Rachel Marshall ready to open her 12th Ave location of Rachel’s Ginger Beer in 2015
Rachel Marshall, the creator of Capitol Hill-born Rachel’s Ginger Beer and the co-founder of new era neighborhood dives Montana and Nacho Borracho, has died. Marshall was 42 and leaves behind her partner Adam Peters and two children.
Veteran Seattle food writer and longtime Marshall friend Allecia Vermillion reported her unexpected April 24th passing:
Peters asked if I might share news of Rachel’s death to the public. And I need to admit, it’s raw and personal. In my 12 years of writing about food and drink in Seattle, Rachel is the only “source” who crossed over into becoming a genuine friend. Ten years ago, I called to interview her about Nacho Borracho, the bar she planned to open with her bar business partner, Kate Opatz. At the end of our conversation, Rachel told me she was pregnant. I responded, “so am I.” Our sons have a three-month age difference; now they’re classmates who get up to mischief together. Our second kids were born barely a month apart.
UPDATE 4/26/2023: A sign posted at the 12th Ave RGB
CHS first met Marshall on E Olive Way in 2011 as she, Peters, and Kate Opatz got together to take over the space previously home to The Buck to open the now legendary Montana as a tribute to the small town dives they had grown up with. The goal back then was to create a bar that was “very divey and comfortable” and a “come as you are” kind of place with room in the back for Marshall’s growing ginger beer operation.
Rachel’s Ginger Beer would eventually also outgrow Montana leaving room for the dive to spread out in 2013.
Marshall behind the bar at Nacho Borracho in 2014
In 2014, Marshall and the gang got together again, this time to open Montana’s Mexican cousin Nacho Borracho on Broadway.
Opatz and Marshall in 2013
And, later that year, Marshall completed the circuit when she opened a Rachel’s Ginger Beer bar on Capitol Hill in the 12th Ave Arts building, returning RGB to the neighborhood where it made its name at the farmers market.
Marshall also became involved in the neighborhood business community, working with chamber of commerce groups and District 3 campaigns as well as the city’s Small Business Advisory Council.
Reading through the CHS archives, Marshall’s quotes and remarks are mostly focused on the small details of her creations and the neighborhoods they were part of. There aren’t a lot of big statements or high minded philosophies. The closest we got to getting Marshall to wax poetic was when we asked her what it was like to have created neighborhood jobs for so many people.
“There are a lot of people who depend on this,” Marshall told CHS about the responsibility — and love — she felt for the people she worked with. “I feel like becoming a mother makes me really sensitive to that.”
(Image: Montana)
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This is so sad, and such a shock. Many wonderful connections with Rachel ever since her original stand at the Broadway Farmers Market – and watching her become a mother. A dynamic woman in business.
Rachel was our neighbor and friend. I remember a group of us sitting with our feet in the dog pool in the backyard of our apartment building on Capitol Hill late one night in 2009 during a heatwave, because it was still too hot to go inside our 103-year old building and Rachel saying she was thinking of making Ginger Beer and selling it at the Farmer’s Market. We all cheered her on and soon our yard waste bin was full of lemon rinds. Back then we never really used it much, so it was all hers. The next year when my cat, Brother, became a teenager, I decided to have a birthday party for him and invited all the neighbors. We were a close bunch back then; lots of BBQs and birthday parties for the animals and the humans. Rachel couldn’t make it to Bro’s party, but she said she’d just gotten the labels printed for her RGB bottles and would leave some in front of our door. My boyfriend, Gabe, and I have been hooked ever since. I loved seeing her at RGB on 12th and Adam at Montana, they were great neighbors. Rachel helped build the raised beds in the backyard we still tend every year and we still have a fire in the fire pit out back every Friday night. We will definitely have one in her honor. Sending so much love and peace from our building to you, Adam, your beautiful boys, Wyatt and Huck, and your extended tribe. Rachel made this world a better place and this Capitol Hill girl is honored to have lived under the same roof with her and to have known her in this life.
Very sad to hear :( RIP
I am very sorry her life was taken at such a young age. God bless her family and children.