The Green Ginger building, which has sat empty since the closing of the Green Ginger Chinese Restaurant in Oct. 2020, will soon have new tenants. Dragon’s Head Cider, which has been in business since 2011, has signed a lease on the building.

Laura Cherry, one of the co-owners of Dragon’s Head Cider, said that for the last few years Dragon’s Head had been looking for ways to expand their business, and to also move it from their residential property, located on 107th Ave. SW. For Cherry, the Green Ginger building fit the bill of what Dragon’s Head was looking for.

“It’s a commercial space in the town core, and it has a lot of the infrastructure in the building we need for our operation already, so it’s really a good fit in that sense,” said Cherry.

The last tenants in the building were Green Ginger Chinese Restaurant, which shut its doors in Oct. 2020, due to loss of business during the COIVD-19 pandemic that made monthly rent and property taxes difficult to pay, said Green Ginger’s co-owner, Angela Wu, in an interview with The Beachcomber in Oct. 2020. The restaurant had been in business on Vashon since 2007.

Dragon’s Head, which takes a “traditional approach to cider making,” grows many of the apples and pears for their and ciders and perries from their island orchard. Nestled in the Dragon’s Head Cider orchard are English and French cider apple and perry pear varieties with names like Kingston Black, Harry Masters Jersey, Dabinett, Medaille d’Or and Reine de Pomme.

The remainder of heirloom apples and crab apples used in the ciders are purchased from other small orchards in Washington and Oregon.

Cherry, and her husband and fellow co-owner in Dragon’s Head Cider, Wes Cherry, originally moved to Vashon from Seattle’s Queen Anne Hill in May 2010 and began working on their new business. Prior to coming to Vashon, Wes did software development and consulting work. In fact, Wes spent more than a decade working for Microsoft and is credited with creating Solitaire for Windows as an intern with the company.

Today, Dragon’s Head Cider is award-winning and is sold throughout Washington and Oregon.

Cherry is still in the preliminary stages of getting the new space ready and does not yet have a timeline for move-in. However, she is beginning the process of hiring a designer to configure how the building will change functionally and aesthetically as Dragon’s Head enters into the space.

Dragon’s Head also plans to move both production and a tasting room space into the building as well.

Overall, Cherry is eager to have the new space, as the building allows more space than their current property allows, visibility in the town core and being more integrated in the island business community.

“We’re looking forward to it,” said Cherry.