Surely a Capitol Hill dive bar that warranted annual obituaries but somehow managed to remain open deserves a post to mark its final demolition.
Work has begun to remove from the earth any traces that the Redwood ever stood on E Howell.
Thanks to a CHS reader for a picture of the demolition in progress. We might not have believed the news without it.
The neighborhood bar was notorious for inspiring nearly annual fits of sadness over its pending displacement. The owners and the Redwood’s patrons knew redevelopment was coming and made quiet plans for dealing with and moving on. Six years of inevitable doom came to a close this week.
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We last checked in on the property a year ago as owners Mat and Lisa Brooke had just found out the bar needed to be moved out by November 1st, 2017.
They said they planned to take some of the old guts of the Redwood to the Olympic Peninsula to open up a new project in Port Angeles. The Spruce — featuring “locally-sourced comfort food and beer from the Pacific Northwest” — is now open on E Front Street.
The Redwood, meanwhile, is being torn down to make way for a seven-story apartment building containing 67 small efficiency dwelling units, three efficiency dwelling units, and six apartments. The past won’t be left completely behind. The project’s ground floor is being designed to make a new space for a neighborhood restaurant.
Goodbye Redwood! Hello Amazon dormitories!
RIP Redwood. Though they died for me the day they took corn nugs off the menu.
Where on E. Howell?? You made me read and re-read in search of a cross street. I guess those “in the know” know this place, as a Seattle native I would have liked a better address.
E. Howell Street at E Belmont Street
For those who remember, this was the site of the 24-hour laundromat-and-drug-a-teria from the 90’s, and had a nice little coffeshop on the west side run by Roland when I moved to Seattle and the neighborhood in 2000 (which is where I discovered within a few months I had developed a 3 latte a day habit!). Thanks for the memories!
Somehow I still expect it to re-open next month…