Slightly off the beaten path, nestled cozily between the 167 and the 410 near Puyallup, is the charming burgh of Sumner. Idle your way up the Main Street drag and you’ll stumble across some real, honest-to-goodness hometown gems that feel straight out of a different time and place. A bookstore, café and specialty shops flank one side of the street while antique shops and consignment stores can be found across the way. And right smack dab in the middle of it all is a cheery pink building that marks the apex of the Rhubarb Pie Capital of the World: Berryland Café.
This community is steeped in a palpable nostalgia and has a quintessentially small-town-America atmosphere, just the sort of place you would expect to find a genuine family-owned and operated diner. Not just mom and pop, either; nearly all of the staff in this bustling café bear the surname Burslie; owners Lola and Nolan work here alongside their two sons, daughter and, occasionally, their granddaughter. This has been the general lineup since the Burslie’s took over the restaurant in 1995.
Berryland Back in the Day
Like most buildings in Sumner, Berryland’s building is historic. When co-owner Nolan Burslie was renovating the building several years ago, he uncovered a doorway that led to an adjoining room. Among other weathered treasures he found inside was a single-sheet “phone book” that listed all of the business and residential phone numbers in the town in 1919. This sheet has been enlarged, framed, and now hangs over that same doorway today. The building was constructed in 1903 and was home for many years to Famer’s State Bank on the first floor. The Anderson Inn occupied the second story, although it’s not accessible to patrons today.
David and Yong Singer owned Ma’s Restaurant at this same location beginning in 1985. The eatery had a lot of regulars and was well-known in the community, so the pair knew they wanted to hand it off to just the right person when they looked to sell it nearly ten years later. It just so happened that, at that time, Lola Burslie was in the market for precisely such a restaurant.
“I had worked as a manager in the restaurant industry for what feels like forever,” Lola recalls. “One day I said to myself, ‘Gosh, Lola, you just need to do this for yourself.’” She had saved enough for a spot, had been looking for quite some time, and was on the verge of signing for a restaurant in Tacoma on Monday when she got a last-minute call on Friday to come take a look at what was then Ma’s.
“I remember saying, ‘Where’s Sumner?’” Lola says with a laugh. “I went ahead and came out to have a look and I totally fell in love with the café. I paid full price for it — I didn’t even try to talk them down. I just really, really liked it. I loved how homey the café felt.”
The Burslies and the Singers worked together for several weeks before Ma’s officially became Berryland in 1995. Lola and Nolan still offer most of the fare to hungry diners today that David and Yong served more than two decades earlier. The menu has been pared down slightly, but beyond that, little else has changed.
The Rhubarb Pie Capital of the World
Business was slow-going for this new entrepreneur for the first few months, but once Sumner began to embrace its farming heritage and title — Rhubarb Pie Capital of the World— in earnest, Lola says business really started to take off. Washington’s climate is ideal for rhubarb, a fruit that shuns the heat and doesn’t mind the rain, much like Pacific Northwesterners themselves. Sumner visitors can find rhubarb etched into public art displays, growing (in-season) in hanging trellises along Main Street, and in pies at nearly all of the eateries in town, Berryland included.
“Making pie is more or less all I do,” Lola says. “In between cooking and helping customers, I am nearly always in the back baking homemade breads and pies.” During Sumner’s Rhubarb Pie Festival, a six-week series of festivals designed to celebrate the splendor of all things rhubarb, Lola says you can find her baking well into the night.
Lola and Nolan don’t like to limit themselves to just rhubarb pie. The pair also offers a litany of jams, teas, Italian sodas and occasionally ice creams infused with a rhubarb overture. For the big Rhubarb Days festival on Main Street, which is held every year in July, the couple tries to lend their own brand of family-focused fun to the festivities. There’s a pie walk (where, if winners don’t get a free rhubarb pie, they still have the chance to walk away with a complimentary rhubarb lemonade or Italian soda), a custom-made stand-in cutout where festival goers can pose for pictures and a handful of games for kids to play and prizes to be won. And pie, of course; a stand set-up in front of the restaurant offers slices and whole pies for sale for those who haven’t had their fill by the day’s end.
Lola doesn’t like to brag, but her pies are pretty popular. “There’s one lady that comes in here quite a bit, and she told me one day, ‘I will have you know that I have been buying your pies for the last two months, and all of a sudden my kids think that I am the most wonderful baker in the whole world.’” Berryland pies come in a sturdy reusable tin that Lola explains can be reused as many as 30 times. The café often receives custom orders for baked goods to serve at weddings, family gatherings and holiday dinners, and has made many for non-profits in support of the community, as well.
Good Eats
The Burslies are just as proud of their breakfast and lunch offerings as they are their awesome array of pies. “Our big sellers in the mornings are usually our Hobo scrambles and omelets. People really seem to love our German patty melt at lunch, too. The menu has been almost the same since I came here, and those are pretty consistent favorites.”
The daily rush is handled every day by a crew of typically no more than two or three Burslies at a time. Nolan and Lola cook and serve customers throughout the day, their sons coming in to join them after school as time permits. There are many regulars at Berryland, and during busy days, it’s not uncommon to see strangers breaking bread together to enjoy a piece of pie and swap stories.
Lola has her own opinion about what makes Berryland such a great place to grab a bite. Sure, their wide selection of teas, homemade jams and pie and fresh-baked bread play a part. The family’s warm and friendly service contribute to the restaurant’s charm as well. And the building, with its rich heritage and turn-of-the-century charm, is a contributing factor, too.
“My husband always says that it’s a place where anybody can belong,” Lola says. “The neighbors are so close to each other that, even if you don’t know anybody in town, chances are that by the time you leave, you will, and that is the great thing about Berryland. You may see somebody in here three or four times, and they start to approach one another. If it gets really busy in here, sometimes people will join up with a party that’s at maybe a bigger table with extra seats. I’ve seen real honest-to-goodness friendships start out this way.”
Berryland has been dubbed Best Café in Sumner, taking home the Crown in Town in 2012, and has also received media attention from the likes of Sunset magazine. You can see what the fuss is all about for yourself in Sumner from 6:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Monday through Friday.
Berryland Café
1101 Main Street
Sumner, WA 98390
253-863-4567