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Let it Bean closure will add another teensy, tiny hole on Broadway

We’ve been surprised before by the coffee shack’s business resiliency but this just might really be the end. Yet another hole — this one, teensy, tiny — is about to be torn in Broadway’s business fabric. Let it Bean is set to close this coming weekend.

Owner Candace Smith confirmed the closure plans with CHS earlier this month. It has been no secret. Smith posted a note to let customers know what was coming.

Smith tells CHS the 80-square-foot coffee stand in the teriyaki restaurant parking lot at Broadway and Harrison, despite its grandmothered usage allowing it to operate as a drive-thru, just doesn’t generate enough business to cover costs. “I’m closing because the rent and labor costs are too high for where our sales are,” she writes. “Coffee is a hard product to charge more for.”

Let it Bean transformed itself out of the former TNT Espresso in late 2016. Smith acquired the business from Rock Sielaff who, in turn, acquired it from longtime TNT operator Monica Anaya. Sielaff’s tour of duty lasted a year. Anaya, or Momo, and her crew were behind the counter for much longer. We visited in 2015 to say goodbye to the shack only to see it spring back to life with new ownership.

That could again be the case with the latest closure. But Smith said any new business will be starting from scratch — all of the espresso gear is being pulled out when Let it Bean closes, she said.

As for Smith, she tells CHS she will get back to focus on her career as a massage therapist.

The closure will join a ripple of businesses exiting Broadway. The month started with an abrupt shuttering of the second-coming of Charlie’s on Broadway. A bankruptcy meltdown of the chain means Broadway’s American Apparel will close any day now. And on Friday, Dilettante announced it was exiting its birth neighborhood at the end of the month with the closure of its cafe and martini bar at Broadway and Mercer.

Let it Bean is scheduled to remain open through Sunday, January 29th.

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Aaron
Aaron
7 years ago

Can there be some justice in this world and have that stupid eyesore Sleep Train store close across the street? Broadway isn’t a strip mall in Lynnwood.

JayH
JayH
7 years ago
Reply to  Aaron

The chains are the businesses that can afford storefront rent in our neighborhood. I expect to see more of them.

Jim98122x
Jim98122x
7 years ago
Reply to  Aaron

Every time someone brings this up, it’s helpful to remember that chain stores have been part of Broadway off & on for years. People rage on about how nobody should expect free parking and “who needs a car on Capitol Hill?”, but there hundreds of new apartments coming online, the residents all need somewhere to sleep, and many of them don’t have cars to drive to Lynnwood or Bellevue. Which is it? Do we hate cars, or should everyone drive to Lynnwood to buy a bed? Or take 4 hours do do it on a bus and back?

InThe206
InThe206
7 years ago
Reply to  Aaron

Broadway has always had chains, sometimes many of them all at the same time. That *very storefront* was, not so long ago, a Payless Shoe Source, which was across the street from The Gap, which at the time in the early to mid-90’s shared that stretch of Broadway (north of John) with QFC (old one), Safeway, Fred Meyer, Bartell’s, Rite Aid, Taco Bell, numerous corporate bank branches, I think a Hallmark, 76 gas station, and a few other chains I’ve forgotten. Many of these – most notably Safeway and QFC – also had large surface parking lots attached, right along Broadway. So it’s not quite that bad that there’s a Sleep Train in that spot.

Jason
Jason
7 years ago
Reply to  Aaron

We need a Walmart on broadway

JayH
JayH
7 years ago
Reply to  Aaron

Jack In the Box, I miss you most of all.

fluffy
7 years ago
Reply to  Aaron

In the specific case of Sleep Train, there are way better ways to buy beds and mattresses these days. There are plenty of online retailers who will sell you really good mattresses that cost way less than Sleep Train’s ridiculous 1000% markup, and last just as long and are way more comfortable.

I bought my current mattress on Amazon (I know, not exactly beloved here either but whatever), and there’s also things like Casper and a few other upstart good-mattress-for-$500-or-less places. And it’s lasted way longer than the previous one I had – which I bought at Sleep Train, and cost WAY the hell more.

Jim98122x
Jim98122x
7 years ago
Reply to  Aaron

Fluffy, I’m happy that you found so many other ways to buy a mattress that were more to YOUR liking than using a showroom. That doesn’t mean everyone wants to, or would feel comfortable doing it the same way you did. Why don’t we let people buy things the way they want to? Besides, if everyone buys everything from warehouses, eventually we’ll have a huge underclass of $12/hr warehouse workers while a tiny % of bloated plutocrats lord over an underclass of laborers. Not all of us want to help that along.

Aaron
Aaron
7 years ago
Reply to  Aaron

I totally get that Broadway has been home to chains. Trust me, I miss Taco Bell and Jack in the Crack as much as the next guy. My issue with Sleep Train in particular is that it’s a relatively large storefront with a huge sign that is essentially a dead space to almost all people in the neighborhood unless you need that new mattress every…what…5-10 years? That seems like something you could bring yourself to get off the Hill for in exchange for having a space that you’d like to visit more than once per decade.

Prost Seattle
Prost Seattle
7 years ago
Reply to  Aaron

Yes, I find that Sleep Train store with product and lights on is so much more detrimental to Broadway than the 5+ year vacant Broadway Grill space 1/2 block away.

Kim
Kim
7 years ago
Reply to  Prost Seattle

Any insight into why Broadway Grill is still vacant? It feels like a master plan to wait out all the tenants so they can develop the parcel… But it’s been like 5 years!?

