21-year-old business calling it quits in Richland

A central Richland shop offering locally popped varieties of kettle corn, as well as its associated businesses closed Dec. 31.

Owner Jeramy Schulz announced the closure of Popcorn Northwest, located in the Park Place retail development near the intersection of George Washington Way and Jadwin Avenue, via social media on Dec. 18.

The closure includes Popcorn Northwest’s booth inside Kennewick’s Toyota Center, as well as the overall KC Brand Kettle Corn business.

“There are several reasons – some personal, and some related to the realities of running a small business. Like many others, this past year has been especially tough,” Schulz wrote in the post. 

Schulz opened the Richland store in 2022, though had operated KC Brand Kettle Corn since 2004, first with a partner then as a sole owner. 

The Tri-Cities Area Journal of Business previously wrote about the Richland High graduate and Marine veteran and his perseverance in building his business.

Zero-interest home loans available for Tri-City residents

Hoping to jump on some critical home improvement projects in the new year but not sure how to pay for them? You could be eligible for a zero-interest loan from the Tri-Cities HOME Consortium. 

The consortium – made up of the cities of Kennewick, Pasco and Richland – offers loans ranging from $2,000 up to more than $150,000 – for home repairs such as plumbing, furnaces, roofing and more. The loans are for low- to middle-income households, with a family of four earning an annual income of $84,500 or less qualifying. 

Other requirements include the home being the loan recipient’s primary residence, the property being free of objectionable liens, the owner being current on payments, and maintaining homeowners’ insurance. 

More details about the Owner-Occupied Rehabilitation Program and contacts for each city’s representative are available online: bit.ly/home-rehab.

Round Table Pizza gets new owner

 Columbia Ability Alliance has officially sold its four Tri-Cities Round Table Pizza restaurants. The nonprofit ran the restaurants as a social enterprise to fund its mission of helping individuals with disabilities or other barriers to employment gain experience and get jobs. 

The two Round Tables in Richland, one in Kennewick and one in Pasco, are now owned by TriCities RTP Inc., according to the restaurants’ business licenses. Gundeep Sethi and Yadwinder Khahira are listed as the company’s officers. 

Columbia Ability Alliance also intends to sell its business Paradise Bottled Water to focus on its nonprofit mission.

Richland restaurant closes doors less than a year after opening

Less than a year after opening, a Richland restaurant has closed its doors. 

Public House 255 announced via social media plans to close on Dec. 20 due to financial difficulties. The building at 255 Williams Blvd., Richland, which was once home to Fat Olives, will be available for lease.

Maigh and Will Willingham launched the restaurant, a blend of Pacific Northwest food and southern flavor, at the beginning of 2025. The couple have an extensive background in the food and hospitality industry, and Public House 255 was featured in this year’s Chefs on Parade event. 

“I know I poured my heart and soul into this restaurant, and I got to do what I love in 2025!” Will Willingham wrote in the social media post. He isn’t yet sure where he’s headed next, according to the post.

Sports retailer coming to Columbia Center mall

The holiday shopping season may be at a close, but the mall at Columbia Center is hoping patrons will stop by in the near future to visit its newest future tenant.

JD Sports, a British sports retailer that specializes in sneakers and sports fashion, is coming to the mall, as confirmed by the mall’s social media and building permits filed with the city of Kennewick. An opening is planned for April.

The retailer will move into the space near anchor tenant JCPenney. Building, mechanical and plumbing permits indicate that $832,500 in work is planned for the space.  

That suite in the mall was last occupied by fast fashion retailer Forever 21, which opened in December 2021, nearly three years after it first announced plans to open its first store in the Tri-Cities. The 11,800-square-foot space underwent a $1.3 million remodel. Forever 21 declared bankruptcy in early 2025 and closed the Columbia Center location.  

JD Sports started as a single store in Bury, Greater Manchester, England, in 1981. As of 2025, the JD Group is a global retailer of sports fashion and outdoor brands with 4,850 stores across 49 countries. It has a location at the Valley Mall in Union Gap, as well as several stores in the Seattle area.

