(Image: Twilight Exit)
We don’t know what May Day 1999 was like in Seattle — the WTO protests and “Battle of Seattle” would happen four months later — but we can tell you that on E Madison, the Twilight Exit was born.
This May Day, now resident on E Cherry where it has done its drinking and hanging out thing since 2008, the Twilight celebrates 20 years of Central Seattle good times.
As owner Stephan Mollmann noted to CHS, “She turns 20 today. One more year and she can drink.”
The original Twilight Exit moved from E Madison to E Cherry 11 years ago. Today, a six-story apartment building stands at the original site across from the 22nd/Madison Safeway.
Mollmann also opened The Neighbor Lady at 23rd and Union in 2011 and the Twilight Rainier last year.
Change is also coming for the Twilight Exit’s Central District home. Capitol Hill developer Liz Dunn is planning “a four-story building, approximately 40 feet tall, built at grade with no underground parking” with retail space along E Cherry and residential units above after purchasing the property home to Twilight and its neighbor Tana Market.
The project is expected to move slowly — Dunn says she had to file her plans early because she preferred to develop the property under pre-Mandatory Housing Affordability zoning “because it’s a nice neighborhood scale and modest four story height” that will help to keep project costs down. That should leave the Twilight Exit in its place for at least a few more birthdays. And when the new building does go up, Dunn has said the bar and the market will have the option of moving back into the completed project.
The Twilight Exit is located at 2514 E Cherry. You can learn more on the Twilight Exit Facebook page.
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