Tag Archives: stevens

Tortas, fun drinks, and women’s sports — Pitch the Baby and Condesa teaming up on Capitol Hill’s 19th Ave E

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The former Rocket Taco bar will become Pitch the Baby

(Image: Condesa)

A Seattle all-star team of food, drink, and culture is ready to bring a new game to a storied space in Capitol Hill food and drink.

Pitch the Baby is being jacked up as a new-era sports bar in the long ago home of the Kingfish Cafe along Capitol Hill’s 19th Ave E. Monica Dimas, Anais Custer, and Kim “Kimfer” Flanery-Rye are teaming up on the project.

“What do you get when you mix fun drinks, women’s sports, and an excellent bar menu?,” the bar’s social media tease asks.

The project will bring together ownership with experience ranging from Dimas’s dearly departed Little Neon Taco to Custer’s involvement with Capitol Hill hangouts La Dive and Montana. Flanery-Rye founded the social enterprise Inclusion Equals.

Dimas, meanwhile, is also putting out early word on a rebirth of her Tortas Condesa concept that will share the space. Condesa is being lined up for the restaurant’s north section on the other side of the wall from the sports bar end of the action.

The opportunity in sports bars that stretch beyond the NFL and MLB to include the WNBA, NWSL, and LPGA has grown with Seattle venues like Ballard’s Rough & Tumble Pub. Continue reading →

The Rocket Taco has landed — Capitol Hill Mexican joint swaps corners on 19th Ave E

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(Image: Rocket Taco)

Like a SpaceX capsule linking up with the ISS, Capitol Hill’s Rocket Taco completed a complicate maneuver this week, switching 19th Ave E corners and beginning a new mission in a much newer, easier to manage space.

Customers of the 19th Ave E casual Mexican joint who may not have heard about the plans might be surprised by the new location and the speed of reentry as the restaurant was able to move and reopen this week.

CHS reported here in January on the change for the seven-year-old sibling to the Whidbey Island original. Owner Steve Rosen said Rocket Taco could not pass up the opportunity to operate in a newer space with a modern kitchen and expansive patio. Rocket Taco’s new restaurant home was first designed for Linda Derschang and her Tallulah’s venture.

“Right now we aren’t planning anything new, but we are definitely excited about serving margaritas on that beautiful patio,” Rosen told CHS earlier this year. “It’s such a beautiful outdoor space.”

Rocket Taco originally was ready to welcome a new food and drink neighbor across E Mercer but an ambitious effort that had been lined up for the shuttered space fell through. The restaurant was most recently home to Bounty Kitchen which closed in 2023 after limping through the pandemic, and was undergoing an overhaul for a major new project from an investment group and former Willows Inn chef Nick Green. Green and the investors behind the Emilia project have not responded to questions about the decision to pull back on the project.

Rocket Taco’s move leaves an iconic — but challenged — Capitol Hill restaurant space empty and darkened. We’ll be watching for what comes next for the 100-year-old restaurant space where the Kingfish Cafe once ruled.

Rocket Taco is now open at 550 19th Ave E. Learn more at rocket-taco.com.

 

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Capitol Hill’s Rocket Taco launches plan for big move — across the street

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The old Kingfish will soon need a new tenant

(Image: Rocket Taco)

Rocket Taco is making an important adjustment to its Capitol Hill orbit.

Seven years after touching down on 19th Ave E, the Seattle sibling to the Whidbey Island original is making a big switch from the more than 100-year-old restaurant space where Kingfish Cafe once ruled and leaping ahead 105 years to the empty restaurant in the 2014-built 19th & Mercer “luxury apartments” building across the street.

Owner Steve Rosen confirmed the planned move to the intersection’s southeast corner and said Rocket Taco could not pass up the opportunity to operate in a newer space with a modern kitchen and expansive patio.

Rocket Taco’s new restaurant home was first designed for Linda Derschang and her Tallulah’s venture. Continue reading →

Schooled — District backs off Stevens Elementary closure and says push to shutter Seattle campuses is over

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Capitol Hill’s Stevens Elementary and three other Seattle Public Schools campuses targeted for closure in a long and painful system budget process will not be shut down next year, the district has announced. The move as has become the norm with the district’s handling of the closure plans leaves as many questions as answers.

Superintendent Brent Jones announced the full retreat on the shutdown plan as students head into the Thanksgiving holiday this week, saying the months of worry, changing roster of possible closures, and evolving accounting of possible savings from closures “highlighted the need for constructive conversations and collaboration to replace conflict, as meaningful progress for our students requires unity and shared purpose.”

“The projected $5.5 million savings from the proposed closures are significant,” Jones said in the announcement. “However, we agree that achieving these savings should not come at the cost of dividing our community.”

At Stevens on North Capitol Hill, life for the kids continues with hopefully fewer distractions over undoubtedly confusing talk of their small school closing. Announcements for the popular PTA fundraiser holiday tree sale were going out despite the planned closure. Continue reading →

Parent group calls on Seattle Schools to abandon closure plans as superintendent says he may back off ‘preliminary recommendation’

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A parents group is calling for action after the Seattle Public Schools superintendent told the school board earlier this week he is considering fully backtracking on a planned shutdown of campuses including Capitol Hill’s Stevens Elementary.

