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tony kischner
Owner/Manager
Tony Kischner began his restaurant career in 1967 with a college summer job as a dishwasher and busboy at Ivar’s Acres of Clams, a popular tourist attraction on the Seattle waterfront. After four summer seasons, he was promoted to dining room manager. Drawn to a finer dining environment, he secured a position as a waiter at Jonah and the Whale, a renowned elegant restaurant in Bellevue, where he was “required” to taste each bottle of wine before he served it (and which allowed him to quickly expand his knowledge and experience). Three years later, he was promoted to dining room manager. In 1976, he was offered the prestigious position of dining room manager, wine steward and cellarmaster at Seattle’s nationally-famous Rosellini’s Other Place, where he was in full charge of purchasing and maintaining an extensive and award-winning international collection of 1,200 wines.
In 1981, bitten by the entrepreneurial bug, Tony and his wife Ann purchased the small restaurant at the historic Shelburne Inn in Seaview, WA and moved to the Long Beach Peninsula with their two young daughters. In 1986, they expanded the dining room, added an English-style pub and renamed it The Shoalwater, which became a renowned bastion of Northwest cuisine and wine for 27 years.
In September 2007, Tony and Ann opened The Bridgewater Bistro on the Astoria riverfront just below the bridge to Washington. They continue to focus on taking great care of their guests and promoting and serving local and regional foods and wines.
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ann kischner
Owner/ Pastry Chef / Special Events
Pastry chef, special events co-ordinator and co-owner of the Shoalwater Restaurant in Seaview , Wa. for 27 years with her husband Tony, Ann took over those same responsibilities at The Bridgewater when she and Tony opened it in 2007. She delights in brainstorming about recipes and the availablitly of new products with the chefs and pastry chefs and still spends as much time as possible in the kitchen, though the arrival of triplet grandbabies in May of 2015 has pulled her away from her time in the bakery.
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jake martin
Chef De Cuisine
After taking the Portland and Seattle locavore dining scenes by storm as chef at such cutting edge restaurants as Genoa, Carlyle, Fenouil, How to Cook a Wolf and his own pop-up restaurant Daphne, Jake has relocated to Astoria. He brings a life-long passion for locally sourced, organic/natural meats, fish and vegetables to The Bridgewater–a great fit for us as we continue to expand our network of local foragers, farmers and fisherman.
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Chris Ross
Sous Chef