Winning the right to the concession at Seacrest was apparently the easy part for food vendor Marination. It now looks like they will be delayed with the build out of the space until late summer based on the requirements put in place by Seattle's Department of Planning and Development.

That means for tourists and/or locals on the King County Water Taxi, or people in the neighborhood the return of food and beverage service is going to be a while.

One of the owners, Roz Edison talked to the Herald about what is happening.

"DPD issued their decision on our proposal to convert the building to have it formally established for restaurant use. We all know that it already has been established as a restaurant for the last ten years but it has to go through formal channels to have that building changed. That was the first hold up. What has happened now is that there is actually a second level. After King County does its review of the shoreline master use it also needs to go to the Department of Ecology in Olympia because it does impact the shoreline."

Edison said that she suspects this kind of review wouldn't have come up for Alki Crab and Fish, the previous concessionaire, unless they had applied for building permits.

"It was our interest in improving the facility and doing it by code that ended up triggering all this. That said, Parks has worked very hard with DPD and the Dept. of Ecology and they're going to do the best they can to make that process go as quickly as possible but it has the potential to go for as much as 2 months. At the very least it will go for another month so our projected opening is now at the later end of the summer. But, as we said many times, we're committed to this for the long haul. We'll miss a summer but we look forward to many more."

"I have come to peace with it," said Edison, "It's not like we messed up and forgot something. We're not mad about the process. We understand that this is a process that protects our shoreline from out of control elements. We get that this allows the community to voice their opinions about what is happening. We're ok with that."

"Our lease clock starts ticking when we finally get in there," Edison said. That lease is most likely for 5 years though it's still being negotiated.

"The people who are paying the biggest price right now is the community of West Seattle. It's not us. As a business we're still operating. But the people riding the Water Taxi have nothing to eat."

They plan on bringing the kitchen up to code and to "make it generally speaking more sanitary. 80% of the work we'll be doing is not about changing the look and feel of this building, it's really about the interior. There will be some color change. We want it to be a harmonious piece along that shoreline."

It will have elements of their existing designs in both their mobile and brick and mortar locations. "There's some stainless steel, there's some blue, some gray. It will be similar in those respects, and obviously we're going to brand it as much as we can. But nothing pretentious. We want them to come in from the boathouse, from kayaking, paddle boarding, bring their kids, bring their friends and that kind of vibe."

The menu will be broader with an expanded breakfast selection because, "We want to help support the ridership of the Water Taxi but "We know what we're good at," said Edison, meaning they will retain their Hawaiian/Korean selections.

"The problems will eventually work themselves out and we're not sure exactly when we will open but we just figure it will be closer to late summer now."