- We speculated that the ‘mystery’ restaurant replacing 12th Ave’s Dawson Plumbing after 74 years of business on Capitol Hill might be the long-awaited Skillet Diner. We were wrong. According to King County Property records, the buyer of the $1.5 million, 1922 warehouse-turned-retail space is a certain Steven Han of Seattle. A person familiar with the situation tells us it’s the same Steve Han behind Belltown’s Umi Sake House and Japanese streetfood concept Kushibar. Not sure which way Han is going to go with his 12th Ave establishment but it’s a good bet the direction is to the east. Whatever the concept ends up being, we probably won’t see a new place in the location for a few months. There are no construction permit applications even filed yet. We haven’t confirmed the details with Han yet but will try to catch up with him as things progress.
- So, where does that leave Skillet Diner. One of the granddaddies of Seattle’s new era street food purveyors, we’ve reported that Skillet has been testing its Capitol Hill sit-down menu at the Mount Baker community — here’s a review — signaling that we might be close to finding out the location of Skillet’s brick and mortar Capitol Hill home. Turns out, the answer has been sitting right in front of us. While digging around for more information about the coming of Grim to 11th Ave, we stumbled upon a September 24th Department of Planning construction application for a $75,000 project to convert an existing retail space into a legal restaurant space. The name of the business on the permit? Skillet Diner, LLC. According to the permit, the new diner will occupy Suite 102 in the Chloe Apartments building on 14th Ave at East Union. We’ll see what we can do to find out more about Skillet’s goal for opening the new space is. The location will make Skillet Diner neighbors to Donna Moodie’s Marjorie and a new distillery taking over the long-empty Panzanella Bakery space across the street.
- One bullet point begets another. So, that distillery? When we originally reported on the project in August we made mention of a hardware store that showed up in permit records for the location. We’ve since found that the hardware store was part of an old filing that never went anywhere. Oola Distillery, on the other hand, is going somewhere and should be open within two months, we’re told.
Aoki Sushi is shut downclosed temporarily. See comment from mattw, below. Thanks to tipper Aaron for the picture of the sign that was posted at the restaurant last week. We’re told the sign has since been updated to say Aoki is planning to reopen. King County records don’t show any recent violations so it wasn’t the inspector. We haven’t been able to reach anybody to get more information yet but will update when we do.- Via Tribunali has a pop-up kids menu that looks like good fun. They’re also planning to open in Portland, soon, their PR says. And, hey, so is Cafe Vita. Trib and Pike St. Fish Fry sill have their NYC outlet plans in motion, too, despite some community pushback.
- The drama around CC Attle’s new home is still playing out. The big worry was that the mother of all gay bars was without a lease for a new location but they say they’ve got that sewn up. The remaining drama revolves around the existing bar being replaced. We know the location but are trying to get the involved parties to talk before we write more given some of the chatter we’re hearing about the situation.
- Honeyhole is bringing back two local faves to the menu and serving up some deals to celebrate.
- This Seattle Weekly post about a cup of coffee from the Elliott Bay Cafe is, indeed, a mystery. “I know that it is espresso. And yet, oddly, in both body and flavor (and as it cools, appearance), what I am drinking is French Press.”
- Welcome new CHS food and drink advertisers Big Mario’s Pizza and Auto Battery as well as the 2010 Slice conference — “Strengthening Local Independent Co-ops Everywhere”
It will re-open shortly.
Thanks Matt. Will update the post above so people know it’s not something more serious. Suppose you’d be the first (or second) to know about their pipes. Hope your magic robots stayed dry.
I love these posts, but it’s quite a lot of info to take in! Amazing all the details / news that you nail down.
CHS needs something like a retail stock ticker, sortable / filter-able by type of business, general location, and date of update! (EDITED: hey if you build it, throw in a field for developer / owner names as well!)
Up on First Hill we received our liquor license today just in time for the MLB playoffs! Limited selection of liquor, will have our full selection Friday.
Primo