Where the Canterbury reigned over Capitol Hill for a half century, Meliora faces restart after less than a year of business

(Image: Meliora)

Seattle’s Singh restaurant family is used to success. Their Rasai is celebrated for its take on “progressive Indian” in Fremont.

Things haven’t worked out as well for Meliora, the “New American Restaurant” and cocktail bar opened to give a new, calmer life to the former Canterbury Ale House space on 15th Ave E.

After just over a half year of more than half empty seats, the restaurant has been temporarily closed for a restart:

We have temporarily closed our door for essential maintenance and enhancements in our unwavering commitment to providing you with the best possible experience. This break is aimed at ensuring your future visits are even more enjoyable.

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CHS Classic | The Cayton-Revels House: a landmark to Seattle’s Black history on 14th Ave E

Susie Revels Cayton and Horace Cayton Sr. with family in 1904 (Vivian G. Harsh Research Collection of Afro-American History and Literature/Chicago Public Library)

Take a walk this Black History Month to visit Capitol Hill’s Cayton-Revels House.

Built in 1902, the Queen Anne Victorian-style house was once the home of Horace Roscoe Cayton, publisher of Seattle Black-owned newspaper the Seattle Republican, and his wife and associate editor Susie Sumner Revels Cayton. The 2021 landmark designation was a significant and necessary acknowledgement of Seattle’s Black history.

CHS reported here on the efforts of the 14th and Mercer structure’s owners to achieve landmark status and protections for the 1902-built house, honor the Cayton-Revels family, and recognize the legacy of the racial covenants that shaped Capitol Hill. According to the landmarks nomination, “the Caytons were one of only three Black American families living in today’s definition of Capitol Hill​ before racial restrictive covenants barred non-white residents in 1927.”

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The Seattle Republican was one of the most widely-read newspapers in the region at that time. In print from 1894 to 1913, the Republican appealed to national and local audiences of all races, but primarily focused on local politics and the Black experience. Horace Cayton, born a slave on a Mississippi cotton plantation and educated at Alcorn University, made his way to the Pacific Northwest in pursuit of greater freedoms in the frontier-era West. As Seattle changed from a frontier town to a growing city with increasingly racist power structures and property covenants, Black families were pushed into the Central District, where the Cayton-Revels eventually relocated.

“The Caytons were one of the most well-known Black American families in Seattle at the turn of the 20th century because of their business and political involvements,” said Taha Ebrahimi, a Capitol Hill resident who researched and wrote the 142-page landmark proposal for the Cayton-Revels house. Continue reading

Fire in under-construction 13th Ave apartment development investigated

(Image: Seattle Fire Department)

Seattle Fire says nobody was found inside after a fire did heavy damage Saturday morning to the upper stories of an apartment building under construction near 13th and Mercer.

Heavy smoke was reported billowing from the fourth floor of the new development around 11 AM as firefighters arrived to find the blaze spreading into the building. As ladder crews searched for anybody possibly trapped inside the under-construction structure ,SFD says its engine crews stretched hose lines to the fourth floor and put water on the fire. SFD reports it took 35 minutes to extinguish the blaze. Continue reading

Capitol Hill classic Coastal Kitchen returns (late) weekday brunch and lunch to the menu — UPDATE

(Image: Coastal Kitchen)

Its diner-y days are gone. It’s a “fish house” now. But Capitol Hill’s Coastal Kitchen is back in the daily brunch, lunch, and dinner business.

The 15th Ave E stalwart launched new weekday brunch/lunch hours last week joining its dinner and weekend brunch service.

Returning to weekday daytime service marks a milestone for the restaurant which reopened after a lengthy closure with a full overhaul and refreshed concept late last year. Continue reading

Developer hears community hopes for 15th ave E QFC block redevelopment

With the city’s design review process in a drawn out transition period, the developers behind a project that will truly reset the commercial core of Capitol Hill’s 15th Ave E with new retail space and five stories of mixed-use housing held a neighborhood meeting last week to gather some of the feedback normally channeled through formal civic processes — or pushed aside altogether.

Capitol Hill-based Hunters Capital hosted the Friday afternoon session billed as “drop-in hours” to discuss the planned 15th Ave E development of the former QFC block with around 25 residents who came to express their hopes over pedestrian safety, community building, traffic mitigation, and neighborhood perennials like parking and, yes, public bathrooms.

“There are no public restrooms in Capitol Hill,” one resident said. With a potential increase in visitors to the neighborhood, the attendee expressed the need for public restrooms. Other attendees agreed. While some acknowledged there could be potential issues with public restrooms, being able to pee is an equity issue that should be raised.

Will the city’s pee equity issue be addressed in the project’s design? That seems unlikely but the discussion is the kind of thing that wasn’t typically supposed to be part of the city’s formal design review process. For a few minutes on 15th Ave E, it was on the table.

Longtime residents of the few existing apartment units above the QFC-block property that will make way for the new project also attended Friday’s session. Long-term tenants living in the building expressed to Hunters Capital that there has been a lack of upkeep on the current building and property management has not been responding to their concerns and not informing them about the dates of developing meetings.

Attendees said they hoped for better communication as they prepare for the changes.

Hunters Capital is planning a five-story mixed-use building with around 150 apartment units and underground parking for around 100 vehicles on the site. With around 10,000-square-feet of street-level commercial space, Hunters says it is hoping to connect with 15th Ave E by designing a wrap-around plaza and creating a pedestrian thoroughfare that’s open for pedestrians. Along 15th, they’re hoping to pull back the building at least four feet to widen the sidewalk.

