By Tracy Record
West Seattle Blog editor
Friday the 13th will be Meghan Hogan‘s lucky day.
That’s when she’ll officially reopen Dream Dinners West Seattle on the lower east-facing side of Jefferson Square (4701 41st SW).
We reported in late October on the flooding from a plumbing problem in the nearby CVS store that affected her meal-prep business and other neighboring businesses.
We didn’t realize until recently that Dream Dinners and neighboring School of Rock have remained closed for repairs since then.
Earlier this week, we visited Meghan as she, husband Mark Hogan, and employees continued cleaning the store to get ready for reopening, following weeks of work replacing everything from ceiling tiles to drywall to flooring to equipment.
While it retains the name of what was once a national-franchise business, Dream Dinners West Seattle went indie last year (not long before the flooding shutdown). And while their model, pre-pandemic, was primarily for customers to come in and assemble meals from prepped ingredients, it now remains mostly take-and-bake (or take-thaw-and-bake). And what they offer from a menu that changes monthly is more than dinners – also lunch and breakfast dishes and desserts. You order online, then arrange to pick up.
The first week is sold out, but beyond that, Meghan is hopefully their customers will return, and that they’ll acquire new ones. They got some help from a Dream Dinners store in Vancouver, WA, filling orders and meeting customers nearby twice a month, but that wasn’t anywhere near the volume they had been doing. “We’d love the community to come back and support us,” says Meghan, with hope. Not just support her – but also their staff, all part-timers, all of whom are coming back to rejoin the team with the reopening. (“All West Seattle kids!” Meghan notes.) Some were helping out during our conversation this week (which followed a staff meeting). The store – which the Hogans bought in 2019 – has a two-decades-plus history.
If you haven’t tried Dream Dinners before – or if you have – Meghan says you should know that it’s not a subscription service, and that the order sizes have changed – you have smaller and larger options; it’s not just family-sized. And the monthly menu usually has meatless options. Most items cook in 30 minutes or less, though they also have crock-pot-type offerings. The menu of options changes monthly, so if nothing sounds good one month, check back the next! The pickup/storefront-open times include some evening and Saturday hours, so you have multiple options. You can get Dream Dinners food delivered, too.
But even if you do, Meghan hopes you will remember there’s a local difference – her and those “West Seattle kids” on staff – “There’s a face” behind your order, someone who prepped your meal in West Seattle, “not just somebody dropping a box off at your door.” She’s thrilled, meantime, to be reopening her door to you again,