Seattle’s permit backlog may be causing headaches for Capitol Hill small business owners, but it also appears to be helping keep the doors open at one neighborhood dive bar. Just ahead of its 10-year anniversary on Capitol Hill and the conclusion of its drawn out closure, owners of The Redwood tell CHS they have signed a 6-month lease extension giving the bar a few more months in its home where Howell meets Belmont. “We want to stay there until the wrecking ball comes,” said Lisa Brooke, who owns the bar along with her husband Mat, a former member of rock outfit Band of Horses. According to Brooke, the Redwood property owner offered to extend the bar’s lease after it became clear that demolition permits to make way for a new apartment building on the block were still months away from approval. If the wrecking ball — or backhoe — still hasn’t come after six months, Brooke said the Redwood will stay open on a month-to-month basis.

According to Brooke, developers for the new project offered the bar a right of first refusal to return to E Howell, but she was skeptical the Redwood could retain its defining charm. “I don’t know if it would just become a joke, putting the Redwood in a brand spanking new building,” Brooke said said.

There is one last hope for the Redwood, but Capitol Hill regulars would have to cross land and water to get to it. Last year, Brooke and her husband moved to Port Angeles and now make the three-hour journey to Capitol Hill every day. Hauling the bar’s well worn belongings over to the Olympic Peninsula for a new home is not completely out of the question. “It could fit in over here,” she said.

It’s a long ways from the days when the Redwood was “a popular new bar at the north end of the Pike-Pine hipster drinking circuit” drawing “noise complaints.” Also, all hail the Laundromat that the Redwood replaced.

Plans for the Redwood to close have been in the pipeline since at least 2012, when the owners were signed their last long-term lease. After living across the street from the bar for several years, Lisa and Mat moved to Beacon Hill in 2012 into an apartment that is part of the building they gutted and overhauled to open The Oak. Last year, the couple sold The Oak to put a down payment on their house in Port Angeles.

In the meantime, Redwood fans can celebrate the Redwood’s 10-year anniversary and another closure averted with slate of local bands playing a two-part party starting this weekend:

Sat Nov 21st:
Dræmhouse, Black Whales, Bod & Versing

Sat Nov 28th:
Dude York, Snuff Redux, Great Spiders & Koda Sequoia

Doors at 7PM, show at 9PM // $7 if you RSVP, $12 if you don’t // 21+

* Haven’t heard of some of the bands? Check out a song from each group in this playlist!

For more to do on and around Capitol Hill this weekend — or to add your own events — check out the CHS Calendar.

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