Category Archives: Food & Drink

Bar Cantinetta, the only new* restaurant on Capitol Hill in 2025

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The year’s restaurant, cafe, and bar news around Capitol Hill cannot be complete without telling more about the story of Bar Cantinetta, one of the few completely new dining spaces created in Seattle’s core this year.

In uncertain times, it has helped that the ideas behind Cantinetta were time tested and familiar to the area. Bar Cantinetta was a much loved part of a nearby neighborhood for a decade.

“The Madison valley neighborhood served us very well, and we were there for 10 years,” owner Trevor Greenwood explained.

Bar Cantinetta is now reborn on Capitol Hill’s growing 15th Ave E, bringing Tuscan culinary traditions and a commitment to neighborhood dining to the changing street in one of the new buildings that has risen there.

 

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The restaurant represents the latest venture from majority owner Greenwood, who has built a local restaurant empire centered on Italian cuisine and community values. Continue reading →

Broadway’s new Thai Lucine sets out to prove that you can wrap darn near anything delicious

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The Chicken Tom Yum Wrap (Image: Thai Lucine)

A new Broadway food and drink project shows that you can make a wrap out of anything delicious.

Thai Lucine has opened in the Barclay Broadway building just south of James. The sibling to Roosevelt Way Thai joint Ban Hua Sai specializes in on the go versions of Thai classics like the “Keow Waan” Thai Green Curry Wrap or “Massaman” Thai Peanut Curry Wrap.

A selection of Thai salad bowls, soups, and sides like pot stickers, spring rolls, and larb stix round out the offerings along with a menu of Thai coffees, teas, and milks. Continue reading →

Kha-Bar will dance onto Capitol Hill in 2026

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Chitralekha Majhi

12th Ave will be a busy area for new food and drink in 2026 as Kha-Bar prepares to bring the flavors of East India and Bangladesh to Capitol Hill.

Kathak dancer and choreographer Chitralekha Majhi and husband Manash Majhi are making a leap into the restaurant business with hopes of creating a mellow new neighborhood hangout right next to the NOD Theater and eXit Space School of Dance.

“I want it to be a neat and clean space, not too upscale but at same time nice,” Majhi said. “Not loud with off white, black, and pastel green that is calming and relaxing.” Continue reading →

Cook Weaver ready to hand over its historic space after a decade on Capitol Hill

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Chef Zac Reynolds and Nile Klein of Cook and Weaver at its opening in 2017

For a chef who creates their own place on Capitol Hill, there are paths that might lead someday to your own restaurant group with 12 unique concepts and 20 locations.

And there are simpler routes that don’t lead to much more than good times and happy memories.

Chef-driven Cook Weaver has announced it will close with one last New Year’s Day of service after a decade in Capitol Hill’s historic Loveless Building.

“Why are we closing? Well, have you ever looked forward to a new chapter with anticipation, while also in tender thanksgiving for all that has brought you to this moment?,” owner Zac Reynolds wrote in the E Roy restaurant’s announcement. “That’s pretty much where I am. In truth, I really want to spend more time with my kid and my wife on evenings and weekends – it’s that simple.” Continue reading →

Knee High Stocking Co. — the quiet end of a speakeasy’s 16 years on Capitol Hill

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(Image: Alex Garland/CHS)

Capitol Hill bars with 16 years of business in the neighborhood don’t usually close without loud lamentations but it is probably not surprising that E Olive Way speakeasy joint Knee High Stocking Co. has come to a secretive end.

The online listings show the venue as “permanently closed.” The Seattle Times included the bar in its most recent morbid countdown of recent city food and drink shutdowns.

Knee High’s owners didn’t call the Times back, either.

The bar debuted in 2009 as a pioneer in Seattle’s speakeasy revival with secret doors and buzzer-door locked entry at the street level of the 1914-built Belvedere Apartments. Reservations were highly recommended. At the time, CHS called Knee High’s founder Jack Valko “a retired tech IT guy.” Continue reading →

After a year in Capitol Hill’s tumultuous street food scene, Tacos Cometa will open on Broadway in 2026

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(Image: Tacos Cometa)

(Image: Tacos Cometa)

Tacos Cometa is moving inside. The street taco venture from brother chefs Rey and Osiel Gastelum that has grown a devoted following this year at Nagle and Pine on the edge of Cal Anderson Park as part of the neighborhood’s wild — and delicious — nightlife street food scene will open as a brick and mortar taqueria on Broadway in 2026.

