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With 80 square feet of pride, tiny TNT Espresso says goodbye to Broadway

(Images: TNT Espresso)

TNT Espresso, the only drive-up coffee shack on Broadway and a shorter-line, somehow even funkier alternative to the popular Vivace walk-up across the street, will close at the end of the month.

Monica Anaya posted her TNT goodbye message Thursday morning on Facebook citing the relentless crawl of development, motherhood, and the desire for a change of pace outside of the 80 square-foot coffee stand.

Take it away, Momo:

To all my friends and loyal customers,
I write this to you all with a heavy heart. I have decided to close TNT Espresso Co for good. October 31st will be our last day of business. I’d like to start by saying thank you to Tina and Terry for giving me the opportunity to buy TNT 5 years ago. I have truly enjoyed myself while doing what I love!

There are several reasons why I feel that it is time to say good bye to the place that has helped me grow in life, foster amazing relationships and connections, and has taught me how to own and operate a small business.

First and foremost, I want to leave on my terms and not get pushed out by the gentrification which is happening in my favorite neighborhood in Seattle. I’ve operated without a lease for the last 5 years and I feel that my time is running out. I couldn’t bear to have someone come in and kick me out so they can build a high rise apartment building where I’ve stood for the last 15 years of my life.

Secondly, I’m ready to embark on a new journey. My creative mind has been stifled by the high demand and stress of owning a small business. I want to do something else.

Finally and most importantly, I want to take some time with my little boy. I want to be with him during his babyhood because I love him so much!

You all have been so kind to me, so thoughtful, so generous and I will remember each and every one of you!

Thank you for 15 years of laughs, love, marriage proposals, baby announcements, graduations, birthdays, political chats and everything in between. You have all, in one way or another changed me for the better.
Love, Momo

“I had a good time while I was there,” Anaya told CHS during a brief telephone chat about the closure. “I don’t hang my head low. I walk away with pride. I got to get out before somebody kicked me out.”

We don’t have specifics on how long the coffee stand has been in the parking lot at the corner of Broadway and Harrison but we do know Anaya took over TNT in 2010. At that point, TNT Espresso had been “serving the people of Capitol Hill for over ten years” in the parking lot of the onetime gas station turned Baskin Robbins turned Ron and Jerry’s turned teriyaki restaurant.

Anaya said the stand was started by “a guy named David” who eventually sold the business to “Tina and Terry” around 1996 or 1997 — that’s where the TNT came from. Anaya said she started working there a few years later.

Staryuks

Her hours doing pours in the tiny shop shifted in recent months but you could still find her there Thursday through Saturday. She says she’ll be adding more hours to her schedule this month to be around to say goodbye.

Anaya said she doesn’t have a lease for the space to sell but that somebody could possibly be interested in TNT’s goodwill-soaked brand — and the grandfathered rights to the drive-thru business, a feature that will disappear once the current business shutters.

The planned closure will add to the sense of foreboding doom for those worried about the block home to Julia’s and the Lifelong Thrift Store finally giving up the ghost and bringing in the construction cranes. The Broadway Grill’s old space has remained shuttered since spring of 2013 amid reports of an insanely high lease ask. If Teriyaki & Wok puts up goodbye signs, grab your hardhats — in the meantime, enjoy its reasonably priced lunch options.

One barrier to any giant development of the block could be the split ownership. Prolific Capitol Hill (and beyond) real estate investor Ron Amundson owns the land where the teriyaki restaurant and TNT stand while two other sets of real estate investors own the buildings home to Lifelong Thrift and Julia’s.

Anaya has some advice for the real estate folks.

“Keep Capitol Hill kinda crazy,” she said. “Quit trying to change it into something else.”

Via Seattle Coffee Scene

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19 Comments
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pragmatic
pragmatic
8 years ago

Will definitely be sad to see TNT go. I loved their presence along that stretch of sidewalk, keeping Broadway funky in the face of change. BUT regarding her letter… 6 stories is considered high rise now?

