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Capitol Hill food+drink | From the founder of Liberty, Good Citizen bar plans March inauguration

“And Justice For All” would have made a clever name to follow up a bar named Liberty, but owner Andrew Friedman said it just didn’t have that bar name ring to it. Instead he’ll be opening another couches and cocktail venture called Good Citizen on E Olive Way.

“It’s designed to look like someone’s house… really comfortable and nice,” Friedman said. The comfortable and nice bar/house will also feature some interesting boarders — stars from Seattle’s food truck scene.

If all goes according to plan, Good Citizen will open in the former Online Cafe space in March, adding to the already busy entertainment scene on E Olive Way. Friedman said a series of permitting snags delayed the project since the cafe shuttered last April. The building required seismic work and structural upgrades to make sure the preschool facility upstairs has a good neighbor in the new bar.

Upon opening in 2006, one of Liberty’s most notable features was adding a sushi menu into the coffee-and-cocktail mix. Friedman is cooking up another unique idea for his new kitchen as well. Friedman tells CHS he wants to have various food trucks rotate through Good Citizen for two-month stints.

“After a food truck that next step is very difficult to get funding and to have their own kitchen. Many don’t have a fryer or a grill,” Friedman said. “Let someone else go crazy and be creative.”

To create the homey vibe in Good Citizen, Friedman said the space will be outfitted with several different seating areas, large dining tables, and a bar that resembles a home kitchen. “Like going to someone’s party every night,” he said.

Liberty co-founder Keith Waldbauer won’t be making the move to Good Citizen. He told CHS he stepped away from the owner/operator side of the business to work on a book as well as an industry consultant. He said stepping away from slinging cocktails on 15th Ave E was a tough call.

“A very difficult decision since I love Liberty so much and love bartending for the 15th Avenue neighborhood,” he said in an email. “Truthfully, I miss it already, but I’m happy with my new challenges.”

Good Citizen is one of the 24 new Capitol Hill restaurants and bars we’re looking forward to in 2014.

You can follow its progress on the Good Citizen Facebook page.

Capitol Hill food+drink notes by jseattle

  • Mamnoon: The Movie — “Every one of our dishes has been meticulously researched and tested from regional experts to, most importantly, our mothers.”
  • Also Mamnoon: “Starting February 3, the first Monday of every month will showcase set dinners centered on themes, the first of which is North African cuisine after a trip Wassef recently took to visit his son Azmi, studying in Morocco.”
  • Clever Dunne’s passed this NFL playoffs test by Seattle bar experts (who happen to live across the street).
  • Sun Liquor Lounge’s Cale Green’s answer to the question, “What’s the craziest thing you’ve ever seen happen in a bar?”

    Recently I had a young couple come into the bar, have a drink, pay their tab, and take off. Thought nothing of it, then realized that they’d left a bag behind, peeked into it, and discovered that they’d left their brand-new vibrator, Castle Megastore receipt and all, behind.

  • This is both *old* and *off-Hill* but we missed and consider it excellent food for thought. Can you guess which Seattle bar was selected “best designed bar in the Americas”? We wouldn’t have been able to, either.
  • Want to work at Calf & Kid?
  • A new Capitol Hill ice cream-Mexican food alliance.
  • Guess which Capitol Hill food and drink maven said “I fell in love with the lattes” and “I would split my time between slicing meat and making these hot new latte items”
  • $125,000 will get you a north Broadway gourmet restaurant. But you’ll need to supply your own chef. Olivar is on the market.
  • What’s your favorite cocktail at the Hillcat Cafe?
  • Little Uncle to begin selling packaged versions of its housemade red curry paste, roasted dry chili peppers, and hibiscus soda.

    (Image: Little Uncle)

    (Image: Little Uncle)

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7 Comments
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Max
Max
10 years ago

Will Good Citizen offer 30 minutes of free artisanal internet with the purchase of an artisanal cocktail?

bloop
bloop
10 years ago

Do you think “And Justice for all” will let women bartend? Would certainly be a change in procedure for Freidman, bar- maid seems to be the only current occupation open to vagina bearers at LIberty…..

Andrew
Andrew
10 years ago
Reply to  jseattle

Oh, the folly of the young’ns.

When you said your splendiferously-HI-sterical comment, “…bar- maid seems to be the only current occupation open to vagina bearers at LIberty…..”, you mean EXCEPT:

Bex (who has just recently left for Miller’s Guild)
Haley
Elizabeth
Laura

So, next time you come in (that’s me being funny, since obviously you don’t darken our doorway), please let these wonderful people who happen to be women know that you think that they’re ghosts. Apparitions. Pretend figures. I’m sure that they’ll appreciate your concern.

OH! Wait! Your comment was to be taken as humor? As satirical commentary? I must have missed that.

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[…] week, CHS updated you on the latest project to come out of the Liberty family — Good Citizen will open on E Olive Way later this year. Another son of Liberty is also hard at work building something […]

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[…] Good Citizen — E Olive Way: “To create the homey vibe in Good Citizen, Friedman said the space will be outfitted with several different seating areas, large dining tables, and a bar that resembles a home kitchen. ‘Like going to someone’s party every night,’ he said.” More… […]

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[…] the area’s food and drink investments continue. While Liberty food truck and couch-friendly sibling Good Citizen appears to be taking its own sweet time opening, work continues to transform a former […]