Owner of Taurus Ox opening Ananas Pizzeria bringing Lao pizza and dive bar classics to First Hill

(Image: Ananas Pizzeria)

The flavors of a classic pizzeria and Lao cuisine are set to marry in Ananas Pizzeria, a pizza dive bar reintroducing classics while putting a spin on the classic pie from Seattle restaurateur Khampaeng Panyathong.

The pizza joint on 8th Ave is a new name returning to an old spot. The location was once filled by Primo Pizza Parlor, a favorite in the neighborhood. Taurus Ox and Ananas Pizzeria chef/owner Panyathong champions staying true to the roots of the local culture. The building has over 100 years of history within its walls and a new business is incoming.

“As soon as I walked in I was able to feel this energy and see beyond the rundown nature of the building,”  Panyathong said. “I was just envisioning the possibilities of what this space could become.”

Panyathong plans to open the new pizza joint this month.

Despite the Lao influence, Panyathong sees Ananas Pizzeria as a separate entity from Taurus Ox and its sibling Ox Burger. CHS reported here on the reshuffling of Taurus Ox and Ox Burger. Taurus Ox on 19th Ave E hosts a menu of traditional Lao cuisine, a mile southwest of the original Taurus Ox location, now Ox Burger. Panyathong says there are a few connections between his projects.

“I couldn’t miss this opportunity to do a Lao pizza,” Panyathong said. “We’re really close to figuring it out.” Continue reading

Where Starbucks fears to tread, Papa Johns comes to Capitol Hill

Only a few national restaurant chains have been tough enough to last around Capitol Hill and the Central District but a new player has entered the arena along E Madison.

Pizza chain Papa Johns is now open in the Avant Apartments across from fhe Central District Safeway at the fuzzy dividing line between the neighborhoods.

The pre-pandemic development has slowly been filling its ground floor retail spaces. The new fast food pizza shop joins local handroll bar Uminori that took over the space where this upscale Japanese binchotan charcoal concept never caught on and plans for a new Indian grocery to fill the Avant commercial footprint.

The arrival of the built on “conservative values” chain is probably less interesting than it might have been a few years ago before a racist conference call forced company founder and face of the corporation John Schnatter out of power. Continue reading

Lark is rebooting its 12th Ave pizza joint — as Cora, a 12th Ave pizza joint

The Lark food and drink family is staying in the pizza business with a reboot in the restaurant’s original 12th Ave space.

Cora Pizza and Plates is set to debut this week in the original home of Lark where John Sundstrom, Kelly Ronan, and JM Enos opened the boxing themed Southpaw wood-fired pizza joint in late 2016. Southpaw was praised for its pizza but led a rather quiet existence in the space until Lark closed it down last year with ownership looking for a new concept for the address.

It turns out, apparently, that a new take on pizza made the most sense. Continue reading

With condolences to 29th and Jackson regulars, Central Pizza is changing hands

29th and Jackson, where Frink Park meets the Central District, isn’t the first place you think of in Seattle’s food and drink scene but Ellie Rose says the neighborhood’s regulars made it the best even as the challenges of running a Seattle restaurant have added up:

I will miss everyone so much and have been so grateful to meet so many amazing people and be apart of your lives. Watching children grow up, seeing people get married, divorced, remarried. Witnessing young couples starting families. Being there for people who lost loved ones. Surviving a pandemic together. My heart is heavy and I feel so lucky to be apart of everyone’s life and a part of this community. I wish I could do it forever but it’s taking a toll on me and I need to start a new chapter.

Rose is ready to move on and Central Pizza is changing hands. After a decade of Central District and Leschi pizza business, new owners are taking over. Pizza will possibly stay on the menu. But the rest is up in the air. Continue reading

New pairing at Capitol Hill’s Redhook Brewlab as Chef Shota brings Kōbo and its Detroit+Osaka pizzas to E Pike

The Flat Earther (Image: Kōbo)

(Image: Redhook Brewlab)

Shota Nakajima is ready to help out his neighbor, bringing pizza with Detroit and Osaka roots to the kitchen of Capitol Hill’s Redhook Brewlab.

Kōbo will debut this weekend, taking over the menu of the E Pike microbrewery with Nakajima’s take on pizza pie and providing new energy that could help fill the beer maker’s tables and big street-side patio.

“I was fascinated the first time I saw Detroit-style pizza. Having trained in Osaka, which is known as the ‘starch city’ of Japan, I was inspired by things like Okonomiyaki and Takoyaki, which employ a starch base that is generally cooked over high heat in cast iron or black steel, with a signature crispy exterior and chewy interior,” Nakajima said in a press release on the new link-up.