Large in the minds of attendees — and the developer — is the future of retail and grocery shopping on the block. Continue reading

What will come next for ShopRite?

Capitol Hill’s 15th Ave E is known for its sense of community and vibrant local businesses but one store owner is facing an uncertain future. Mohammad Abid knows his building is going to be torn down.

What will come next for ShopRite and Abid’s passion for his store and the community it serves?

CHS reported here on early plans for a five-story, mixed-use development that will replace the the 1904-built Moore Family building and the former QFC grocery store on the block.

“Yeah, maybe four or six months, after finishing the project down the street, they will start here,” Abid expects. “Same contractor, same owner, same everything,” as the work up the street where Capitol Hill developer Hunters Capital’s project replacing the old Hilltop Service Station is rising.

ShopRite means a lot to Abid who has run the shop for more than 20 of its nearly 30 years of business.

Coming to the United States from Pakistan in 1984, Abid says he moved to the US for an educational opportunity. After attending Edmonds Community College and working a few small jobs, he found ShopRite. “Before this, I was not married. Then I opened a store, I got married, I bought a house, I had children. I did all this to put my children through school and I have.”

ShopRite and the busy owner have been fixtures in the community. Neighbors know him, and he knows them, serving the same people for years, learning their needs, and ordering the obscure items requested.

But the city and the neighborhood needs more housing and waves of development continue to pass through the city — especially in areas like 15th Ave E on the edges of the most densely populated areas of Seattle. Abid has seen the neighborhood grow, and now the change has arrived for ShopRite. Continue reading

Meliora brings ‘vibrant Pacific Northwest vibes with a touch of medieval influence’ to the old Canterbury space

(Image: Meliora)

The Canterbury knight still stands sentry as the Capitol Hill public house at the corner of 15th and Mercer begins anew as “New American Restaurant” and cocktail bar Meliora.

“With a New American inspired menu centered on sustainability, and a highly curated, complementary wine program focused on Pacific Northwest wines, Meliora aims to captivate the senses and provide a delicious, welcoming experience,” the announcement for the new venture’s Tuesday grand opening reads.

Born of the dynamics around a history of raucous nightlife, the profit margins required to survive a Capitol Hill commercial lease, a 115-year-old apartment building, and Seattle’s never-quit real estate market, Meliora has transformed the former home of the Canterbury Ale House into a quieter but hopefully still lively use of the 5,000-square-foot space with “a spacious main dining area with original wood paneling sourced from a local barn paying homage to the rich history of the building which first housed a tavern in 1976.”

(Image: Meliora)

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Five-story mixed-use development planned for Capitol Hill block that QFC ditched and ShopRite and Rudy’s still call home

QFC isn’t coming back to 15th Ave E anytime soon. The old grocery building and the rest of its 15th Ave E block are now being lined up for redevelopment some six years after Capitol Hill developer Hunters Capital’s $11.25 million deal to purchase the property, according to permit paperwork filed this week with the city.

The Seattle Daily Journal of Commerce is also reporting on the plans.

According to permits, Hunters Capital is planning a five-story mixed building with around 150 apartment units and underground parking for around 116 vehicles on the site running from the middle of the 400 block of 15th Ave E to E Republican. The plans include demolition of the 1904-built Moore Family building home to a Rudy’s Barbershop and longtime neighborhood convenience store ShopRite and the adjacent grocery and surface parking lot that hosted a grocery since 1944 until QFC exited the street in 2021 in a tiff with the Seattle City Council over COVID-19 hazard pay.

In a statement to CHS, a Hunters Capital representative confirmed the plans. Continue reading

Design review: Tree preservation, parking, and new housing — A 13th Ave project with something for everyone on Capitol Hill

A new project planned for the 600 block of 13th Ave E will continue the area’s transition away from most of its remaining single family-style housing. This week, the project takes its first bow in front of the East Design Review Board.

Under the project, three adjacent 120(ish)-year-old houses and a detached garage on 13th between E Mercer and E Roy will be torn down. In their place will rise a four-story, 50-foot tall building with about 36 apartments, a trade officials in the housing squeezed city say is necessary for Seattle to address ongoing affordability and homelessness crises.

The developer, Leschi Lakeside Property Management, working with Kirkland-based Milbrandt architects, are proposing the usual three options for how the building might be shaped. As this meeting is the early design guidance phase, most details are focused on the basic massing and layout of the planned development.

All three proposals call for parking access roughly in the middle of the building, and therefore, mid-block, which is less than ideal, but really the only option. All three are roughly rectangular in shape. There are plans to plant new trees along western edge of the property – the back of the building – to give the existing neighbors more privacy. Continue reading

Developer to hold ‘neighborhood discussions’ as final design for Capitol Hill Safeway redevelopment is pounded out

A rendering of the E John facade (Images: Weber Thompson)

A draft proposal for the February design review shows the current concept for the project (Images: Weber Thompson)

Developers of the project to redevelop the Capitol Hill Safeway with a new 50,000-square-foot grocery store, housing, and massive underground parking lot won’t face the final round of the city’s design review process until next month but they aren’t leaving anything to chance.

Developer Greystar and architect Weber Thompson will hold two “virtual neighborhood discussions” this week as they pound out the final proposal for the design to create two new five-story buildings including the new grocery, around 334 400 market rate apartment units, some new, smaller retail spaces, and an underground parking lot for about 350 cars.

“During the Virtual Open House, we will present materials related to our project and proposed neighborhood benefits and answer any questions you may have. We will also have a project survey on the website that you can fill out to communicate what is important to you,” Greystar says in the announcement: Continue reading