The wood-sided building at 630 Second Street has had three tenant lineups announced since February, and an opening target of last summer has come and gone. The group of people the building is being renovated for now meets somewhere else. They gather every Thursday night in a converted airplane hangar in the woods off South Crawford Road, and they are meeting again tonight.
If you want to know when the Langley Building becomes the hangout its owner has in mind, look at the free listening sessions run by Salad Design. They began as a weekly habit in an office on First Street. For their second year they have moved to Campfire, and the record store's planners keep pointing to them as the model.
A Building That Has Been a Little of Everything
The Langley Building began in 1944 as a lumber business, a few blocks uphill from downtown, as the South Whidbey Record reported in February. Over the decades the Record has listed a barbershop, Living Green Apothecary, a bakery, a consignment and gift store, a design studio, a laundromat and a lumber company among its tenants.
The tenant most people remember is the Machine Shop. Tim Leonard's family-friendly, coin-operated arcade opened in 2016. It also hosted live music and community events, and it closed in 2022, according to The Daily Herald's 2022 coverage. It ran for six years and left Langley without its most obvious place to spend an evening without a dinner reservation.
Ryan Peacock bought the building with his mother this year. He is a framing subcontractor and general contractor whose crew has framed custom homes on the island for nearly 10 years. In a March Record story, he described the plan in terms any longtime resident would recognize:
"We're missing third spaces — somewhere besides home where you hang out. The Machine Shop was a cool hangout. We're trying to make it into something similar as it was before."
He also told the Record he wanted to keep the current layout and add a couple of bathrooms. He expected to open in time for the summer tourist season.
Three Announcements, Three Different Rosters
Read in order, the Record's three stories this year show a plan whose purpose stayed fixed while its tenants kept changing.
| Record story | Tenants named | Timing mentioned |
|---|---|---|
| Feb. 27, 2026 | Jupiter Coffee's second location, a beauty salon, a record store, a gathering space for teens | Spring, starting with a soft opening |
| March 17, 2026 | Jupiter Coffee, a record store and performance space, a teen hangout, Peacock Construction offices, All Washed Up Laundromat | In time for the summer tourist season |
| Aug. 28, 2026 | Salad Days Records, the return of the Machine Shop, Golden Hour Cafe | No date given |
In the spring, Jupiter Coffee was set to take the windowed space to the right of the entry door. The Freeland shop's scones were supposed to make the trip down the highway, and Peacock called owner Laura Wills "the foundation of the building." The August story did not mention Jupiter at all. Its café slot went to Golden Hour Cafe, which Andy, the record store's owner, and his wife plan to run with food prepared at Campfire.
The Machine Shop's return came about through a chain of introductions. In March, the Record reported that Leonard visits Jupiter Coffee regularly, that Wills told him about the new owner, and that some of his vintage pinball machines would be part of the new space. By August, Peacock had offered him the entire left side of the building to revive the arcade. "No matter what happens with me or anybody in there, it's always going to be a community space," Leonard told the South Whidbey Record.
The plans in that August story are specific. Golden Hour Cafe is planned for seven days a week and is meant to fill what Andy sees as a shortage of quick, affordable places to eat in Langley. He is also considering running it as a non-alcoholic bar after dark for people staying late at the record store and arcade. The only exterior change will be a restored "Langley" sign in place of the aging one. All of these are still plans. As of this week, the Salad Days Records page still says "Opening Soon!" and gives no date.
The Thursday Habit Came First
Through every version of the roster, the record store has stayed. It is also the one part of the project that already has a regular crowd.
In March, the Record reported that Salad Design, a hi-fi studio that builds high-end speakers and turntables, was working out of the former Alma Kids space on First Street. Andy had been hosting free listening sessions there every Thursday. "I'm not a new business in town at this point," he told the South Whidbey Record, describing a decade spent building community around niche hobbies.
Those Thursdays have already shaped what the building will look like. According to the August Record story, Chris Miller first met Andy at one of the listening sessions. Miller is now one of three locals, with Dan Beutel and Chris Elwell, building a wall of tiki-themed animatronics for the record store, aiming for what Beutel called a retro "kitschy Americana" feel. The tiki bar is meant as a place to sit and hang out without having to spend money, the same idea the free sessions were built on.
The building is still under renovation, so when the sessions came back as a weekly series this fall, they returned at a different address. Salad Design's calendar shows year two starting at Campfire on Oct. 1. It opened with The Beach Boys' Pet Sounds, the same album that started year one, which the calendar calls "the greatest album of all time."
What a Thursday at Campfire Looks Like
Campfire sits at 5417 S Crawford Rd in Langley. Its own site describes it as a converted airplane hangar in the woods, and the Record calls the business a private dining venue and catering service. It is also the kitchen that will supply Golden Hour Cafe, so the place where the sessions meet now is already part of the building's future.
The format is simple, according to Salad Design's calendar:
- When: Thursdays, 7 to 10 p.m.
- Cost: Free to attend, with drinks available to buy
- Where: Campfire, 5417 S Crawford Rd, Langley
- Recent nights: Pet Sounds on Oct. 1, an evening of the Mello Exotica label on Oct. 8, and another session on Oct. 22
The calendar describes the Mello Exotica night as "chill lounge meets mid century atomic age jazz meets island tropicana," a soundtrack of bongos, pedal steel and surf guitar. That matches the tiki bar and animatronics being built on Second Street.
The calendar also lists a session tonight, Thursday, Nov. 5, at Campfire, with the same 7 p.m. start. Check the calendar before you drive out, since the listings are the most current source for each week's theme.
The Same Corner, Watched From Here
Campfire was also the announced venue for a free public discussion of the building's plans on Sept. 10. A correction in the Record clarified that the meeting was set for the hangar, not the Langley Building.
So far the plans have tended to hold on purpose and shift on details. Peacock's "third space" goal from March is the same thing Andy and Leonard described in August, even though the café, the coffee tenant and the opening season all changed in between. The Thursday sessions have stayed the same in format, free and weekly, first on First Street and now in the woods.
Opening dates may keep moving. The restored "Langley" sign on Second Street will be the visible sign that the building has opened. Until then, the Langley Building's community meets on Thursdays from 7 to 10 p.m. at Campfire.
At Team Langley, we follow old Langley buildings like this one because their next chapters shape the village we all share. If you want to talk about what's taking shape uphill from First Street, or about your own place in Langley's story, start your island story and schedule a consultation.
