There’s change in the air across Tacoma, the return of things once lost, the reopening of places once closed, the transformation of one restaurant into another, the creation of brand new places to gather, shop, eat, and drink. We’ve been experiencing this change across the city and wanted to pull some of it together in one place. What follows is a list of 17 new, renewed, and returned businesses along with 3 coming soon. See if you can enjoy and support something new this month; if you do, we’d love to hear about it!
We’ve rounded-up and narrowed-down 15 ways to get out into community this October. Don your most intellectual scarf and hat combination for a literary night, dance and eat with the Greeks, step into a candlelit tour our 1855, get psyched up about cycling (and bicycle fashion), try forest bathing, don your most eccentric scarf and hat combination for the film festival, write letters for fun, tour art studios, hear from Latinas who experience being The Firsts in so many ways, take a local art walk, and celebrate Día de los Muertos. We’ve got some ways to volunteer in here too—lend a hand with Habitat for Humanity, pick up litter, or pull weeds and plant seeds at a favorite park to keep Tacoma green.
Once in a while, we all need to get out of town. This month we’re sharing about Port Townsend and Vashon Island, two places we go again and again when a change of scene is calling. They’re places where the beach is always near, where parking is easy, where woods and trails beckon us away from the sidewalks. Places where small, local bakeries, coffee roasters, independent bookstores, and one of a kind shops outnumber chains by far. We’ll share some of the ways we pass the time and how we fill our stomachs (never a problem). Don’t worry too much about planning; these destinations are so close to Tacoma, you can show up again and try what you missed. Wake up one morning and just decide to go!
Tacoma High 5 is our way to nudge you (and us!) toward what we love about Tacoma. It’s a short list with a commitment to the local—it embraces the season, invites delight, encourages a spirit of exploration and some generosity as well. This month’s list includes Tacoma Pride, an all ages neighborhood music festival, a game that gets you supporting small businesses (and winning prizes), Swedish-style baked goods, and the chance to help out Habitat for Humanity or spend Friday afternoons watering trees to keep Tacoma (and its future) healthy and shaded.
Community Event
Sweet Treat
Exploration & Adventure
Local Love
Volunteering & Sharing
Want to go out and really be out—out in the open air, beneath a colorful umbrella, on a shaded patio, beside a bustling sidewalk, seated on a deck overlooking the water, pulled up to a bar counter by the street? We’ve gathered over 60 of Tacoma’s outdoor dining spots by neighborhood to get you started. Take a look at our list of restaurants, cafes, and bars with outdoor seating, then get yourself away from the screen, out the door, and into the life of Tacoma’s summer. See you out there!
This new homeownership fund gives us as Realtors an opportunity to do more than just educate ourselves about racial disparities in homeownership. And anyone can contribute! We're eager to see the fund grow, and for us to grow as an industry into greater ways to support and advocate for truly equal access to housing and homeownership.
The new year has us considering belonging, how people find it, how we create it. In this list we’ve collected 5 of the ways we’ve found belonging in Tacoma, or ways we’d like to continue building it. These aren’t deep Tacoma secrets, or never-been-seen-before ideas. There’s nothing sensational here. This list is more like suggested ingredients for finding your place by giving and receiving, exploring and settling down. Sometimes belonging just happens to us, other times we need to find it and foster it. Take a look and join us.
This month we’ve created a special list of 10 ways to give in December. You’ll find 5 recommendations for local gift giving with some of our favorite small businesses included, and 5 suggestions for giving outside your friends and family, ways of giving to community and unknown neighbors, ways giving of your time, and even a gift that supports wildlife conservation and education. All 10 ways of giving put LOVE into the Tacoma community!
Tacoma High 5 is our way to keep nudging you toward what we love about Tacoma. It’s a short list with a commitment to the local—it embraces the season, invites delight, encourages a spirit of exploration and some generosity as well. This month’s list includes arts and outdoor markets, a new business you ought to meet, a delicious accompaniment to your pot of tea, and a simple way to help our neighbors!
Community Event
Sweet Treat
Exploration & Adventure
Local Love
Volunteering & Sharing
Tacoma High 5 is our way to nudge you toward what we love about Tacoma. It’s a short list with a commitment to the local—it embraces the season, invites delight, encourages a spirit of exploration and some generosity as well. This month’s list includes arts and trails, a new bakery, ways to support refugees, and a 10 Stop Pizza Tour of Tacoma!
Community Event
Sweet Treat
Exploration & Adventure
Local Love
Volunteering & Sharing
Tacoma High 5 is our way to nudge you toward what we love about Tacoma. It’s a short list with a commitment to the local—it embraces the season, invites delight, encourages a spirit of exploration and some generosity as well. Maybe we’ll see you out there!