“This is a pivotal moment for Seattle Public Schools from which we believe it can learn and grow,” the All Together For Seattle Schools group said in a statement. “The district’s announcement that it may reconsider its closure plans demonstrates that the district needs to fundamentally rethink its governance and management approach, and the way it engages the community.”

The group is calling on Superintendent Brent Jones and the district to immediately “abandon its school closure plans,” saying “there remains no benefits to student outcomes or the budget deficit, and enrollment projections are on the upswing.”

Tuesday, Jones announced he is considering shelving the shutdown plan and withdrawing his “preliminary recommendation” in an update to the district’s elected school board. Continue reading →

Families ask questions with Capitol Hill’s Stevens Elementary at front of line in what could be years of Seattle public school closures — UPDATE

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Families will be demonstrating Tuesday night as the Seattle School Board is scheduled to be updated on Superintendent Brent Jones’s plan to begin a painful period of campus closures including the shutdown of Capitol Hill’s Stevens Elementary next year.

Friday night, Stevens families were left mostly frustrated in a question and answer session with Seattle Public Schools officials on hand to justify the recommendation to shutter the North Capitol Hill campus and move its students to nearby under construction Montlake Elementary as part of a plan that would begin with four schools closing in the 2025-2026 to help address an expected more-than-$130 million budget deficit.

Repeated details from officials Friday night of the long, multiyear, and seemingly predestined path to shutting down Stevens left many parents frustrated about what will only be around a $1.5 million a year savings, the district says, from the school’s consolidation with nearby Montlake.

“The moment that Montlake went under construction, we knew Stevens was on the slate to be closed,” one parent told the assembled SPS representatives.

CHS reported here on the questions around the proposed Stevens closure after it emerged as one of four Seattle elementary campuses on a list of planned “consolidations” as the district backed down from an initial plan that could have cut 21 campuses from the system after public outcry.

Friday night, district officials repeated the overarching message of what could be a series of shutdowns over the coming years. “Schools need to be a certain size” to be efficient and make sure the district is financially viable,” with “appropriate scale, and appropriate design,” one official said. Continue reading →

Does Seattle Public Schools really need to close Stevens Elementary?

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(Image: Google Earth)

Seattle Public Schools says this week is about providing information and answering questions as it holds a series of community meetings including a districtwide online session Thursday and a local meeting Friday night at Stevens Elementary to discuss the planned cost cutting-driven closure of four campuses including the North Capitol Hill school.

“Please note this is not a public hearing,” SPS says about Thursday’s online session. “Those meetings will be held in December.”

The same goes for Friday night’s session at Stevens. The district has already wrapped up meetings at other schools on the cut list including a session Tuesday night at West Seattle’s Sanislo Elementary where parents reportedly heard from district officials about the planned closures and asked sometimes loaded questions of the district officials who attended. Continue reading →

Lord Byron, friend and Capitol Hill explorer, remembered

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Image courtesy Cristi Russo

A map of Lord Byron’s roamings from lordbyron.pet

The King of Cat-paw-tol Hill is dead. A memorial grows at 20th and Denny to mark his passing.

Lord Byron, whose years of exploring and making this corner of the city his own earned the orange tabby a place among neighborhood royalty, was 8.

“The best thing about LB was the way he brought people together,” his family tells CHS about the cat’s passing. “It’s what we ❤️ about Capitol Hill and Seattle.”

“Also, he would want everyone to vote,” they added.

Lord Byron, it is true, often had the community and its snacks and soft couches and excellent chin scratches in mind. And Lord Byron always had an angle. Continue reading →

Open letter: Stevens Elementary supporters ask board to spare Capitol Hill school as district prepares 5-campus cut list

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The families of Capitol Hill’s Stevens Elementary are not sitting idly while they wait for Seattle Public Schools to announce what campuses it will close.

The district responded to public outcry last month by slicing the planned number of campuses to be closed from more than 20 to five.

Kris Myllenbeck, a Stevens supporter and founder of the designer inflatable pool company Mylle, has shared a letter to the school board with CHS and says that more than 170 people from Capitol Hill have signed on, with 130 providing testimonials about why the North Capitol Hill school should not be shut down.

Families fear Stevens will be on the cut list when the district names its five closures, an announcement they’re expecting next week. Continue reading →

‘Loud and clear’: Capitol Hill’s Stevens Elementary off the list — for now — as district has new plan to close fewer campuses

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(Image: Seattle Public Schools)

Capitol Hill’s Stevens Elementary might have the opportunity to change its name, afterall.

The North Capitol Hill campus is off the list — for now — as Seattle Public Schools has changed its plans from cuts that would have sliced more than 20 campuses to a cutback that will shut down five following public outcry over the district’s efforts to overcome a looming budget deficit.

Superintendent Brent Jones announced the new, less aggressive plan for cutbacks Tuesday, saying his office heard complaints about the initial planned closure of up to 21 elementary school campuses “loud and clear.”

“We know we need the support of our students, families, and staff to uplift a large-scale change such as this,” Jones said in the announcement. “My hope is that we can work together to re-establish a level of trust that allows us to move forward in a way that honors our school communities.” Continue reading →