Stateside’s sister venture will be located on the other side of its paned glass entrance. (Image: CHS)
Seattle’s best restaurant of 2015 is ready to expand on Capitol Hill.
After opening Stateside to much fanfare just over a year ago, the owners behind the E Pike Vietnamese restaurant are planning a brand new venture in a small space just next door. Stateside’s world-travelled chef/owner Eric Johnson tells CHS the concept and name of the project are still a secret.
“Stateside itself is not going to change at all,” Johnson said. “What’s happening next door is going to be its own thing.”
The new 756 square-foot bar space will echo the trend of recent Hill food and drink ventures rolling out smaller bars in accompaniment of their main restaurant space like Renee Erickson’s Bateau-Bar Melusine combo. Plus, for all the positive press Stateside has won in the past year, its cocktails sometimes get lost in the shuffle.
The project also adds yet another venue to our list of Capitol Hill food+drink projects to look forward to in 2016.
After rolling out a new brunch menu in November, being named Seattle Met’s restaurant of the year, and recording their biggest single day in sales last Saturday, Johnson and co-owner Seth Hammond are on a roll. With a consistent staff lineup and several mainstay dishes, Johnson said Stateside is now working to push the bar (of success) even higher.
“We’re just starting to hit that stride,” Johnson said. “We’re really focusing in on how good we can make everything.”
Expect more about the project and its planned opening date target to be announced in coming weeks.
Coconut Cocktail? #Vietnamese #vietnamesefood #cocktails #bar #seattle #capitolhill #pnw #umbrelladrinks #? #? pic.twitter.com/uT4ipg22j7
— Stateside Restaurant (@StatesideSEA) September 13, 2015
Capitol Hill food+drink notes
Tom Douglas, who has said his Starbucks collaboration Serious Pie Pike is the farthest up Capitol Hill he’ll venture, has announced a 20% service charge will replace gratuities at his Dahlia Lounge, Palace Kitchen and The Carlile Room as of February. From the Seattle Times:
The entirety of the 20 percent service charge “will be redistributed to our team through wages, commissions and benefits,” Douglas said in a news release. Among the goals of the change, he said, is to “provide greater compensation equity for front of house and back of house.” (The company said it based the 20 percent figure on average customer tips over the past three years.) And while Douglas’s take on Seattle’s $15-an-hour minimum wage has not necessarily been positive in the past, he promised, “We are committed to everyone on our team making $15 or more immediately instead of following the schedule as laid out in the Seattle ordinance regulations.”
Tom Douglas Restaurants has more than 1,000 employees and announced it expects to roll out the change to all of its restaurants later this year.- Dick Spady — the reason you eat a Dick Burger and not a Richard Burger — has died.
- Mamnoon’s Jason Stratton is still alive on Top Chef California: “I wasn’t really feeling the creativity. Being here my battery is recharging.”
- Tallulah’s is ready to help you resolve to better health with some cleansing specials:
Please join us at Tallulah’s as we celebrate our friend, neighbor and nationally acclaimed food writer, Sara Dickerman’s new book, Bon Appétit: The Food Lover’s Cleanse: 140 Delicious, Nourishing Recipes That Will Tempt You Back into Healthful Eating. Tallulah’s will feature dishes from the book as specials twice a week through February 15th. - South Sound Restaurant Group has acquired Coastal Kitchen — and the building it calls home.
- Now open at 15th and Pine: Honor Coffee. The local chain is planning a rapid expansion across Seattle — all the way to China. “People in China still worship Starbucks. The service industry doesn’t exist. We hope to change that,” CEO Hanna Hu tells CHS.
- Good news: Optimism Brewing — the 16,000 square feet and beer hall at Broadway and Union previously open only Thursday through Sunday — is now also open on Wednesdays.
Hello, hump day, we're open 4-11p on Wednesdays starting now. pic.twitter.com/f1QdeJSO30
— Optimism Brewing Co. (@OptimismBrewing) January 13, 2016
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