(Image: Nevertold Casket Company)
“Everything is temporary in the city.”
For a shop as weird and haunted as the Nevertold Casket Company, it seems unfitting that the store had to shutter over a mundane zoning discrepancy. On the bright side, it wasn’t skyrocketing rent or evil spirits that forced Nevertold out after opening last September, and owners Jack and Tiffany Bennett tell CHS they’re planing to resurrect their little shop of horrors as soon as possible.
The 14th and E Republican “odditorium” selling “haunted goods” — and more — closed over Memorial Day weekend after the Bennetts said someone lodged a complaint with the city about their location.
The shop’s partial-basement space was once the office for the Capitola Apartments building, and was not zoned specifically for retail. The Bennetts said the city knew about the issue, but granted them a permit to open anyway while it sorted out what to do.
“It was not completely unexpected… but surprising how suddenly it happened,” Jack said. “The time we could’ve spent ‘fighting it’ would’ve been time wasted on actually making the business work and making it better.”
Unfortunately for Capitol Hill, the closure has given Nevertold the opportunity to consider reopening in a different neighborhood. The owners say Pioneer Square and Georgetown are particularly appealing for their older buildings and slightly cheaper rents, though they’re not ruling out staying on Capitol Hill.
With the First Hill Streetcar set to open later this year, Jack said the connection between Capitol Hill and Pioneer Square would make it easy for neighborhood regulars to pop in anyway.
“Despite the Hill being esoteric, I don’t know how conducive the Hill is to retail,” Jack said. But the neighborhood does know how to say its goodbyes: Jack said one well-wisher left a poem, a rose, and a bottle of wine on Nevertold’s doorstep on its final day.
When they first opened the shop, Tiffany said she thought the store would have to rely on online sales to stay afloat. As it turned out, she said Nevertold did very little sales online and saw steady growth over the past nine months. “Getting people in store wasn’t a problem,” she said.
With a strong customer base to build from, the Bennetts say they aren’t bitter about their move or the changes they’ve witnessed on Capitol Hill over the past decade.
“Cities are fluid, cities have to change,” Jack said. “Everything is temporary in the city.”
that’s weak. who would complain about this place? it’s a neat, funky little thing to have in the neighborhood.
Yeah, lame! What a wonderful little neighborhood gem……And some curmudgeon had to go and complain :(
I’ll visit their shop wherever they end up. Georgetown would be cool!
:(
What an awful application of the law.
This is so typical of Seattle zoning. We are really good about completely excluding non-residential from our residential areas, which is unfortunate because it puts the kibosh on cool ideas like this. Imagine if we had little corner cafes or small business shops sprinkled through our neighborhood streets? I get that people don’t want bars or nightclubs on their street, but seriously, what’s the benefit of shutting out small creative spots like this that make our communities unique and barely make a peep? We should be encouraging them!
Couldn’t agree more!
I disagree. Retail is retail. If this business was allowed to operate out of an apartment building, then bars/restaurants/clubs etc would also have to be allowed. And we actually do have small businesses “sprinkled through our neighborhood streets” already….one example, of many, is the intersection of 19th Ave E & E Aloha St.
Why would they HAVE to be allowed? Laws and enforcement is completely arbitrary.
Bummer- I hope they get a spot to reopen soon. I haven’t even had a chance to check it out since I read about the shop here, I do hope they can either find a place or make that space work- this IS what used to make Cap Hill funky and cool.
This was a quirky little shop to stop in when I happened upon it in early May. I hope they reopen somewhere.
This is very sad. If you look at old photographs of San Francisco, New York and lots of other cities, you will see all sorts of shops at all different levels surrounded by apartments. As long as the businesses aren’t noisy bars (which this business is not), what is the harm? I don’t get it.
That’s too bad. I could see a neighbor getting annoyed if it was a loud place, but they never really seemed to cause a ruckus. Was cool having an interesting place like that in the neighborhood.