(Click and click again to enlarge photos)
Published in The Seattle Times online on March 19, 2026
and in Pacific NW Magazine of the printed Times on March 22, 2026
Mixed feelings vex mainstay owner of beloved Wedgwood Broiler
By Clay Eals
What can you say about a guy who never left his childhood neighborhood?
In 1981 at age 19, he became a dishwasher at a restaurant 10 blocks from home. Over 15 years, he worked his way up. In 1996 he bought the business, helming it for three decades, to the present day.
“I don’t know too many people who have done that,” Wedgwood native Derek Cockbain says with understatement. “The day I started, it wasn’t my plan. It just sort of fell into place.”
Cockbain, 64, stands on the cusp of giving up arguably the district’s best-known diner, bar and community hub — the beloved Wedgwood Broiler.
This classic steakhouse anchors a two-acre, 1960s-era shopping center on 35th Avenue Northeast. In recent years, the three-block-long property faced a high-profile proposal for a six-floor retail-residential development. It fizzled, but while no new project has been announced, such a plan could return.
Will the Broiler survive? Will its building be razed? The questions haunt its modest, strip-mall exterior and warm, dark interior whose layout, décor and furnishings have stayed largely the same for 50-plus years.
A tiny eatery began onsite in 1965. With a remodel in 1969, it became Sir Wedgwood Broiler. “Sir” fell off the name in 1973, but the initials, “SW,” carved big in north entry doors, remain.
“We try to stay consistent,” Cockbain says. “People who came in 20 years ago to have a teriyaki steak will come in today and have it, so it should be exactly the same. That’s one of the things we pride ourselves on.”
Another constant, however, is uncertainty. He’s had to rent month-to-month since COVID. Will he give up the ghost? His feelings are deeply mixed.
On one hand, a lifelong ethic prods Cockbain to make things work. That grit surfaced during a soccer stint at Nathan Hale High School, where he topped the Metro League in scoring. After he recovered from a broken ankle, his coach Joel Waters told the Seattle Post-Intelligencer in 1979, “Derek can score with either foot. In fact, he scores more with his off foot than his right foot.”
But with dreams of traveling with his wife, Alycien, and other properties to tend, Cockbain also feels “done,” ready to retire. “I don’t want to work until I can’t enjoy it.”
Still, tenacity and heart come to the fore.
“The neighborhood doesn’t want us to go,” he says. “The problem for me is that I grew up here. I know everybody. I’ve got the kids I went to school with, I see my old friends, their parents still come in, and I don’t want to close the doors.”
WEB EXTRAS
Big thanks to Valarie Bunn of the Wedgwood in Seattle History blog well as Derek and Alycien Cockbain for their invaluable help with this installment!
To see Clay Eals‘ 360-degree video of the “Now” prospect and compare it with the “Then” photos while hearing this column read aloud by Clay, check out our Seattle Now & Then 360 version of the column.
Below, you will find 3 additional photos, a flier and 2 historical clips from The Seattle Times and Seattle Post-Intelligencer online archive (available via Seattle Public Library), Newspapers.com, Washington Digital Newspapers and other sources that were helpful in the preparation of this column.
