Paseo sandwich shop reopens in Seattle

Paseo, a nationally recognized Seattle sandwich shop, reopened Thursday with new ownership.

Ryan Santwire was the top bidder when a trustee appointed by the courts auctioned the restaurant in early December. He paid $91,000 for Paseo, including the Fremont shop’s equipment, the Ballard location and the name.

“Just wanted to let the neighborhood get back in here, and we got bombarded. So (I'm) a little nervous,” Santwire said.

Santwire told KIRO 7 that he purchased all rights to the restaurant, including its recipes. However, there were no copies of the recipes available during the sale.

Lorenzo told the court the recipes are his personal property and only the business was for sale.

Santwire said to get the restaurant ready, he “had to get a lease with the landlord, had to get the staff, had to do a bunch of tastings, recipe-building and what not.”

He said he has kept the menu and prices exactly the same, and allows customers to pay with credit cards in addition to cash. Customers can still call in their orders ahead of time to avoid waiting in line.

Paseo suddenly closed in mid-November after the restaurant filed for bankruptcy. The restaurant, which had locations in Fremont and Ballard, had received rave reviews, including the No. 2 ranking on Yelp’s top 100 places to eat in the United States. Paseo had been in Seattle since the 1990s.

Santwire has only re-opened the Fremont location, but he said he intends to open a Ballard location soon. It will either be in its original spot, or in a new Ballard location.

KIRO 7 talked to customers who had no idea Paseo was going to do a Thursday. One customer said he was on his way to the dentist and stopped.

“Was looking for a parking spot, and I noticed that the door was open. So we just drove by to check it out and turns out they’ve actually opened up,” said Soheil.

Soheil said he hoped the sandwich would taste as good as the ones from the old Paseo.

“It’s incredible,” said Stephen DeMent, another customer who stopped when he saw the door open.

He said he, along with many others, were heartbroken when the restaurant closed. He said he’s happy to see it open again.

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