E Pike’s Kiss the Sky Cafe and smoking accessory shop is no more. Or at least it will be soon. First, there’s a clearance sale. And probably a few questions about how the cafe ended up there in the first place.
CHS stopped by Monday to ask about the bad news but we didn’t learn much more about the history of the place. A woman who said she was the owner’s sister provided only a shrug and a few short answers about the decision to close down. “Look around. There are no customers.”
She was right. The Internet cafe/pipe and tobacco product shop was mostly empty except for one guy on a laptop and a reporter who had never been inside despite walking by 10,000 times.
If you know more about how Kiss the Sky came to be, share the tale. City records show only a “MATY BA ADJA” listed for the business. We’re assuming that would be Adja Maty Ba but even on that count, we can’t be sure. The cafe launched a Facebook effort in 2009. It made one post:
Last year, Kiss the Sky was joined by new neighbors Northwest Wood Design (profiled here) and BedlamBedlam (profiled here). Shame on us for not stopping by Kiss to profile it, too.
As for Internet cafes, they aren’t yet totally extinct from the Hill, even with this passing. The Online Cafe was born out of the old Online Coffee meltdown and continues to offer old-school Internet access and computer access. Uncle Elizabeth’s also upholds the tradition.
Records also show no current plans for an overhaul or work in the space Kiss the Sky will leave behind at the corner of E Pike and Boylston. The lease signs have gone up — we’ll watch to see how long they remain after the clearance sign comes down.
I recall when the smoke shop at the QFC closed. I thought it was the same ownwer, and they were just moving. I went in Kiss the Sky after it first opened but they didn’t have the brands of cigarettes that either my wife or I smoke.
I went there when they first opened they had amazing samosas. I ordered 2 and then went back and got 5 more once I realized how delicious they were. I went back a few weeks later and they had totally changed the recipe. They were now doing more like a triangular chimichanga, but still calling it a samosa. Not bad, just not the delicious item I had first purchased. Then there are the prices…Where do they think they are? A neighborhood without another pipe shop? Their prices are not even close to competitive. Maybe I will check out their clearance stuff though. Perhaps I can go in there and get a good deal now.
I live within sight of this place. Such a limited-appeal for such a prime space in a (relatively) new development on a prime corner in pike/pine. Besides having a limited appeal (and high prices to those it did appeal to as previously noted), it served as a popular side-walk drinking spot for the homeless, I guess due to the owner’s unwillingness to ask them not to stand in their doorway with a 40.
A few weeks ago I had to call 911 because I was pretty sure a homeless guy was dead outside their door (during business hours). Turned out to just be EXTREMELY blacked out.
Anyway, here’s hoping something with a little more value to the neighborhood comes in, and good luck to the owners.