Even though she grew up busing and serving tables at her family’s restaurant, chef Kassandra Swindler was never allowed in the kitchen.

“Dad always said that the back of the house was the man’s job,” said Swindler, who is now the owner of the Dusty Green Cafe, located at the Port Townsend Golf Course.

Her father, Dusty, had worked his way from being a dishwasher to a chef, and finally to owning a restaurant in Vancouver, WA, where Swindler grew up.

Her mother was a baker for the restaurant, and as soon as Swindler became old enough, she joined the family business as a waitress.

“Back then, there was the mentality that there were jobs for men and jobs for women,” she said. “I remember wanting to learn how to cook chicken cordon bleu and my dad said ‘No.’ It was one of my dad’s line cooks who said, ‘Hey, I’ll teach you.’”

It was one of the first things Swindler remembers learning how to make, when she was just 16 years old.

Being excluded from the “back of house” (how restaurant industry workers refer to the kitchen and dish room) only intrigued Swindler. After graduating high school, she decided to invade the “man’s world” of culinary arts and got a degree from a culinary school at a community college in Vancouver.

She dove into that forbidden world, working in catering, fine dining, short order and country club kitchens.

But, as her dad said, it was still kind of a man’s world.

“My first job was at a steakhouse, and it was the kind of environment where you would get your hand snapped with tongs, or pans thrown at you if you messed something up,” she said.

When she and her husband moved to Port Townsend, she momentarily took a break from chef life to help raise her kids, who were enrolled in Port Townsend schools and incredibly active in sports.

But eventually, she couldn’t resist the draw of the kitchen, and she was back at it, starting as a baker in the Fort Worden kitchens.

“When you have such a passion for food, you put your all into it and it doesn’t really matter what type of food it is, if it’s in your heart you enjoy it,” she said. “That comes through the food.”

She worked her way up to head chef at the Fort, where she led a staff of 38 people—predominantly women.

“There’s something magical about a kitchen full of women,” she said. “The acceptance of that kind of behavior I had experienced in earlier kitchens I worked in is not OK anymore.”

Meanwhile, her dad, who had sold his restaurant in retirement, had his mind changed about a woman’s place in a restaurant.

“He was so proud,” she said. “It totally changed his mind.”

She and her dad would get together to talk about their dream—owning their own restaurant together. They looked at a couple spaces, but it went to the wayside when her dad was diagnosed with cancer.

“He survived, but then a couple years later it came back and it was a very short four-month battle,” she said. “We had talked over the years about opening our own space and it had just never happened.”

So when she was presented with the empty restaurant space at the Port Townsend Golf Course last December, she knew it was meant to be.

A few months later in April of 2019, she opened Dusty Green Cafe, named after her father, Dusty.

She uses her dad’s recipes for pancakes, biscuits and gravy, and his famous tartar sauce to bring classic American dishes to Port Townsendites.

The family-style restaurant is not just for golfers, but for families. Swindler wanted to keep the prices low so that a family of four could enjoy a Sunday morning breakfast without breaking the bank.

And in honoring her parents’ restaurant-owning legacy, she is having her own kids learn the tricks of the trade. Her high school-aged son spent the summer learning how to wait tables.

“Opening this space, this is for our family,” she said. “This is for me being able to be home at night with my family. It’s being able to teach customer service skills to our children. And I think that when you learn to talk to people in the community and talk to people in the public, it gives you a better holistic understanding of how to do things.”

Swindler’s community-focused vision also includes working with other business owners in town to bring local food and goods to her restaurant.

One example of this is her monthly wine dinners, where she partners with a local vineyard such as Port Townsend Vineyards, to have an evening of local wine paired with food that is made from locally-grown ingredients.

“I think it’s a perfect way for locals to get the ‘best of all worlds’ with local cuisine from an independently owned restaurant, paired with our wines that are produced right here in town,” said KC Vessey, operations manager at Port Townsend Vineyards. “Kassandra dreams up all the dishes, and then we meet for a tasting of our wines. Together, we paired each of her dishes with the ideal Port Townsend Vineyards wine.”

The next wine night will feature Marrowstone Vineyards wine. It will be at 6 p.m. on Nov. 16. Reservations are required.

Swindler also joined forces with Ali Holcombe, who hosts paint parties at different cafes and restaurants around Port Townsend. A couple evenings a month, Holcombe will lead guests at the cafe in painting.

Holcombe and Swindler met through Little League, where Swindler was serving up snacks at the concession stand.

“She is so much fun and always looking to do something new and trendy, which I think is great for Port Townsend,” Holcombe said.

It’s through meeting people at Little League, working at the Fort and meeting fellow restaurant owners in town that Swindler has been able to operate a restaurant where she is a local serving locals. She knows the names of her regulars by heart. She works in the kitchen, but also walks the floor, joking and talking with restaurant-goers to make them feel comfortable and welcome.

“I want it to be comforting, warm and inviting,” she said. “I want people to leave here full, but not stuffed.”