Category Archives: Food & Drink

Capitol Hill’s Hello Robin baking plans for U Village expansion

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Martin (Image: Hello Robin)

The next time you stop by Capitol Hill cookie shop Hello Robin, congratulate the bakers. They have something special in the oven for 2020.

Hello Robin will be expanding beyond its 19th Ave E original home a year from now next spring. The cookie bakery, distinguished by its blue sign and line outside its door, will open a storefront in University Village after operating solely on Capitol Hill since 2013.

“I think we’re ready for the next chapter. It’s been a fun five and a half years. We have a really great staff and growing the business will provide more opportunities for them,” said Robin Martin, the bakery’s namesake. Martin co-owns and co-founded the bakery with her husband, Clay Martin. Continue reading →

No axes for the hammered? Blade and Timber wants to sell alcohol but liquor board not keen on mixing sharp objects and beer

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“Booze and axes, what could possibly go wrong?” one CHS commenter asked after the axe-tossing bar Blade and Timber made its Capitol Hill debut late March.

It’s a common question, but for Blade and Timber, it comes with a caveat: its bar is completely dry.

Securing a liquor license has proven harder than expected. The Missouri-headquartered company applied for a beer-only license for its Capitol Hill outpost but withdrew when the Washington State Liquor and Cannabis Board made clear it does not like mixing alcohol and axes.

But Blade and Timber is not ready to give up. Continue reading →

CHS Pics | 12th Ave — Capitol Hill home field for Women’s World Cup

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If Team USA is on the field in France during the Women’s World Cup, you’ll want to be on 12th Ave.

Tuesday for the first game of the French-hosted 2019 tournament for the Americans, CHS stopped by our neighborhood German beer bar, naturally, to catch the game and the crowd. Continue reading →

From the man who helped create Top Pot, small batch Half and Half Doughnut Co. to open on Capitol Hill this summer

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(Image: CHS)

The entrepreneur who helped turn Top Pot into the largest scale doughnut operation in the city is, indeed, getting back into the fried dough business with a new small batch shop on Capitol Hill.

Half and Half Doughnut Co. — or, Half n Half as it appears on the signage — is being readied to open on E Pike with daily small batch doughnuts made in house and coffee and lattes to go. Half and Half will  offer filled raised varieties and cake doughnuts along with “savory options,” according to Jeanine Sbisa, director of operations. Continue reading →

I drank this on Capitol Hill: The Rosé Bud at Pony

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Celebrating Pride, CHS stopped by Pony for a drink on a sunny afternoon. Timmy Roghaar has been bartending at Pony for a year now and this is his first bartending gig ever. “I’m also a drag queen,” Roghaar informs us while making our drink. “I go by Strawberry Shartcake and I’ve been performing for about three years now. You can catch me at R Place about once a month and at the Palace in Georgetown,” Roghaar says. Continue reading →

The Cookie Counter, a sweet new business partner with vegan ice cream sandwiches and pink walls, comes to Capitol Hill’s Gay City

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(Image: Brie DiFelici with permission)

Gay City neighbor Kaladi Brothers Coffee moved back to its former, overhauled space a few doors down late last year. Now the LGBTQ+ community, resource, health, and arts center has a new business partner to add to its mix: The Cookie Counter, a Greenwood-based dessert shop and café for vegan pastries, cookies and ice cream.

The Capitol Hill outpost of The Cookie Counter, which will also keep its Greenwood shop open, is slated to open in the last week of June, with the grand opening coinciding with Seattle’s Pride weekend.

“To be in that space [Kaladi’s] will be nostalgic for us,” said Chelsea Keene, who co-founded The Cookie Counter with her husband Chris Olson. Both longtime vegans, the couple started making and selling vegan ice cream sandwiches out of their ’74 Volkswagen bus in 2014. “When Chris and I lived on the hill, the previous Kaladi Brothers Coffee space at Gay City was our favorite coffee shop.”

The couple opened their pastel-tinted shop in Greenwood in 2016. The Capitol Hill location will seat around 30 people, approximately 10 more than the Greenwood shop, though the millennial pink color palette will stay the same. Continue reading →

With work started on new E Pike slice bar and ‘pizza testing kitchen,’ Pagliacci celebrates 40 years in Seattle

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UPDATE 6/10/2019: Pagliacci has provided this rendering of what the E Pike project will look like

(Image: CHS)

As Capitol Hill-headquartered Pagliacci celebrates 40 years of pizza in Seattle, work is underway to create a new pie and slice bar perfect for research and development next door to the company’s E Pike busy offices.

“This fall, Pagliacci Pizza will open a new store on Pike Street between Crawford and Summit in the building that has long served as Pagliacci’s headquarters,” an announcement of the new project sent to CHS reads. “The restaurant will feature seating, beer and wine, a slice bar, delivery, and a state-of-the-art training facility and pizza testing kitchen.” Continue reading →

First look: Life on Mars lands on Capitol Hill

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Severin, Sims, Richards, and Richards

Life on Mars, the new bar with a plant-based menu of burgers and waffle sandwiches, booze, and walls shelving thousands of records at the corner of Pike and Harvard is an answer, not a question for its music-loving founders.

“Everyone is so depressed, everyone is so down, the world is a hard place right now. And Bowie died! That’s sad, too! So in a way Life on Mars is kind of like a rebirth for us,” co-owner John Richards told CHS Thursday night at one of a series of pre-opening parties at the new venue.

The new bar will open, softly, to the public for the first time Saturday night.

The answer to Bowie’s Life on Mars? Yes. There is life out there. There is hope. There is something else to do in life as we get older and want to stay in touch with the things we love best — music, friends, a good drink… vegan food.

“It became more than that song, for sure,” Richards said. “That’s why we left the question mark off.”

Continue reading →

Coming full circle, Toscana Pizzeria returns to Summit Ave

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You can clean up, change your look, develop new relationships. But sometimes it is best to just accept who you really are. The Summit Ave food and drink path that led from Toscana to Itto’s to A La Vida has circled back to pizza.

“We’re back!” the sign in the window at 601 Summit Ave E proclaims. As a handful of loyal CHS readers will tell you, Toscana Pizzeria is, indeed, back on Summit. Continue reading →

Capitol Hill bagel king Loxsmith take over Sundays at the Canterbury in June

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Loxsmith is back for June at the Canterbury (Image: Loxsmith Bagels)

19th Ave E was a little too quiet for Capitol Hill bagel king Matthew Segal. So, for June, his royal highness of boiled lye… ness is bringing the bagel pop-up greatness of Loxsmith to 15th Ave E’s Canterbury Ale House. And he’s bringing friends.

Starting this Sunday, the pop-up will take over ye olde 15th Ave E drink spot with its menu of bagel sandwiches, bagel dogs, and the Loxsmith bloody mary bar. Segal is also bringing menu collaborations with locals Raised Dougnuts — the Donut BEC, El Xolo — the blue corn waygu bageldog, and a GariSaba Ume Shiso Uzu Kosho Furkike bagel inspired by By Tae to the weekly menus. Watch for Loxsmith’s special plant dye rainbow bagels for Pride, too. Continue reading →