.