Richland restaurant known for its fish dishes has closed

A Richland restaurant known for its Bang Bang Shrimp dish has closed.

Bonefish Grill – located in a strip mall at 133 W. Gage Blvd. – permanently closed Dec. 17 and is no longer listed on Bonefish’s website.

The Richland restaurant first opened in January 2006, according to state Department of Revenue records.

The Bonefish Grill restaurant chain is part of Bloomin’ Brands Inc., a Tampa, Florida-based company which also operates Outback Steakhouse, Carrabba’s Italian Grill and Fleming’s Prime Steakhouse & Wine Bar.

Bloomin’ Brands announced in November that it had closed 21 restaurants in its portfolio as part of a turnaround strategy. The company also said it decided to not renew the leases at 22 others, the majority of which expire over the next four years. It didn’t list the affected restaurants.

A request for comment from Bloomin’ Brands was not returned.

A Richland employee said that those with Bonefish gift cards could use them at Outback Steakhouse, 6819 W. Canal Drive, Kennewick, including for online or to-go orders.

The only other Bonefish restaurant in the state is in Marysville.

Richland begins Columbia Point Marina shoreline repairs

The city of Richland began an eight-week construction project Jan. 5 to repair part of the Columbia Point Marina’s shoreline retaining wall.

A temporary detour will be in place along the Riverfront Pathway between Columbia Point Park and the Marina Vista Estates at Columbia Point condominium community. The detour will route pedestrians to portions of Bradley Boulevard and Columbia Point Drive.

The project will demolish an existing failed basalt column shoreline retaining wall and replace it with a new concrete block wall. Also included in the project is the installation of wall drains, backfill, hand rails, and restoration of asphalt and concrete pavement surfaces.

To accommodate winter conditions, the contractor will place cold mix asphalt as a temporary surface during construction, then hot mix asphalt will be installed in the spring to complete pathway restoration.

During the eight weeks of construction, a signed detour will reroute pedestrians and cyclists around the work area.

Progress continues on Tri-Tech Skills Center expansion

Kennewick School District’s $45.5 million modernization of Tri-Tech Skills Center is on schedule for completion in July 2026, setting it up to expand popular training programs and add new career pathways. 

Steel beams have been erected for the 66,000-square-foot project on the west side of the career and technical education school’s campus at Metaline Avenue and Kellogg Street, according to a release. The overall project will include infrastructure upgrades to a large part of the school’s main building, built in 1981, as well as reconfiguring instructional spaces to accommodate potential additional pharmacy tech and HVAC/plumbing programs. 

Tri-Tech is operated by the school district but serves juniors and seniors from high schools in Kennewick, Pasco, Richland, Finley, Columbia-Burbank, Kiona-Benton City, North Franklin and Prosser.  

The project is fully state-funded. Chervenell Construction is the contractor for the project.

WSU Tri-Cities student housing complex listed for sale

The 154-unit apartment complex just north of the Washington State University Tri-Cities campus in Richland, which largely caters toward its students, is on the market. 

The Brelsford Vineyards Apartments complex at 215 University Drive was listed unpriced by Realtor Mason Fiascone. The offering is only for the apartments themselves, as WSU Tri-Cities retains ownership of the 6.17 acres they sit on. 

“The property offers a unique opportunity to capitalize on WSU Tri-Cities’ continued growth, as well as the long-term housing demand driven by the broader Tri-Cities economy,” according to the listing. 

The university signed a 15-acre land lease agreement with Corporate Pointe Developers LLC of Pullman. At full build-out, the project was planned with a total of 713 beds to be built over seven phases at a cost of $65 million. 

Eighty-two units in the complex’s first phase became available for lease in 2018. Corporate Pointe recently wrapped up the second phase of the complex, which added another 72 units. 

In the first quarter of 2023, when construction on the second phase was set to begin, the complex’s vacancy rate was 4.7%. Statewide, the average for that same time was about 5.5%. 

While the apartments are primarily marketed toward WSU Tri-Cities students, they are open to market-rate tenants as well.  

