BY JACKIE FENDER for WEEKLY VOLCANO | 9/11/2026
Peggy Cleveland’s Unique Eats and Eateries of Tacoma celebrates the people, places, and resilience behind the city’s evolving food scene.
There is a rare occasion when you have the opportunity to use your words to support someone whose work has had a way of not only informing but connecting and inspiring. Today just so happens to be my own opportunity to celebrate a fellow foodie author and her newest publication.
Local wordsmith Peggy Cleveland is a lover of all things Tacoma. She is a travel writer, author, and passionate supporter of small local businesses. Her extensive travels throughout the United States and the world have given her a unique insight into the cultural aspects of food. She tells the stories of the people who feed us, with work that has appeared in Northwest Travel & Life, She Buys Travel, and Food, Wine and Travel, as well as through syndication with McClatchy Media, MSN, and Newsbreak. This month, Cleveland adds another title to that body of work with Unique Eats and Eateries of Tacoma, a celebration of the people, places, and stories that make Tacoma’s food scene distinctly its own.
While Tacoma is at the heart of the book, Cleveland’s well-traveled perspective is part of what makes the project interesting. She isn’t simply cheerleading for locally owned or sustainably sourced establishments. She’s shining a spotlight on them, putting Tacoma’s culinary identity into a larger conversation about culture, community, resilience, and place.
One of the themes Cleveland explores in her writing is one I’ve found myself thinking about a lot lately: hospitality. How has our relationship with restaurants and the people who work in them changed? What happens to hospitality when an industry that relies on shared spaces for conversation over bites and sips has been through something as disruptive as a global pandemic?
When I asked Cleveland how she thinks the diner experience has evolved since the days before COVID, she said, “Since COVID, and really since moving to Tacoma, I rarely eat at any chain restaurants. I think in our area, people crave authenticity. They want to know who makes their food and where it comes from. We lost so many restaurants during COVID, and with the closures, many experienced servers and waitstaff moved to new jobs. I think many restaurants struggle to provide consistently good service. I find I am much more understanding of this, whereas in the past, if the service was poor, I wouldn’t return.”
Hospitality is increasingly about understanding the human connection from both sides of the table and recognizing that our relationship with food, from shared recipes to celebrations and beyond, always has a story. Cleveland’s book captures that connection not just through brick-and-mortar restaurants but through the farmers, makers, food trucks, and other nontraditional spaces that help build Tacoma’s food culture.
“They are the ultimate incubators,” she says of local farmers’ markets and food trucks. “Weekly farmers’ markets run spring through fall in Tacoma, serving as a launching pad where chefs hone their recipes and build loyal followings. We’re seeing an incredible transition where community-backed food trucks leverage grassroots support and Kickstarter campaigns to open physical locations, proving how invested Tacomans are in seeing local food entrepreneurs succeed.”
That sense of community is perhaps the book’s strongest throughline. “It’s all about the community. In Tacoma, our chefs, farmers, and artisans foster a close-knit, supportive environment rather than a cutthroat one.” Tacoma’s culinary landscape is a global melting pot on the shores of Puget Sound. Vietnamese pho, Filipino lumpia, Korean barbecue, Argentinian wood-fired steaks, Latin American pupusas, and German pretzels are part of the story, alongside the seafood, farms and Pacific Northwest ingredients that have long defined the region.
And to be sure, Cleveland did her homework. “I knew right away I couldn’t just list my personal favorites; I had a responsibility to show the full breadth of Tacoma. My research was a mix of intense interviewing and a lot of eating!” That research included conversations with chefs, tourism leaders, real estate professionals, social media foodies, and, of course, longtime Tacoma residents. “Some of the best culinary tips didn’t come from PR agencies or food critics; they came from my church lady friends at St. Charles Borromeo. People who have lived in Tacoma for decades know where the soul of this city’s food scene lives, from the dive bars serving secret legendary sandwiches to old-school bakeries.”
Cleveland goes on to say, “At its heart, Unique Eats and Eateries of Tacoma isn’t just a restaurant guide; it’s a tribute to the people behind the apron. From iconic family-owned establishments to courageous chefs rebuilding after the pandemic, these stories reflect the grit, creativity, and warmth that make Tacoma home.” Ultimately, this may be what makes a food book worth picking up even after you’ve lived here for years. It gives us another reason to look at familiar places with fresh eyes and finally try the place we’ve driven past a hundred times.
Cleveland will celebrate the release of Unique Eats and Eateries of Tacoma with a presentation and book signing Friday, September 18, from 6–8 p.m. at The Essential Pantry in University Place. Cleveland says owner Wendy is “such a sweet lady and so supportive of women-owned businesses,” and she hopes to welcome several of the restaurants featured in the book for the celebration.
The event is free and open to the public at 3550 Market Pl W, Unit A-105, University Place. From there, Cleveland will be making the rounds throughout the South Sound with additional appearances celebrating the book and the people and places that inspired it.
