When it comes to being a business owner, using her resources to build community comes first for owner Alicia Elliott. With a focus on encouraging guests and visitors to “experience local”, the house is stocked with local amenities produced within the region, from the toiletries and bed linens to the locally sourced food purveyors.

After she began slowly acquiring the entire neighborhood block, excluding two residential homes on Cushing Street, she purchased the Marie B&B property in July of 2014. She now owns the vegan-centric Park Side Café and The Rolling Pin – a delightfully retro and incredibly well-stocked kitchen store on the Café’s second floor. She owns the building on the corner of 4th and Division that is home to the West Olympia favorite, Phoebe’s Café, providing easy access for her guests to score a scrumptious pastry and coffee before heading out to explore, or linger on the patio for a light lunch. She purchased the neighborhood West Central Park, home to a burgeoning Saturday farmers market, and deeded it to the 501c3 they formed in 2014. Guests at the Marie and visitors to the area are treated to music in the park, as well as a community garden and art studio.

Looking for a new chef and Innkeeper that shared her vision of hospitality and community growth, Alicia hired Emily Dunn in September of ‘21. Growing up in her Italian family’s restaurant, Emily thrived on sharing her love of down-home cooking with others. “You know, the kind of food that puts meat on your bones,” she laughed while we chatted in the Marie’s cozy parlor, seated on plush sofas next to an old Victorian-era phonograph that made me feel like I’d stepped back in time. She took a break from the family restaurant to find her own way and began teaching. “It was really important for me to make an impact on children the way my teachers made an impact on me,” she recalls. “Having good people outside of the home paying attention to a child can really spark who they are.”

Emily taught for 16 years, running her own preschool until COVID shut everything down. Reaching back to what she knew, she began working for a chef up in Hoodsport, falling in love with cooking and serving people all over again. “His style was very similar to mine, and that hospitality – wanting to make people feel at home, it’s just become second nature to me.” Wanting to dig deeper, she saw a post for the position of Chef and Innkeeper at the Marie and went for it. “I’m completely at home in the kitchen but I didn’t exactly have management skills,” she recalls, “but I did run my own preschool for 16 years which meant I knew I could pretty much handle anything that was thrown at me.”

After a heart-to-heart interview and a Chopped-style cooking demo, Alicia offered Emily the job, handing over the day-to-day operations of the Marie. With her insatiable love of cooking sustainably, highlighting ingredients from local co-ops, farms, dairies, and growers, The Marie quickly became a hot spot for gourmet breakfasts. Before you try to crash brunch, though, please know that only overnight guests have access to their amazing brekkie. But you need a get-away anyway, right?