Amenities include a clubhouse, pool, fitness center and more.

Grant helps nonprofit meet growing demand for survivor services

A Tri-Cities nonprofit serving survivors of sex trafficking is making upgrades to its new outreach center in Kennewick after receiving a $15,000 grant.

The Wildhorse Foundation grant is helping to pay for improvements to the restroom facilities at Mirror Ministries’ new outreach center, which provides trauma-informed care to local survivors.

The center, formerly a traditional office building, required renovations to meet therapeutic and accessibility needs after the nonprofit relocated from a rented space it had used for several years.

Mirror Ministries bought the building in March 2025. The office’s address is not publicized to protect the privacy of the survivors.

The grant allowed the center to add two unisex, ADA-accessible bathrooms, expanding capacity as demand for services continues to grow.

“The Wildhorse Foundation’s support came at a critical moment as demand for services has grown dramatically,” said Chris Haughee, donor development manager for Mirror Ministries, in a statement.

The nonprofit completed more than 170 new client intake assessments in 2025, nearly a 50% increase over the previous year.

Mirror Ministries provides a range of services, including midweek evening support groups, art therapy sessions and weekly counseling appointments.

The restroom upgrades are part of broader improvements underway at the outreach center. In addition to the restroom upgrades, Mirror Ministries is investing in renovations to a children’s therapeutic space, enhancements to areas used for survivor support groups, and updates to a break room where food is provided to clients.

Thorn Construction Group is the general contractor.

“We are so grateful to the Wildhorse Foundation and our larger community who have made these building improvements possible,” said Tricia MacFarlan, executive director of Mirror Ministries, in a statement. “It is vital that we provide a safe, trauma-informed, and welcoming center for our clients that have lived through horrific atrocities on a regular basis in their lives.”

Go to: mirror-ministries.org.

Restaurant offering mix of Mexican cuisine, crepes closes

A Kennewick restaurant where a vegan, someone with a peanut allergy or following the keto diet could easily order from the same menu has shut down. 

Crepe Haus + El Compadre, which offered a mash up of French and Mexican dishes, closed on Dec. 31. The restaurant announced the closure in mid-December via its social media.  

“We (the owners and our family) have been presented with new opportunities and will be closing the restaurant at the end of the month,” the social media post read. 

The restaurant at 2100 N. Belfair St. near the Columbia Center Boulevard overpass and Highway 240 was in business for just over three years.  

It began as a joint venture of Al and Jackie Avelar and Marvin Figueroa, unifying their goals: Jackie Avelar’s desire to have a creperie, Figueroa’s interest in opening a Mexican restaurant and veteran restaurateur Al Avelar’s plan to provide a place where inclusive food was the focus.

11-year-old salad and sandwich restaurant closes in Richland

After 11 years in business, a Richland restaurant specializing in smoothies, salads, wraps, sandwiches and more has closed. 

Fresh Leaf Co. originally launched in Kennewick before setting up shop at 1080 George Washington Way, Richland, in 2021. The restaurant shared a strip mall with Porter’s Real Barbecue in the property owned by Vandervert Developments. 

The business announced plans to close Dec. 26 via Instagram.  

Juan Carillo, the restaurant’s owner, confirmed that the business is closed with no plans to reopen. He said there were multiple reasons for the closure but declined to comment further.

Hospice House reopens in Kennewick after renovations 

After several months of renovations, Tri-Cities Chaplaincy’s Hospice House held a Dec. 29 ribbon-cutting to celebrate its reopening. 

The nearly 30-year-old building at 2108 W. Entiat Ave., Kennewick, helps care for hospice patients for short-term stays to help with severe symptoms or to give caregivers a break. 

The $3.5 million renovation created a larger nurse station, an expanded front entryway, added a fireside room to honor loved ones, upgraded family gathering areas and enhanced patient rooms. 

“This renovation ensures it will continue to serve families with compassion, comfort, and dignity for decades to come,” said Laurie Jackson, CEO of Tri-Cities Chaplaincy.