The next startup ready to experiment with retail and service concepts on the densely populated blocks of Capitol Hill hopes to give the neighborhood’s busy young renters something to smile about.
Dentologie, a Chicago-based dental services startup backed and fronted by former Redbox CEO Gregg Kaplan, is making Seattle its first expansion market beyond the Windy City with plans for a new office amid the restaurants and shops of Capitol Hill’s very walkable Melrose Ave. Continue reading →
The corner of Melrose and Pine’s next culinary legacy will be established by a restaurateur who has already brought the finest meats to Capitol Hill.
Now, Heong Soon Park is bringing us his finest cheeses.
The good folks over in the CHS Facebook Group broke the news this week. The food and drink venture taking over the space left empty by the exit of neighborhood favorite Ristorante Machiavelli will be a cheese-y new project.
Liquor and business license paperwork filed for the address shows that work is beginning to transform the classic Italian joint into a new Cheese Room restaurant from the Meet Korean BBQ food and drink family.
What shape and form the cheese-inspired project will take is yet to be seen. Anything from a cheese bar (RIPCulture Club) to a fondue joint that echoes the attendants and prepare-at-your-table vibe of Meet BBQ could be in the works. Popular Seoul restaurant Melting Shop and its Italian leanings could also be an inspiration. There is also the possibility Cheese Room is just a temporary project name for the final food and drink project. We’ve reached out to Meet to learn more. Continue reading →
A still from a video purportedly showing the roastery mosh pit
Seattle Police were called to a reported mosh pit inside the Starbucks Roastery on Melrose at the base of Capitol Hill Sunday afternoon.
According to East Precinct radio reports, police were called to the massive Melrose at Pike coffee venue just after 3 PM to a report of some type of band playing music and a small group of dancers forming a mosh pit inside the popular tourist stop.
By the time police arrived, the disturbance had cleared and there were no signs of a band or any dancers.
The incident does not appear to be related to the Emerald City Comic Con that was underway nearby at the convention center.
On Reddit’s r/Seattle group, the folk punk band Sister Wife Sex Strike took credit for the stunt saying they planned the show as a pop-up for fans in celebration of the group’s new EP.
“We had a goal of getting through all 4 songs but had to leave after 2 because cops were called. videos coming soon :),” the group’s account posted, adding a “fuck starbucks” for good measure.
There were no arrests and no injuries reported.
This was reported on the Citizen App as a mosh pit. This happened at the Starbucks Reserve Roastery in Seattle this afternoon. pic.twitter.com/BILFJJgEHc
PLEASE HELP KEEP CHS PAYWALL-FREE! Subscribe to CHS to help us pay writers and photographers to cover the neighborhood. CHS is a pay what you can community news site with no required sign-in or paywall. Become a subscriber to help us cover the neighborhood for as little as $5 a month.
CHS included a few images from the final night of service at Ristorante Machiavelli in our report on the real estate deals and development behind the closure that will transform its block but we wanted to also provide a few views of the night focused only on the good times and hugs from the Thursday, February 15th event.
Below, you can find more images from Machiavelli’s last night so you can remember the neighborhood favorite and get ready for what will come next on the block. Continue reading →
As diners paid their respect to Ristorante Machiavelli during one last night of service on Capitol Hill last week, the restaurant’s Melrose Market block just above downtown Seattle is undergoing a doughnut-centered makeover under San Francisco-based real estate company Prado Group that will transform its Pine facing edge after it acquired the property for $5 million in 2022.
A Voodoo Doughnut, the first Seattle location for the Portland-born company, is coming along with a near full-block turnover for the businesses that have called this stretch of Pine between Melrose and Minor home. The change is bringing and end for Machiavelli as well as its neighbors Pho 4 U and Lan Hand-Pulled Noodles.
For this small cluster of Capitol Hill businesses in the middle of real estate and development change, the situation around the ending leases have similar echoes of high costs and the fact that time has run out.
“Unfortunate, but amicable,” is how a Prado Group representative described the end of Machiavelli’s run after more than 35 years at the Capitol Hill corner. Continue reading →
An amalgamation of a classic coffee shop with a shopping experience you’d typically find in Latino mercados, BonitoCafé y Mercadito, is preparing to open on E Olive Way, neighboring Capitol Hill’s Pie Bar and Donna’s.
It will soon serve locally Latino-grown sourced coffee and will be hosting mercado events featuring Latino vendors.
From photographers to monthly hosts of Aqui Mercado in Pioneer Square, couple Daniel and Ismael Calderon, are soon to open their dream business that was inspired last year after they hosted their first mercado event. Over the past months hosting their mercado, they were able to build a community of hundreds of supporters and fans.
