Rockfish Grill & Anacortes Brewery: 25 Years

This year, we’re raising a glass to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Rockfish Grill & Anacortes Brewery. For a quarter of a century, Rockfish has been more than a place to eat and drink—it’s been Anacortes’ front porch. A place where music spills out onto the street, where teens get their first job and elders toast their 80th birthdays, and where beer is crafted with care and purpose.

It has become a cultural anchor with deep roots, a business that continues to evolve, inspire, and bring people together. Here’s a look back at its story so far.

---

How It All Began

In the late 1990s, Allen Rhoades—an engineer at Boeing and avid homebrewer—got an unexpected tip. “Cousin Steve came by on his motorcycle to stop in, and the doors were chained,” Allen recalled over lunch at the restaurant 25 years later. The shuttered building was the former Anacortes Brewery, founded in 1994 but now closed and up for foreclosure.

“I thought it was just going to be an exercise to get information to make a better offer on a different place later,” Allen admitted. “When we got it, I’m like, ‘Oh man, I guess I gotta quit my job at Boeing.’ I wasn’t really expecting it.”

Allen, brewer Paul Wasik, and longtime friend Rick Star—also an engineer and homebrewer—bought the building and business. Rick stayed in Seattle at first, helping part-time while still at Boeing. “We weren’t even promoting the concept of a family restaurant,” he noted. “That wasn’t in the program. But that’s what the town needed.”

From the outset, Allen and Rick brought in what they loved. Allen brought technical precision and a passion for lagers, made possible by the brewery’s rare cold room. While most early craft breweries focused on ales, Rockfish had the equipment—and the ambition—to brew lagers with chilled fermentation methods, a craft that takes time, finesse, and skill.

Rick brought a family legacy. “My late uncle was a brewmaster in Germany,” he said. “He introduced me to Klosterbier, a dark lager brewed for the Engelberg Monastery. When we first opened here, I asked him for the recipe. We did the conversions, and he came and brewed it with us.” Kloster Bier has been a Rockfish staple ever since.

---

Revitalizing a Rough Corner

Opening Rockfish wasn’t just about brewing beer—it was about breathing new life into a corner of town that needed it. Next door sat The Watertown, a bar with a reputation that kept the police parked out front every weekend.

Allen and Rick took it over, remodeled it, and reopened it as H2O—a clean, inviting venue for music and dining. “Dean Maxwell, who was the mayor at the time, and Bonnie Bowers, the chief of police, both came to us and thanked us for cleaning it up,” Rick said.

From that point forward, Rockfish was more than a business—it became an anchor. A place where families dined, musicians played, and teenagers got their first jobs.

---

Generations of Staff and Customers

Rockfish quickly embraced families, offering Kids Eat Free Tuesdays and filling the dining room week after week. Rick remembers one family in particular: “From the time their daughters were just little, they were here every Tuesday. When she turned 16, Morgan showed up with an application and handed it to me. I looked at her and said, ‘I don’t need to read this. I know everything I need to know about you.’ She was hired on the spot.”

Over the years, countless young people have grown up eating at Rockfish and returned to work as hosts, bussers, servers, cooks, and brewers. Some came back during college breaks; others stayed and built their lives here. Today, multiple employees are second-generation staff—kids of former staff members now working alongside their parents.

At staff meetings, Allen always reminds the team: “None of us are getting rich doing this. So you better be having fun, and you better be learning. Because if you’re not learning or growing, there’s probably another job for you.”

---

Brewing Knowledge and Advocacy

Allen’s work extends far beyond the Rockfish brewhouse. As a founding faculty member of Skagit Valley College’s Cardinal Craft Brewing Academy, he’s trained dozens of students who have gone on to launch or lead breweries across Washington. “Our goal was to give students a solid foundation in both the science and the business of brewing,” Allen says, “so they could carry craft beer forward with both creativity and professionalism.”

That spirit of leadership also shows up in Olympia and beyond. As a long-time member of the Washington Brewers Guild, Allen has spent years meeting with lawmakers to explain what small breweries need to succeed. He has testified and advocated for legislation that reduced excise taxes on small brewers, supported outdoor seating flexibility, and expanded opportunities for small-scale production. These changes don’t just affect Rockfish—they ripple out to hundreds of independent breweries across the state.

Allen often reminds people: “We’ll be a small business forever. Everyone doesn’t have to be Starbucks. We’ll never make more than 2,000 barrels a year—but that extra money could go to things like solar panels.” And indeed, Rockfish has invested in sustainability, with 78 rooftop panels now producing more than half the brewery’s energy.

Through teaching, mentoring, and advocacy, Allen has helped ensure that Washington’s craft brewing scene is not only thriving today but positioned for a strong future.

---

Beer That Gives Back

From the start, Rockfish has used beer as a tool for community building—setting up beer gardens at local events, brewing custom beers for nonprofits, and donating proceeds to causes from the Anacortes Arts Festival to the Tommy Thompson Trail rebuild.

As Rick puts it: “We do it because it’s the right thing to do—and it brings people together in a way that feels meaningful.”

---

Resilience in a Crisis

When COVID-19 shut down much of the world, Rockfish stayed open every day. They built a heated, ventilated outdoor tent, created take-home meals, and even distilled unsold beer into hand sanitizer for the city’s Public Works Department.

Local nonprofits they had supported over the years stepped in to help, placing large meal orders that kept the kitchen running and staff employed. “Those nonprofits remembered what we did,” Allen says. “And they helped us.”

---

Keeping the Music Alive

Music has been at the heart of Rockfish since the beginning. Over 25 years, they’ve hosted more than 2,500 performances—from Grammy winners to a nervous 19-year-old Chris Eger’s first paid gig.

Rick has also helped launch and anchor festivals like Bier on the Pier and Jazz Walk, ensuring music remains a downtown staple. “Even if you didn’t know the band, you could show up and know it would be good,” Rick says.

Katie Williams of the Anacortes Music Project sums it up:

“The Rockfish has been a home base for live, original music in Anacortes for many years. That kind of long-standing support is what helps hold a music scene together.”

---

A Legacy in Numbers

• 25 years in business
• 2,500+ live performances
• 100+ local youth trained and mentored
• 60+ beer styles brewed
• Dozens of brewing awards
• Founding member of the Skagit Farm to Pint Trail and Bier on the Pier
• Over a dozen local nonprofits supported annually
• 70 Thanksgiving and 60 Christmas meals provided each year to neighbors in need
• 78 solar panels powering more than half the brewery’s needs
• Zero-waste brewing practices in place

---

Pouring the Next 25 Years

The Rockfish Grill & Anacortes Brewery has poured more than beer these past 25 years—it has poured heart, hospitality, and hope into the fabric of downtown. Rick and Allen’s blend of entrepreneurial grit, creative soul, and community commitment has made Rockfish a business that feels like home.