At Farrelli’s, it’s a self-serve kind of place when it comes to the tap.
The restaurant, located Maple Valley Town Center at 26642 Maple Valley-Black Diamond Road, offers a combination of wood fire baked pizza and a direct approach for patrons to refill their drinks.
Although the restaurant is divided into two different sections, family and adult, Clayton Krueger, director of marketing and communications at Farrelli’s, said they strove for a relaxed environment. The adult section, for example, has a fire table with a fire in the center, while the family section is designed to resemble the family dinner table.
Farrelli’s also has two tables with four self-serve taps, which makes it the second restaurant in the state to do so, Kruger said. Rather than order a full glass of beer, a person can fill up a smaller amount to see if they like it before committing to the brew.
A customer is ultimately charged based on how many ounces they’ve consumed of which beers.
The pizzas are baked on an apple wood, which is intended to create a more balanced heat and a caramelized crust, which Kruger said is hard to do with a conventional oven. They also use the best ingredients possible, Kruger said. Their cheese is delivered through a partnership with Grande Cheese, which is not sold to the public.
Farrelli’s also offers an entire gluten-free menu section and diabetic friendly foods.
“We do not skimp on quality,” Kruger said. “We seek out the best quality products we can have for our products. I think you can taste that difference in every bite.”
Farrelli’s, which has five other locations in the state, started to look at Maple Valley after the new Fred Meyer began construction in 2011.
“When we’re looking for new areas to open in, we look for neighborhoods where we can have a positive influence,” Kruger said. “We had an opportunity to serve the community by entering it, fulfilling our mission. Another aspect of that is to give young people a job that values good work ethic, that’s a good part of what we do as well. That was a part that wasn’t fully being met in that community.”
So far, Kruger said, they seem to appeal to Maple Valley’s heart, or liver.
“We’re experiencing sales volumes there we’ve never experienced there in our history,” he said. “I think we’re doing really well.”
Farrelli’s is open weekdays 11 a.m. to midnight and weekends 11 a.m.-2 a.m.