Rey Gastelum tells CHS Tacos Cometa isn’t leaving Capitol Hill’s street scene behind.

“There should be a better path. I wish there had been a better path for us as well,” Gastelum said. Continue reading →

Seattle’s ‘World Cup Host City Final Draw Watch Party’ to be held on Capitol Hill

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World Cup fans on Capitol Hill in 2014

Seattle’s organizing committee for the 2026 Men’s World Cup will be on Capitol Hill Friday with a few local soccer legends for a Final Draw watch party as the groupings for the global soccer tournament get mostly banged out.

Seattle FIFA World Cup 26 announced it is holding its Friday watch party at Capitol Hill’s Stoup Brewing:

WHAT: Seattle FIFA World Cup™ Host City Final Draw Watch Party
WHO: Local soccer legends, Community leaders and officials of the SeattleFWC26 Local Organizing Committee. Speakers for the event will be available for comment and will include:
  • Peter Tomozawa, CEO of Seattle FWC26
  • Peter Fewing, former Seattle University Soccer coach
  • Lamar Nagle, former Seattle Sounder
WHEN: Friday, December 5, 2025, Doors at 8:30am, program begins at 9:00am
WHERE: Stoup Capitol Hill, 1158 Broadway, Seattle, WA 98122

This spring, a few more teams will qualify and the full groups will be fleshed out but Friday will be a big day for the 2026 cup. With an expanded field, 48 nations will be split into 12 groups of four for the group stages when all is said and done. Continue reading →

Paradise adds Birrieria Jalisco #1 to its Broadway mix

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A seat at the Paradise bar

One thing you have to hand the recent generation of new Capitol Hill restaurants moving into old Capitol Hill restaurant spaces is that they work hard. Places like Mint and Martini — an Indian joint that moved into former Barrio space on 12th Ave — and Broadway’s Paradise in the long ago home of the Broadway Grill will be open this Thursday when much of the rest of the Hill’s restaurants will be closed for Thanksgiving.

(Capitol Hill’s bars are another story with many open for the holiday for when you and friends and family could most use a drink.)

Paradise continues to hustle. CHS reported last November as the Mexican restaurant and bar moved in after the closure of Olmstead in the former Broadway Grill space. Continue reading →

The Roll Pod brings its take on Indian bowls and wraps to 22nd Ave

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(Image: The Roll Pod)

(Image: The Roll Pod)

An Indian fast food concept already familiar for its food truck presence on First Hill and its growing roster of shop locations including Bellevue and White Center is now open on 22nd Ave across from the neighborhood’s Safeway.

The Roll Pod’s newest location is celebrating a grand opening Saturday. “We delight customers with yummy, fresh, balanced Indian food on the go assembled in a ROLL or a BOWl, easy to carry and eat” is the pitch.

Owners Anubha Singh and Parimal Kumar have grown The Roll Pod to include regular food truck locations plus restaurants in Bellevue, White Center, and now on the edge of the Central District and Capitol Hill. Continue reading →

Capitol Hill’s Bateau making 2026 restart: New paint, retooled menu, and, hopefully, a fair deal with unionized workers

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(Image: Bateau)

Those hoping to track the demise of the Capitol Hill neighborhood by restaurant closings will continue to be confounded by Bateau.

Its rebirth will be part of a small burst of reopenings to start 2026.

Jeremy Price of the Sea Creatures restaurant group says the retooling that led to a shutdown of the E Union steakhouse earlier this year is about to pick up steam with plans to reopen the venue — and reinvigorate its corner on the backside of Pike/Pine — in February.

Price says Bateau is now “in the final phases” of its remodel with painting and new window treatments scheduled this week. New signage will also soon go up. Meanwhile, it is also retooling its business with an overhaul of its menu and its prices, and working out a new deal with unionized workers. Continue reading →