Adam
Adam
7 years ago

I’m skeptical that someone could take over a business that has no build out or initial equipment costs and not be almost completely aware of what the labor and supply costs are going to be versus revenue. This place has been around, it has an installed set of customers more or less. It is 80 square feet and needs one person to run it at a time, which for the most part would be the owner.

Something doesn’t add up.

Adam
Adam
7 years ago
Reply to  Adam

Unless the rent went up…. :|

Jason
Jason
7 years ago
Reply to  Adam

All my buddies and me go to sleep train. Half the fun is trying them out!

RWK
RWK
7 years ago

I think it is likely that the northern 2/3 of this block, including this coffee stand as well as the teriyaki business and the old Broadway Grill, will be demolished in favor of a redevelopment as an apartment building. It is prime land for this, being so close to the light rail station. I’m not sure why this is taking so long, but wonder if it has something to do with the pending upzone along Broadway.

Matt Baume
7 years ago
Reply to  RWK

My understanding is that the coffee/teriyaki parcel is a former gas station, and as such would require expensive environmental remediation for redevelopment — so it may be a very long time before anyone wants to do that. Does anyone know if that’s true? My source is pure word of mouth, so who knows if it’s accurate.

RWK
RWK
7 years ago
Reply to  RWK

I’ve lived in Seattle for most of my 71 years, and I don’t ever remember a gas station there. If there was, it would have been before WWII.

Mutha Mary
Mutha Mary
7 years ago

The rent went way up from when Monica had it, and people’s expectations for wages have also gone up. Candace was working 72 hours a week on average, which is a recipe for burn-out. I admire her for sticking it out as long as she did. Anyone who criticizes her is unwelcome here.

kim dalan
kim dalan
7 years ago

I had a fun chat with a barista at TNT a while back who said that the teriyaki joint was more or less only in business because of their Zipcar revenue. How long until that business folds?

Jonathan
Jonathan
7 years ago
Reply to  kim dalan

The teriyaki joint has good food though!

dave
dave
7 years ago
Reply to  kim dalan

That’s actually some of the best teriyaki around.

Prost Seattle
Prost Seattle
7 years ago

Is anybody else surprised that squatters haven’t found their way inside the Broadway grill and burned it down like they did to several houses?

ERF
ERF
7 years ago
Reply to  Prost Seattle

Or empty buildings above Post Ally about a week ago…

Jason
Jason
7 years ago
Reply to  Prost Seattle

I would take my homemade spaghetti and garlic bread over the terrayki joint any day!

Jason
Jason
7 years ago

Why go there when you can go to Starbucks ?

Dave
Dave
7 years ago

Broadway is almost dead to me. Dilettante gone. Charlie’s gone. Taco Bell gone. Ghenki Sushi. All that remains, for me, are Pho Cyclo and Vivaci.

Max
Max
7 years ago
Reply to  Dave

Hey, believe me I get it. But Broadway isn’t all about stores. It’s supposed to be about people too. People.

kim dalan
kim dalan
7 years ago
Reply to  Dave

Pho Cyclo was bought out a couple months back. I think it’s “The Pho” now.

Jim98122x
Jim98122x
7 years ago
Reply to  Dave

“The Pho” is awful now, too. Even worse than Than Brothers. And that’s pretty bad.

fluffy
7 years ago
Reply to  Dave

That’s a shame. I loved Pho Cyclo and thought (from my admittedly totally-not-Vietnamese-but-had-a-lot-of-Vietnamese-friends-growing-up perspective) they had the best pho broth in town. Haven’t been there since the change in ownership though.

Although I don’t personally mourn Genki. That sushi was always pretty nasty. Then again, the Yo! Zushi that replaced it is even worse, somehow.

Jason
Jason
7 years ago
Reply to  Dave

The last best dive bar on capitol is The summit public house. Everyone says it’s a hidden gem, most people don’t even know about it because it’s tucked away in the neighborhood. My buddies and me like to go out and play pool there on Friday nights.

topofthehiller
topofthehiller
7 years ago
Reply to  Dave

I was just at the “The Pho” on Saturday and their food was exactly the same (in flavor and price) as before when it was Pho Cyclo. Also no changes to the menu that I can see. I have no idea what Jim98122 is talking about…

topofthehiller
topofthehiller
7 years ago

I’m sad to see a local business go, though frankly why would you get coffee there when you can cross the street and get (arguably) one of the best espressos in the US?

Drive thru is less of a novelty on the Hill where most people walk up.

Jonathan
Jonathan
7 years ago
Reply to  topofthehiller

Drive thru on that busy well-walked corner is actually a really bad idea because the cars have to cross 2 sidewalks to get in and out. Won’t miss that part.

Adam
Adam
7 years ago
Reply to  topofthehiller

I went to coffee stand because the Americano was actually better there. For me, that means stronger. For a long time they used Herkimer Coffee, which is delicious. Also, people like Momo were fantastic to see on a day-to-day basis. Always smiling, asking me how I was, what was going down. That’s service. Vivace is great, I love the coffee, but they don’t excel in the friendly, everybody-knows-your-name kind of way.

Jason
Jason
7 years ago

The guys that work at Sleep Train are really nice. That store is more useful than most of the shitty restaurants on Broadway. Can’t wait to see their “food scores”. Not surprised they are starting to drop like flies.

@TimKerrick
7 years ago

that’s the nature of business, they come & go. as much as I’ll miss that coffee spot a bunch but the neighborhood is changing, if we really want someplace to stay we need to spend more money lest it has to close it’s door too.