Walk down Winslow Way on an ordinary Tuesday night the way you used to, and the muscle memory fails you twice in one block. Seabird isn't there anymore. Neither is Marché, a few doors down toward the water. Both rooms reopened under new names within the same stretch of months, and both came back with something their predecessors never had: a schedule you have to check before you leave the house.
That's the part locals haven't fully caught up to. This isn't a story about two restaurants closing. It's a story about two of Winslow's most reliable walk-in dinners becoming appointment dining, on two different systems, a block apart from each other.
Two Corners, One Winter
Seabird closed on September 28, 2025, after three years in the space at 133 Winslow Way E. Chef Brendan McGill and the Hitchcock Restaurant Group didn't leave the address. They rebuilt what happens inside it, reopening in three separate phases that fall: a morning market on November 15, a wine bar on November 19, and a ticketed supperclub on November 30. The new name is Kingfisher, and it kept the roughly 25 staff who wanted to stay with the group.
A block away, at 150 Madrone Ln N, the story ran differently but landed in the same season. Longtime chef Greg Atkinson retired, and Restaurant Marché closed. The space sat empty for months before reopening March 17, 2026, as Sweetwater Tavern, an oyster bar and seafood tavern co-owned by Pete Osborne, a Bay Area chef who moved to Bainbridge Island in 2016, and Callie Tinney, who relocated from Nashville around the same time.
Two of Winslow's most talked-about dining rooms changed hands within about six months of each other, both inside a five-minute walk of the ferry dock. If you ate at either place regularly before last fall, the room you remember doesn't run the way it used to.
What Kingfisher Actually Is
Kingfisher isn't a restaurant in the way Seabird was a restaurant. It's three services stacked into one address. Mornings and afternoons, it's a market: bread, produce, prepared foods, open daily from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Late afternoon into evening, Wednesday through Saturday, it becomes a wine bar with small plates built for sharing: oysters on the half shell, wood-fired vegetables, miso-braised short ribs. Once a week, the upstairs room McGill calls "the cabin" hosts a ticketed supperclub, capped at 20 seats, five courses, $150 a head before optional wine pairings.
The dinner side seats guests first come, first served. There's no reservation system for the regular wine bar service, only for the supperclub. That's a real change from how Seabird ran, but it's also a narrower window: four nights a week instead of seven, and only during a five-hour block each of those nights.
McGill kept his supply lines intact through the swap. He sources from Kingfisher Creek Farm, a North Kitsap property he owns, where the first product to reach the menu was a cider made from an old orchard already on the land. He's also continued buying from Sol Farm and Farmhouse Organics, and had previously worked with Shady Acres Farm on the island. The ingredients are the same neighborhood they always were. The hours around them are not.
What Sweetwater Tavern Actually Is
Sweetwater took a different approach to the same problem: how do you replace a beloved, aging concept without pretending the old one never happened. Osborne has said publicly that the goal wasn't to be a bistro, a cafe, or a pub. It's a tavern, built around a 10-seat oyster bar where guests can watch shellfish shucked in front of them, plus a wood-fired grill turning out burgers and steaks alongside the seafood. The design leans into what's been described as a Pacific Northwest '70s revival, with an expanded sunroom and patio that Marché's footprint didn't have.
The oysters come from Hama Hama and Moonlight Oyster Co., both regional producers. Produce comes from two Bainbridge farms, Butler Green Farms and Loki Farms. Tinney has talked about wanting a daily oyster happy hour specifically so islanders don't have to wait until the weekend for good shellfish, a detail that signals who the room is actually built for.
As of late summer 2026, Sweetwater's posted hours run Tuesday through Saturday, from 11:30 a.m. to 9 p.m., closed Sunday and Monday. That's a shift from its opening months, when service ran dinner-only, four evenings a week. The lunch expansion suggests the tavern found its footing faster than a brand-new concept usually does, but the two closed days a week are still two days a week you can't walk in, no matter how the hours read on any given month.
The Swap At a Glance
| Address | Former restaurant | Reason for closure | New restaurant | Reopened | Days closed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 133 Winslow Way E | Seabird | Concept retired by owner | Kingfisher | Phased, Nov. 15 to Nov. 30, 2025 | Wine bar/dinner closed Sun, Mon, Tue |
| 150 Madrone Ln N | Restaurant Marché | Chef Greg Atkinson's retirement | Sweetwater Tavern | March 17, 2026 | Closed Sun, Mon |
Line them up and the pattern is obvious once you see it: both replacements shrank the number of nights a walk-in dinner is possible, even as both expanded what happens on the nights they are open.
The Ingredients Didn't Leave. The Schedule Did.
Here's the piece that's easy to miss if you only think about this as two restaurants closing and two restaurants opening. Nothing about Winslow's supply chain actually changed. McGill still buys from the same North Kitsap farm he owns. Osborne and Tinney built their whole pitch around Hood Canal oysters and two Bainbridge produce farms. The island's food economy, the actual growers and shuckers and orchard owners behind these menus, is intact.
What changed is access. Seabird and Marché both operated as conventional, every-night dining rooms you could walk into on a whim. Kingfisher and Sweetwater Tavern both operate on a narrower, more structured clock: fewer open nights, a first come first served policy at one address, a ticketed supperclub at the other. If your old routine was "grab a table at Seabird on a Tuesday," that option is gone entirely, not because the food changed hands but because Tuesday isn't a service night at either address anymore.
How This Changes a Weeknight
For residents who built a routine around either spot, the practical adjustment is straightforward once you know it. Kingfisher's daytime market is a seven-day option if you just want fresh bread or produce without committing to a dinner reservation you don't need. Its wine bar and dinner seating only exist Wednesday through Saturday, and since there's no reservation line for that side of the business, arriving earlier in the window beats arriving right at 6 or 7 p.m. when the room fills. The supperclub is worth booking a month out if you're planning something specific, since it only seats 20 people once a week.
Sweetwater rewards a similar kind of planning. With lunch now running alongside dinner Tuesday through Saturday, it's become a genuine midday option near the ferry, not just an evening destination. But Sunday and Monday are off the table entirely for either room, which matters if your old habit was a Sunday dinner out.
Neither closure was a loss for Winslow's food scene in any real sense. Both spaces reopened fast, kept serious chefs in the kitchen, and stayed loyal to island and Hood Canal suppliers. What's different is that showing up unannounced doesn't work the same way it used to on either end of that block. The island rewards checking a schedule now in a way it didn't two years ago, and that's true whether you're deciding on dinner or deciding on a neighborhood.
If you're weighing what daily life actually looks like in Winslow, from the restaurants that anchor a weeknight to the ferry commute that frames a weekend, that's the kind of granular, on-the-ground read Mark Middleton Real Estate brings to every conversation about buying or selling on Bainbridge Island. Request a private consultation when you're ready to talk specifics.
