Laura Malone is a bit of an enigma.

She’s the savvy entrepreneurial businesswoman willing to take risks opening a bar in the Hilltop area two years ago with a corporate expansion plan that prospective business owners can learn from.

She’s the articulate, informed conversationalist who can speak on a variety of interesting issues.

She’s the actress/model/violinist/pianist stage persona with a wardrobe to envy and the carriage to envy more.

She’s the partner to glass artist/DJ celebrity Oliver Doriss (aka DJ Broam), together engaging in the community at multiple levels, helping up the ante on what Tacoma culture means.

So where’s the enigma come in?

She’s the ultimate Tacoman, though not from Tacoma. She’s the ultimate Renaissance woman, though she doesn’t carry a college degree. She has an accepting, zen-like wisdom, though she comes from deeply conservative religious roots.

Malone and her six siblings grew up near Pennsylvania, “in the garden part of the Garden State,” she explains, and she moved out to Seattle in ’95.

She went to the University of Washington “for, like, five minutes” and decided the classroom talking-head environment wasn’t for her. The service industry ended up being a great place to be, since the rise of the dotcom industry brought droves of people into restaurants for food and fine wine.

That bubble burst right around the time she met Doriss in 2001, and when Doriss moved to the Olympia area for work, Malone felt drawn to Tacoma.

“I thought, ‘I can move to Tacoma, I like it,’” Malone reflected.

She’d started thinking about opening her own bar in ’01, and the idea gestated for several years. Just about the time the idea was becoming a reality, Malone toured with a theater company in a critically acclaimed play, traveling as far as Scotland with the troupe; after the 2003 Fringe Festival, she went on three auditions and put her heart into her next venture.

A happenstance ride as a passenger on J Street brought her to a ramshackle building with a broken window and a For Lease sign, where Malone brought her appreciation for the craft cocktail, introduced to her at Olympia’s The Mark.

Now she works on passing that appreciation on to her employees. 

Passing on her notions of the crafting of the drink, which she refers to as the evolution of the cocktail, is part of her master plan for expansion. Another part is the development of a corporation, Koa Industries, Inc., with Mark Taylor, which will become the parent company of the Monsoon Room.

The “Moo Roo” will expand as well, with an extended roof and heating, and “alternate seating” that will enable more revelers to enjoy themselves.

Later will come a café, The Sanctuary, with breakfasts, lunch, some private events, and some late night dining.

In the meantime, Malone feeds the creative part of her soul with classical music performances on her violin at the Monsoon room most Mondays, except the last of the month. At Sunday’s Urban Art Festival (see cover), when DJ Broam has his moment (hour, actually, from 2 to 3 p. m.), Malone may whip out her four-stringed friend and play along.



[Monsoon Room, classical hour 9 p.m. Mondays, no cover, 1022 S. J St., Tacoma, 253.722.5075]