Waterfront Place’s Next Wave: Menchie’s and Marina Azul Are Almost Open — And Alexa’s Cafe Is Out

Q: Who’s opening next at the Port of Everett’s Restaurant Row?

A: Two new tenants are days to weeks away from opening at Waterfront Place: Menchie’s at the Marina (frozen yogurt, second floor of the new Restaurant Row building) and Marina Azul Cocina & Cantina (from the team behind Casa Azul in Woodinville and Agave Cocina in Issaquah). Both are expected in early spring 2026. Alexa’s Cafe — originally slated to be the breakfast-and-brunch tenant — has pulled out, and the Port is now actively searching for a new café operator to fill the last remaining spot in the building.

Walking Waterfront Place in mid-April, you can feel that the second wave has landed. Tapped Public House’s rooftop is already pulling weekend crowds. Rustic Cork and The Net Shed Fresh Fish Market & Kitchen, both of which opened quietly in December 2025, are no longer “new” — they’re already part of the weekday regular rotation for a lot of downtown workers.

But the building still has two tenants wrapping up construction, one that’s quietly vanished from the tenant list, and one visible empty storefront waiting for its operator.

Here’s what we’re tracking in the final phase of the Restaurant Row lease-up at the Port of Everett.

Menchie’s at the Marina — Opening Early Spring 2026

The waterfront’s first national-brand dessert concept is going in on the second floor of the Restaurant Row building, a level up from where Tapped has its giant rooftop deck. If you’ve been to a Menchie’s anywhere else, you already know the deal — self-serve frozen yogurt, a wall of rotating flavors, a toppings bar, pay by weight.

What makes this location different is the setting. Menchie’s hasn’t had a waterfront storefront anywhere in the Puget Sound region before, and putting one on the upper deck at Waterfront Place — with views out across the North Marina — turns what’s otherwise a suburban mall concept into something that reads a lot more like vacation-mode soft-serve. The Port has been positioning the full Restaurant Row building as a destination for families as much as for weekend drinkers, and Menchie’s is part of that case.

The Port’s public communication says “early spring 2026,” which at this point in April is a window measured in weeks, not months. Watch for the signage to go up on the second-floor exterior first, then the lighting and cabinet fit-out in the back-of-house windows, then the soft open.

Marina Azul Cocina & Cantina — From a Team You Probably Already Know

The bigger food story, honestly, is Marina Azul.

Marina Azul Cocina & Cantina is the third concept from the team behind Casa Azul Cocina and Cantina in Woodinville and Agave Cocina and Cantina in Issaquah. Both are well-regarded regional Mexican restaurants with strong happy hour programs and a family-owned operational style that Eastside diners have been sending Yelp reviews about for years.

Putting their first waterfront location at the Port of Everett is a decision that says something about where they think the Eastside customer and the North Sound customer are going to overlap next. Woodinville and Issaquah are both destination-dining towns. Everett, with 110,000 residents and a brand-new waterfront, is on the verge of being one. A Friday evening in April at Fisherman’s Harbor already feels a lot more like a weekend in Leavenworth or Bellevue Collection than it used to.

Marina Azul is taking ground-floor space directly on the water — the kind of setup where you can dock a boat, walk up to the deck, and be eating tacos and drinking a paloma within 10 minutes. That’s a very specific restaurant experience Everett just hasn’t had before, and it’s the kind of thing that starts pulling regional weekend traffic in a way Hewitt Avenue alone doesn’t.

Expected opening: early spring 2026. Which again means weeks, not months.

The Alexa’s Cafe Situation

Here’s the interesting wrinkle we should flag honestly.

Alexa’s Cafe was the originally announced breakfast-and-brunch tenant for the Restaurant Row building, going back to a Port press release in April 2024. That lease did not end up closing. Alexa’s is no longer a Waterfront Place tenant, and the Port is now actively searching for a new breakfast-and-brunch operator to take the last remaining space in the building.

This isn’t a scandal — lease deals collapse in commercial real estate all the time, and a year-and-a-half gap between a press announcement and a signed lease is well within the normal range for a waterfront concept needing custom buildout. But it does mean the final tenant in the Restaurant Row building is currently a gap on the tenant list, not a named business.

The Port has publicly said it wants a “breakfast and brunch café” concept specifically. If you’re a café operator in the North Sound market or you know one who’s been quietly looking at expansion, the Port’s real estate team is the place to send the inquiry.