“It was a natural step to utilize this similar ideology, and staying true to my culinary roots and training, employ the use of koji, nori, and mochiko flour to achieve both umami and a heavenly texture for our dough.” Continue reading

Once notorious for its E Olive Way sign, Capitol Hill’s Amante Pizza has closed

(Image: Amante Pizza and Pasta)

Capitol Hill’s Amante Pizza and Pasta has closed taking its relatively affordable pies and memories of its notorious flashing E Olive Way sign with it.

CHS reported here on the 2018 closure of the E Olive Way Amante to make way for an overhaul for a new pot shop.

It turned out, the restaurant’s outsized flashing electronic sign was also shut down and removed. Cannabis retailer Reef opened in the building later that year with downstairs neighbor La Rue Creperie and Espresso joining the mix in 2020. Continue reading

Capitol Hill’s Poke Bar has closed but its LA-based cousin Fat Tomato Pizza is already moved in

NY pizza via Venice Beach from Fat Tomato Pizza (Image: Fat Tomato)

The guys behind Capitol Hill’s now permanently closed Poke Bar have more food and drink concepts where that came from.

Their latest is now resident of the Packard Building’s 12th and Pine corner where a few new signs and some small changes behind the counter have set the stage for the appearance of Capitol Hill’s latest pizza joint — Fat Tomato.

The sudden and mostly unheralded arrival of the Southern California pizza chain in Seattle is part of the busy, ever shifting world of the guys behind a string of franchises born out of Northridge, California’s Yanagi Sushi.

The company still has Poke Bar locations along with its collection of Fat Tomato locations. It also has dabbled with concepts like Katsu Bar along the way. Continue reading

Already home to Bombay Burger, Capitol Hill adding a new Indian restaurant with a twist: pizza

Capitol Hill is already home to an Indian burger joint. Bombay Burger opened in May with paneer burgers and masala fries on E Madison.

Soon, the neighborhood will have an Indian pizza joint.

Pizza Twist, a pizza franchise with Indian-flavored ingredients and influences is making plans to open in the Broadway space previously home to Ammi’s Pakwan and New India Express which closed during the pandemic.

The new Pizza Twist location — apparently the first in Washington state for the Chicago-born franchise — will be operated by the same ownership who took over Broadway’s Mirch Masala last year. The new business partners were said to all be first-time restaurant owners at the time. Now they’re about to own at least two. UPDATE: Sorry! As noted in comments, there are already locations in Kent and Lynnwood.

The new venture will explore another avenue of present-day Indian cuisine: pizza — Continue reading

Next target for law firm that took on Pagliacci over wage theft: Zeeks Pizza

The same legal firm that wrestled Capitol Hill-based Pagliacci into settling a $3.75 million wage theft lawsuit with delivery drivers has turned its sights on another Seattle pizza target.

The Terrell Marshall Law Group is suing Zeeks Pizza on behalf of a former employee in a class action case that could represent around 100 delivery drivers.

The lawsuit filed last week claims Zeeks withheld wages and tips owed to delivery drivers. Monetary damages would be determined at trial. The suit names the company’s management Thomas Vial, Douglas McLure, and Daniel Black, and franchise owners Monica Pavelka and Chris Flanders.

Zeeks Pizza opened on Capitol Hill on 19th Ave E in 2019 under franchisee and neighborhood resident Sean Murray. Murray is not named in the suit filed on behalf of “all individuals who are or have been employed as delivery drivers at any Zeek’s Pizza restaurant in the State of Washington” since May 2018. Continue reading

After long court battle over $3 fee, Pagliacci settles $3.75M wage theft lawsuit with drivers

Capitol Hill-headquartered Pagliacci has settled a $3.75 million class action lawsuit brought on behalf of the Seattle pizza chain’s delivery drivers who sued over the company’s wage practices including “failing to pay delivery drivers the automatic ‘delivery charge’ paid by customers” and not passing along tips.

The wage theft settlement was reached earlier this year but announced by the E Pike headquartered chain Wednesday bringing a four-year court battle over the $3 delivery fee to a close.

“Pagliacci has engaged in a systematic scheme of wage and hour abuses against its pizza delivery drivers,” lawyers wrote in the 2017 complaint that kicked off the long legal tussle.

In a statement sent to media, Pagliacci said when the company first added the service charge, “it failed to state in all the places required by state statute precisely who received the money from the delivery fee.” Continue reading