UPDATE: Dear fellow fans of Mr. Dempsey, this is not meant seriously. It is perfectly fine with me if Mr. Dempsey or anyone else says “ferry boats.” If he pulls off this Tully’s thing, I’ll start calling them ferry boats in his honor.
UPDATE UPDATE: Patrick Dempsey’s investment team’s bid was accepted yesterday. If a bankruptcy judge approves the sale on January 11, the deal should be final by the end of the month.
UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE: Dempsey is quoted by the Seattle Times as saying: “I love it up here, seeing the rain and the ferries.” Huge win for local nomenclature.
“Ferry boat! Love being in Seattle,” tweeted Patrick Dempsey this morning, in what must be a deliberate tweaking of local sensibilities. After all, one of the first things people noticed about Grey’s Anatomy was the “ferry boat” locution that no one around the Pacific Northwest uses.
We don’t know how they do things in Lewiston, Maine, but around here it’s the Washington State Ferries, not the Ferry Boats. Get with the program, Dempsey!
The star of Can’t Buy Me Love is in town to see if he can buy a lifetime supply of lattés instead. Today, Dempsey is bidding in an auction of the now-bankrupt Tully’s Coffee Co. (“Big day tomorrow,” Dempsey tweeted last night. “Hope we can pull it off.”)
Dempsey is part of an investment team called Global Baristas, who are one of seven bidders for Tully’s. Other bidders of note are Baristas Coffee Co. (aka the “bikini baristas”), who offered just over $10 million, and of course Starbucks, though the Latté That Schultz Steamed has let it be known that they want only to purchase about half of Tully’s stores (Tully’s owns 47, and has licensed 58 and has 12 franchised coffee shops and 71 licensee-operated locations, according to the Puget Sound Business Journal). The non-performing stores would be sold off or closed.
Dempsey’s investment team says they’re interested in getting the most out of all of Tully’s existing stores, which may be why this barista is smiling. If they can pull it off, we’ll overlook the ferry boat thing.
Give me Ferry Boat any day over Ferries, it’s drab and boring so maybe you should get with the times!
FUCK YOU, we was using the Grey’s terms… leave the poor guy alone.
Leave the guy alone! He is trying to do such a great thing for your city and all you can do is bash him over something silly???!!! Give me a break! He’s using the term that is used on the show…and I like it a lot better!!
oh, the Grey’s Anatomy recapping flashbacks. You’ll find me curled up under the desk and sobbing for the rest of the afternoon.
How delighted was I to find that Seattle Metblogs is still a leading chronicler of this fiery debate over word choice.
glad to see that they’ve kept the archives alive to provide very important historical context.
What a jackass! Seriously? The man is trying to buy a coffee company to save jobs in YOUR community and you’re nitpicking about what term he uses for a boat? Michael van Baker is a douche. The guy wants to do something positive in a tough economy and yet this “writer” wants to focus on Dempsey’s use of “ferry boats.” Stay classy van Baker.