What’s Actually Open at Waterfront Place Right Now

For the current scorecard, here’s what you can actually walk into at Waterfront Place as of mid-April 2026:

• Tapped Public House — gastropub, largest open-air waterfront rooftop deck in Snohomish County. Opened March 2, 2026.
• Rustic Cork Wine Bar — second floor of Restaurant Row building. Opened December 2025.
• The Net Shed Fresh Fish Market & Kitchen — ground-floor fresh fish market and quick-service seafood. Opened December 2025.
• S3 Maritime — marine maintenance and repair services, now open at the marina. (Not a restaurant, but it’s new and worth knowing about.)
• Pacific Coast Salmon Coalition gift shop — the Port’s retail anchor from the first phase.
• Hotel Indigo Everett Waterfront — still the only hotel at Waterfront Place, with the Bluewater Distilling restaurant on the ground floor.

What’s Coming Next

And here’s what’s still on deck between now and summer:

• Menchie’s at the Marina — early spring 2026 (weeks out)
• Marina Azul Cocina & Cantina — early spring 2026 (weeks out)
• Unnamed breakfast-and-brunch café — Port actively recruiting, no signed tenant yet
• Flagship restaurant at the last undeveloped parcel — Port opened an official search in early 2026; we covered that story separately

That’s three tenants still to sign or open in a footprint that, 18 months ago, didn’t have a single operating restaurant. The pace of lease-up at Waterfront Place has been honestly faster than most commercial retail deliveries of comparable scale in the Puget Sound market over the last five years.

Why This Matters for Everett

It’s easy to look at restaurant openings as a soft story — lifestyle news, not real economic development. But the Restaurant Row lease-up is doing three specific things for Everett right now:

First, it’s generating foot traffic that didn’t exist in this part of town 24 months ago. The Port has reported significant year-over-year increases in marina visitation since the first Restaurant Row tenants opened, and that foot traffic is spilling into the Hotel Indigo, into Jetty Island day-use traffic, and into the Mukilteo–Everett water taxi seasonal ridership.

Second, it’s proving the commercial real estate thesis for Millwright District next door. Millwright Phase 2 — housing plus 120,000 square feet of office space — is being pre-leased right now. Every tenant that signs in Millwright is underwriting that decision against the foot traffic and the destination-draw of Waterfront Place. Restaurant Row is, in a direct way, making the Millwright deals close.

Third, it’s generating the sales tax and lodging tax that funds basically everything else the Port and the City can pay for downtown. Hewitt Avenue’s slow rebuild into a restaurant district, the Edgewater Bridge opening April 28, the ongoing conversation about the Sound Transit Everett Link extension — all of those projects have better financing math when downtown and the waterfront are generating more taxable activity.

Menchie’s and Marina Azul are, on one level, a frozen yogurt shop and a Mexican restaurant. On another level, they’re two more data points in the slow-motion argument that downtown Everett is becoming the kind of place where a regional restaurateur wants to sign a 10-year lease.

Both of those things get to be true.

Frequently Asked Questions

When is Menchie’s at the Marina opening at Waterfront Place? Early spring 2026. The Port has not announced a specific date, but the language suggests weeks rather than months from mid-April.

When is Marina Azul Cocina & Cantina opening? Early spring 2026. The restaurant is from the team behind Casa Azul in Woodinville and Agave Cocina in Issaquah.

Is Alexa’s Cafe still opening at Waterfront Place? No. Alexa’s is no longer a Waterfront Place tenant. The Port is actively recruiting a new breakfast-and-brunch operator to take that last spot in the Restaurant Row building.

Which restaurants are already open at Waterfront Place? Tapped Public House, Rustic Cork Wine Bar, and The Net Shed Fresh Fish Market & Kitchen are the three most recent openings. Bluewater Distilling at the Hotel Indigo and the Port’s retail tenants anchor the first phase.

Where is Marina Azul Cocina & Cantina located? Ground-floor space on the water at Waterfront Place, adjacent to the Restaurant Row building. The restaurant has direct waterfront exposure toward the marina.

Who operates Menchie’s at the Marina? Menchie’s is a national frozen yogurt franchise. The individual franchise operator for the Waterfront Place location has not been publicly named.

Is the Port still looking for more Restaurant Row tenants? Yes. The Port is actively searching for a breakfast-and-brunch café operator for the remaining Restaurant Row building slot, and in a separate process is recruiting a flagship restaurant for the last undeveloped waterfront parcel at Waterfront Place.