Community Event
Sweet Treat
Exploration & Adventure
Local Love
Volunteering & Sharing
The Duggan, Brooks & Books project lives on and this time we’re energized by the vision of Kwabi and The Peace Bus! Learn how you can support this Tacoma local’s mission to plant seeds of peace across the United States on his way to meet with President Biden. Peace, love, justice, reconciliation, and literature —we’re on board. Make sure to visit Brooks Dental’s site for more about Kwabi’s story! P.S. Book donations due by August 14th!
Tacoma High 5 is our way to nudge you toward what we love about Tacoma, toward 5 things that bring balance to our life in the city. You’ll find something to connect you to the saltwater, a big community event, a delicious treat from a small, local business, a little outdoor bustle and freshness, and a way you can give—big or small—to support and nurture neighbors. Maybe we’ll see you out there!
As members of the Tacoma community, homeowners, and people who work in real estate, we want to continue our learning about fair housing, the history of racism in housing and homeownership, segregation, and exclusion. We want to know how our history informs our present, and we want to take that learning into our lives, our actions, our votes, and our work. So we’ve gathered “Watch, Read & Listen” resources in hopes that we can learn together. From a section devoted to Tacoma’s history and the current Home in Tacoma Project, to a variety of media addressing systemic racism in housing across America, the list has grown a lot since we first created it last year. We hope we’ve grown too. Dig in.
May in Tacoma is full. It’s full of beauty and it’s full of things to do to get outside your house/skull/rut/routine, so we’ve created another list of 12+ events to get you started. You’ll find community bike rides, scavenger hunts, a vintage market, pet parade, Tacoma Mystery Mini Series, yarn crawl, writers workshop, tool lending, home tiling skills, a drive-in concert, opportunities to share food and toiletries, and more. We hope you find something that calls your name—Hey, You! Come do this thing! We hope you spark a connection you didn’t feel before to this place called Tacoma that we call home.
Looking for one or two reasons to step outside your door, or a meaningful opportunity to connect online? We hope you’ll find that here! Our list of 10 ways to connect to Tacoma this month includes a kid-created online market and in-person scavenger hunt, free weekday dinners in Hilltop, a golf tournament to support the Rainbow Center, a new history museum exhibit exploring Japanese incarceration in WWII, neighborhood clean-ups, locally made Easter candy, a conversation about gender in the workplace, a local veggie and flower CSA program, and more. Take a look!
Find 10 ways to connect to Tacoma community this month in our list below. It’s a mix - Tacoma is always a mix! - with chances to share food, listen to local voices about growing up bi-racial, talk with an author about publication, get or give help with laundry, shop vintage in Lincoln, pick up a craft kit in Old Town, take a virtual bus trip to learn about transportation and gentrification in Hilltop, and get in on the 90-Second Newberry Film Festival too. Join, give, receive, explore, support.
Bringing you 5 options for reaching out a hand to Tacoma this weekend and beyond. Get in on some local history, pick up a craft pack in Old Town, and show up for some markets (virtual and pop-up variety!). Pre-pandemic, Tacoma was really getting going with street markets, weekend markets, farmers’ markets, night markets, and we miss those! But the makers are still out there making and they could use our support. Explore the list and see what you can find.
Another weekend and week of Tacoma community opportunities is coming your way. If you’re starting to feel like you need a REASON TO GO OUT (safely, of course) go ahead and take a look. You’ll find treasure hunts of the vintage and monkeyshines variety, an encouragement to eat pizza (as if that’s necessary), and a Gal/Pal/Valentine charcuterie order form. We’ll be back with more next week!
Our monthly lists, you may have noticed, have shifted focus from events to connection (that’s been the idea all along!). This December list is no different. Find 12 ways to connect to Tacoma community from safe holiday markets to engaging youth with poetry, from a video and podcast inviting you into relationship with Native/Indigenous communities to cooking classes, a Nutcracker Ballet watch party, a local gift guide and Hilltop neighborhood crawl to support small businesses, suggestions for solstice, a featured non-profit, and our prescription: go outside!
In this list you’ll find opportunities to give bikes or books away for other people to use, volunteer days in our parks, a film festival, storytelling about homelessness, an online concert, a Then & Now tour of Tacoma, a chance to make sandwiches for neighbors in need, a fundraiser for Feed253, Zoolights and more!
This month we have 10 ways (actually 14, we threw is some special extras) to connect to Tacoma community! It’s a truly Tacoma mix of events and gatherings from storytelling to free community meals, from workshops to develop your recording artist skills to domestic violence and racism education and advocacy, from classes in watercolor to classes on how to use tools, from women in business to women and the vote (by the way: vote!).
Summer is waning, but we’ve gathered 10 things to do in Tacoma this September to get you through. This list is all about connecting to community. You’ll find a vintage yard sale, community meals, opportunities to give your time to people and to the environment, a public art tour, new pizza places, a cooking class, and more. We hope you find something for you, something that gives you hope, or a way you can give hope to someone else. Take a look.