It was never the plan to open a cafe-market hybrid store. However, after positive feedback from the Latino and queer community from their mercado, the couple decided to pursue opening the business that captures the vibrancy of their monthly event into a daily experience. Continue reading →
PLEASE HELP KEEP CHS PAYWALL-FREE! Subscribe to CHS to help us pay writers and photographers to cover the neighborhood. CHS is a pay what you can community news site with no required sign-in or paywall. Become a subscriber to help us cover the neighborhood for as little as $5 a month.
(Image: Machiavelli)
(Image: Machiavelli)
You had better find new Capitol Hill favorites. The legends are fading away.
Ristorante Machiavelli announced Thursday it is closing after 36 years of serving Capitol Hill. It will open for one last night of service before saying goodbye. A sibling Machiavelli will live on in Edmonds.
“Please understand that this was one of the most difficult decisions of my life,” said owner Suzette Jarding who purchased the restaurant where she used to work and continued its legacy on Capitol Hill for more than two decades. “I have poured my heart and soul into this restaurant for over 25 years. I met my husband while I was a bartender and even shared our first kiss across the bar). I am as heartbroken about this as you are.”
“The joy that this little corner of Melrose and Pine has brought to myself, my family and my Machiavelli family will never fade, and neither will my memories with all of you,” Jarding writes. “You gave us comfort and hope no matter what was happening. We were in it together, like a small town in a tiny restaurant.”
In a message posted to social media, Machiavelli said it had been operating without a lease and that negotiations with the property’s owner had been “a very difficult negotiation process.”
The E Pine restaurant said issues around nearby construction had also cut into business. Continue reading →
Wild Cherry from the folks at Bellevue’s Forum Social House is in the works beneath the Market (Image: Forum Social House)
Hagood will soon be serving inside Melrose Market (Image: Harry’s Fine Foods)
Five years after its sale to a national shopping center developer and emerging from the pandemic. Capitol Hill’s Melrose Market is hitting a second stride with a mix of new tenants that will include a new restaurant in the old Sitka and Spruce space and a basement level Wild Cherry Nightclub.
A local success story will fill the former Sitka and Spruce. Harry’s Good Times, a project from Julian Hagood and the Harry’s Fine Food folks, is taking shape in the back of Melrose Market’s main level with plans for a new concept from the crew that reshaped a Bellevue Ave cornershop into Harry’s Fine Foods, the 2016-born center of a family of food and drink and hospitality businesses on Capitol Hill and across the city. Continue reading →
Work is already complete to transform Melrose — but SDOT is going back to finish the job
The Melrose Promenade needs a redo. The Madison bus RapidRide construction has been a pain. With the Seattle Department of Transportation’s recent track record for the area, Capitol Hill businesses along the stretches of Pike and Pine being transformed to one-way streets with protected bike lanes are hoping for a smoother ride through the changes.
It’s not clear the hoped benefits of the work — wider sidewalks, better bike protections, safer driving conditions — have fully hit home as construction has begun and the changes are underway.
“They gave us a flyer letting us know that these changes would impact traffic in the area so we’re sending out messages to our clients to let them know of the change,” Chenelle Basurto, front desk lead at Vain Hair salon, said. “The area itself is already incredibly difficult to find parking and navigate for our clients. This is impacting us kind of negatively in that regard, it’s just an added stressor for the people trying to get to our location.”
The Pike and Pine construction now underway between I-5 and Bellevue Ave is the beginning of 18 months of scheduled work as the city will continue to install new bike lane protections, from downtown to Capitol Hill. The project itself came from a business focus group, Downtown Seattle Association started their Pike Pine Renaissance Project back in 2013.
“They did a lot of different engagements to talk about how to make the Pike-Pine Corridor sort of stand out,” Brie Gyncild , co-chair of Central Seattle Greenways, said. “A lot of that was done with the intention of making it a better environment for the businesses.” Continue reading →
We are going to need to strengthen the design standards for ‘raised intersections’ and ‘raised crosswalks’ next year in @seattledot’s Streets Illustrated (https://t.co/MVwhu0P88B) because way too much community effort went into the Melrose Promenade for this middling outcome pic.twitter.com/SmjE6R6znn
The $4.3 million overhaul of Melrose with improved bike lanes and better crossings for pedestrians needs a redo. The Seattle Department of Transportation is installing safety bollards along a key raised crosswalk in front of the busy Melrose Starbucks Roastery.
SDOT announced it will give in and add safety bollards plus some strategically installed bike racks to keep drivers from illegally parking, the Urbanist reports.
Safety advocates say the raised intersection wasn’t built tall enough and is stamped to look like bricks instead of being made of brick, causing confusion for drivers and challenges for pedestrians. “Drivers aren’t actually clear about where they’re supposed to go, we’ve been seeing drivers on the sidewalk,” a representative for Central Seattle Greenwaystold CHS earlier this. year. Continue reading →