CDRyan
CDRyan
8 years ago
Reply to  pragmatic

Does it matter? Broadway is a has-been. Someone asked me once ‘What was Broadway like 10 years ago’ my answer. ‘It was a good place to be’. Not so much anymore.

Good luck TNT!

David Holmes
David Holmes
8 years ago
Reply to  CDRyan

Um, the Broadway of today is definitely not a worse place when you compare it to 1-2 decades ago. You have idealized Broadway’s past in an alt-Norman Rockwell-esque manner. I think the ST and related has alternated predictions between revival and total failure for Broadway every other year for my entire life.

Jim98122x
Jim98122x
8 years ago
Reply to  CDRyan

You realize, don’t you, that 10 years ago everyone said Broadway sucked compared to Broadway of 15-20 years ago?

pragmatic
pragmatic
8 years ago
Reply to  Jim98122x

haha exactly

bb
bb
8 years ago

Another little piece of the neighborhood is gone.

bax
bax
8 years ago

Word just out, Julias is closing end of December, looking for space downtown.

dc
dc
8 years ago
Reply to  bax

what?! you got a link or something?

Jim98122x
Jim98122x
8 years ago
Reply to  bax

This news isn’t “just out”; it’s been known for months. The last I heard was they were looking into some space either next to the Showbox, or maybe it was even the Showbox space itself. But the search has been going on for months.

RWK
RWK
8 years ago
Reply to  bax

Julia’s will not be missed, at least by me. The food and service there are mediocre.

Jim98122x
Jim98122x
8 years ago
Reply to  RWK

Everyone agrees the food at Julia’s is dreadful. The reason to go there is the shows. Those definitely WILL be missed.

C Doom
C Doom
8 years ago

From Ernie Steeles’s to Ileens to Julias, that building has been a bar for over 50 years.

We’ll probably get another fucking bank or phone store

genevieve
genevieve
8 years ago
Reply to  C Doom

No, another high-concept, $$$$-buildout bar with $15 craft cocktails.

I haven’t gone there much since the Ernie Steele’s days, but I will miss the sounds of the drag shows pouring out of the doors on the corner.

Also sad to see TNT going. Soon Broadway will be one long stretch of sameness, with no evidence of its funky past.

zeebleoop
zeebleoop
8 years ago
Reply to  genevieve

“I haven’t gone there much since…”

i see this comment all the time, bemoaning the loss of some, supposed, long-loved place. yet, had more people actually patronized some of these places they might find that they weren’t leaving/closing.

if you love someplace, you gotta show up and spend some money. if not, don’t be surprised when it goes away.

RWK
RWK
8 years ago

Does Anaya know something about possible re-development of that part of the block? The fact that the Broadway Grill has remained vacant for so long makes me think there is some behind-the-scenes negotiating going on to raze and build something new there. That would not necessarily be a bad thing.

Ryan on Summit
Ryan on Summit
8 years ago
Reply to  RWK

Yes, let’s ask the small business owner closing her business of 15 years if she knows what’s going there in its place. Great idea.

dc
dc
8 years ago

dang. here’s hoping the other businesses on the block don’t get pushed out.

Jay
Jay
8 years ago

It was VanDitto’s Espresso in 1995, owned by Andrea Vanditto. She sold it probably around 1996 or 97.

greenlkgrl
greenlkgrl
8 years ago

Broadway in the 80’s and 90’s was the place to be. I grew up there, working at Baskin Robbins, dining out at the Broadway, Charlies and grabbing coffee and dessert at a place I can’t recall. Catching a movie at the Harvard Exit or the Broadway Theater. I remember eating Pizza at Pizza Pete with my Nana and Pizza Haven with my first boyfriend. On summer nights we’d hang out getting an ice-cream cone and walking watching as people cruised down the street it was …its all gone now. :(