Black Forest Mushrooms employees display the varieties of mushrooms that are currently grown at their downtown Everett location.
Photo by Nathan Whalen
EVERETT — Located across the street from Angel of the Winds Arena in downtown Everett, workers at a mushroom farm are harvesting a bounty year-round.
Black Forest Mushrooms, which owner Nathanael Engen started in his garage in 2021, moved into a historic building on Hewitt Avenue in the fall of 2023.
“We’re able to harvest 365 days a year,” Engen said. “Every single day, we have the freshest mushrooms on the market.”
While Engen provides a local source for fresh-grown mushrooms, he noted 80-90 percent of the mushrooms in the United States are imported.
Black Forest Mushrooms, Engen explained, is named after a forest in Germany, which suggests thoughts of exploration and discovery.
Customers visiting are called “adventurers” and employees are called “rangers.”
He started producing mushrooms in 2021 out of his garage at home. An Air Force veteran, he moved to Everett because the city “is an up-and-coming area with a high demand for growth.”
He had been looking at different kinds of indoor cultivation before settling on mushrooms.
Engen started selling his mushrooms to the Snohomish Farmers Market in June 2022.
“They’re our fastest moving vendor to start at the market and open a brick-and-mortar location,” said Sarah Dylan Jensen, director at the Snohomish Farmers Market.
She said 10 vendors who sold at the market expanded to a traditional storefront. “We want it to be a business incubator,” Jensen said of the Snohomish Farmers Market.
Nathanael Engen, owner of Black Forest Mushrooms in Everett, shows how his mushrooms are grown. Black Forest Mushrooms moved into its location in downtown Everett in September 2023. (Photo by Nathan Whalen)Black Forest Mushrooms sells at four other seasonal farmers markets — Lake Stevens, Stanwood, Woodinville, and Shoreline, Engen said. The business also sells at Pike Place Market several days a week, several restaurants use their mushrooms and it ships nationwide.
Their new location is in a building that was originally an ice house and has been used for several purposes over the years including beer distribution, Engen said.
He said Black Forest has created 12 full-time jobs and six part-time positions.
“We’re just trying to do the best we can with what we got,” Engen said.
Three varieties of mushrooms – Lions Mane, Blue Oyster and Chestnut, are grown out of their 10,000-square-foot facility.
Engen said he works with a family to forage for wild mushrooms. Varieties they forage include Morels, Chanterelles, Chicken of the Woods, Turkey Tail, Lobster and Yellowfoot.
“Our whole mission is we cultivate gourmet mushrooms and healthy communities,” Engen said.
Black Forest Mushrooms was awarded a grant in July from the Washington State Department of Agriculture. It was awarded $29,600 that will help fund electrical infrastructure improvements and refrigerators and freezers to offer a wider range of produce. It will partner with other farms to tackle food insecurity in an urban area, according to the WSDA website.
WSDA awarded nearly $1.5 million through its Local Food System Infrastructure Grants. Grants ranged in value of $7,000 to $75,000. Of the 337 applications submitted, 40 received funding, according to a WSDA press release.
