Manuscript & Dialogue Is All Things to All People: Nightclub, Cocktail Lounge, Date-Night Bistro, Pizzeria, Oyster Bar, and All-Day Brunch Diner

By MEG VAN HUYGEN

Boy, we veteran Pacific Northwesterners know better than to trust that Juneuary weather, but… it sure has been intoxicating. My partner and I, still cautious of rain, haven’t been able to resist soaking up the sudden, fleeting sun as much as we can, via a checklist of parks, walking trails, and bars with patios. Armed with a hoodie and a pair of emergency leggings stuffed in my purse, we were out for a walk in Wright Park last weekend, then capped it off at nearby Manuscript & Dialogue—after I’d spied an Instagram announcing it was “an oysters on the deck kinda day.”

It was. Facing Court D where it meets Tacoma Avenue South, Manuscript’s patio is small but mighty, drenched in sunlight and equipped with all the prime architectural views, and we dutifully ordered a dozen Chelsea Gems with mignonette. Not only was it an oysters on the deck kinda day—turns out, it was also an all-day brunch kinda day. As of a few weeks ago, Manuscript has offered their brunch menu from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Sundays. Since my visit, they don’t even do dinner on Sundays anymore—it’s brunch or nothin’.

I’m not historically a brunch nerd or even a sugar person, but the banana bread pudding—called “Banana Bread Pudding at Work, Dude?,” a reference which one must be Extremely Online to get—is fucking righteous. I have been craving this thing. The banana cake part is deep-fried, soaked in butter rum sauce, decorated with walnuts and brûléed banana slices, and dotted with bourbon-infused whipped cream. It’s an elaborate production, and I stayed for the whole show, scraping every drop of the butter/rum/caramel/banana/melted whipped cream emulsion into my mouth. I guess I like brunch now, if this is what that is.

My partner had a very handsome, saucy plate of Tio’s chilaquiles with cilantro, avocado, and queso fresco that I’d definitely order again. Manuscript also has an approximation of a Dutch baby called Small Lemongrab Baby (heh), served with lemon curd and strawberry-rhubarb jam, that I’m heading for on my next read-through.

Brunch aside, the dish I normally make a beeline for at Manuscript is the Eda-Bim Bap sandwich. While it perhaps has very little in common with bibimbap, per the reference in the name, is it at least as delicious as or possibly more delicious than bibimbap, which I am a nerd about. They take luscious caramelized pork belly, glaze it in a peach cider reduction, and stack it on a brioche bun. Then it’s crowned with a fried egg and dressed with toasted sesame seeds, jalapeno coleslaw, and a little sriracha aioli. This porky masterwork (masterpork), alongside a tray of local oysters on the half, out on the patio, while the gentle late-springtime sunshine pours down on me and my dude… the whole scene has been an office daydream that’s carried me through the week. Glorious. I need to reenact it ASAP.

If you like sunny outdoor dining spaces, there’s about to be more of them. Manuscript is planning a big debut party for their outdoor beer garden on the ground floor, aiming for June 15, “There might be a soft open before then,” co-owner Eda Johnson tells me. “We’re gonna hold a market with a bunch of different vendors and have a DJ outside. And beer!”

Which brings us at last to the Dialogue part of Manuscript & Dialogue: DJs. On the weekends, the back half of the huge building polymorphs into a nightclub, often with several DJs per event, featuring bass, house, trance, dubstep, and other flavors of electronic dance music (EDM).

I’m far too middle-aged to partake in any of this, of course, but lucky for me, Manuscript has a killer cocktail program. So I’m pleased to lurk in the front while they twerk in the back— accompanied by Manuscript’s version of a Rob Roy, made of Bank Note 5-year blended scotch, Jelinek dark amaro, orange brandy liqueur, Bittercube’s cherry vanilla bitters, an orange peel twist, and a “filthy cherry,” poured over a big rock. It’s a perfect sipper to sit with and watch the kids play. Happy for them.

Manuscript opened in January 2024, in the space formerly occupied by Odin Brewing and before that The Hub, and its origin story starts with Eda Johnson. Having worked in restaurants since she was 17, Johnson is also a DJ and vocalist who writes and records vocals for her own projects as well as other artists’. She was working as a general manager at Boom Boom Room on 6th Avenue last year when she and her husband decided to finally open their own bar/club/restaurant. Initially, Johnson paired up with Robert Stocker, who owns several restaurants in Tacoma, although she’s now in the process of buying Stocker out. Her other business partner is executive chef Brandon Barrios, who was leading the show at Hilltop’s Bar Rosa until last year. Along with a menu of sandwiches, salads, and pasta entrees, Barrios brings with him a selection of pizza al taglio, made Roman-style in a sheet pan with a thick focaccia-like dough, a crisp bottom crust, simple toppings, and tons of olive oil.

“Yeah, I was the GM at Boom Boom Room, and I needed some kitchen staff for Manuscript, and one of our distro guys knew that Brandon (Barrios) had just left Bar Rosa. So I slid into his DMs and said, “Hey, lookin’ for a job? But Brandon said he was about to go to Italy to learn, y’know, culinary stuff, pizza skills. [laughs] He was working in a handful of different kitchens and farms in Italy for a while, and he’d planned to move back home to California once he got back. I said, “Well, I’m opening a new place in Tacoma. If you change your mind, reach out.” Then, when he came back to Tacoma, I showed him the space, and he said, “Oh. Okay, I’m actually staying here.”

When asked about the decision to combine a restaurant with a nightclub, Johnson says, “Well, my husband and I have been trying to open a nightclub in Tacoma for many years,” saying it made sense, since she’s worked in restaurants by day and is a DJ by night. “Tacoma has lots of DJs and music artists for this genre, but we need venues. It just doesn’t have a great dance scene.”

Until now, that is. From the beginning, she says, the EDM nights have been well attended, and they’re starting to expand to other musical genres. “We’ve partnered with the guys from eTc Tacoma, and they’ve been doing R&B nights lately, which are wildly successful.”

As for the manuscript theme at Manuscript, Johnson breaks it down for me. “We’re near a bunch of Tacoma’s theaters as well as the Grand Cinema, right? So I thought that was a good theme. It can be a theater script or a movie script or a TV script. That, and I liked the idea of being a good employer and being completely in it with the team, working alongside them. ‘This is the script,’ meaning that we have a standard of service to live up to.”

She adds that the script leitmotif was locked in when she began working with tattoo artist Ashlyn Grantham, who designed the restaurant’s typewriter logo. “I’m so in love with that typewriter. It really locks the whole concept together.” She mentions that she fired a few professional graphic designers who were brought in to design the menu, opting instead for painter Amy Lewis, to illustrate the menu itself. More art fills the dining space as well, such as a painting of a pack of Marlboros that reads “Tacoma” where the brand name normally is, and another of a child in a gas mask. “A graffiti artist made the gas mask painting,” Johnson says, and points out an realistic oil painting in the dining room by Lewis, “Lunch on the Go,” to underscore the importance that art plays in Manuscript’s aesthetic.

“The painting is of a rich, classy lady wearing jewels and eating a Cup Noodles, right?” Johnson says, adding that when she saw it, she knew it needed to be displayed at Manuscript. “Amy Lewis, the artist, is a Spaceworks grad, and so am I, and it just felt so perfectly Grit City. Jewls and instant ramen. That’s our vibe.”