Next summer, you’ll line up for brunch here

Still lining up on E Olive Way (Image: CHS)

Through everything you can say about present day Capitol Hill, what has happened to it, how everything has changed, and how much better your remember it being, there is this.

There is a place on Capitol Hill — the Capitol Hill of today — for the beloved Glo’s Cafe to move into, spread out a bit, and start again.

“One of our managers said, ‘Glo’s deserves nice things,'” owner Julie Reisman tells CHS about plans for Glo’s to leave after 34 years on E Olive Way for a new home in 2022 in the new buildings rising above Capitol Hill Station.

“That part is really exciting,” she says. “A group of people who cares so much about the community — an incredibly talented staff… we talked about this over the years but never have been able to do any of it. There will be lots of opportunity for staff to branch out.”

“New Glo’s,” as Reisman puts it, will find the enduringly popular brunch and breakfast spot reborn amid the “gleaming cubes” of the transit oriented development above the neighborhood light rail station, part of a new mix of hundreds of new affordable and market-rate apartments, and businesses including large — the H-Mart will finally open this year — and small. Glo’s will join the complex above the development’s central plaza and the AIDS Memorial Pathway, facing west across the space and with a deck with a view of Cal Anderson Park.

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Hopefully, Glo’s brings the plastic furniture along (Image: Glo’s Cafe)

And the eggs benny (Image: Glo’s)

And the neon (Image: CHS)

The addition of outside space with views of the neighborhood’s central park is matched by the expansion little Glo’s will undertake inside as it grows from its longtime constrictions at 830 square feet on E Olive Way to the new 2,900-square-foot home.

Reisman said there are big plans for the “big” space as she and business partner Steve Frias will finally be able to pursue ambitions around the company including an expanded espresso program and, yes, bloody mary revenue. The new Glo’s will finally allow the cafe to offer a “breakfast cocktail sheet,” Reisman says. Meanwhile, another legend of Capitol Hill tiny spaces with big places in neighborhood hearts will join as Monica “Momo” Anaya heads up the new coffee ambitions at Glo’s after closing her much loved Broadway coffee shack TNT Espresso in 2015.

“She makes a damn cup good of coffee,” Reisman said.

The plan as of now is for the buildout to take place through spring of 2022 with hopes for a June reopening in the new Capitol Hill Station plaza location. In the meantime, Reisman says the hope is for Glo’s to keep doing business on E Olive Way nearly right up to the opening and to only be closed “for as small amount as possible.”

The arrival of 1987 founder Gloreen Raineri’s tiny, long-lived cafe in the middle of a busy new complex is a major leap for Reisman and the cafe that she says has come with a lot of help and goodwill for Glo’s. Developer Gerding Edlen’s efforts to bring smaller and more local tenants has helped with a “great deal on rent” and a “very generous offer on the buildout,” Reisman said.

It is also Glo’s response after surviving a major downturn in business during the pandemic and to the growing uncertainty on its home block of E Olive Way where neighboring joints including 20-year-old The Stumbling Monk, 12-year-old Captain Blacks and one-year-old The Doctor’s Office are facing the prospect of their home parcels being put up for sale by the family trust that owns the block.

The situation breaks some of those Capitol Hill narratives about change. A tiny, neighborhood institution faced with uncertainty in its home from longtime family property ownership finds its opportunity for stability and growth in the middle of the neighborhood’s largest new development project. Reisman knows not everyone will understand. Some will be “bummed out” but she wants you to know how grateful Glo’s is for the opportunity and how aware the cafe and its ownership is of their fortune.

“We’ve been preparing for a long time,” Reisman says, “We always knew it was going to happen. We can invest now.”

“We just got really lucky.”

It’s more than luck, of course. Glo’s is a Capitol Hill survivor.

“We survived the dot com bubble, we survived the financial crisis in 2006, we’ve made it through this portion of the pandemic,” Reisman said. “We feel pretty confident we’ll figure it out.”

Glo’s continues at 1621 E Olive Way as it begins the process of creating a new home at Capitol Hill Station. You’ll want to bring a mask and proof of vaccination or a recent negative COVID test when stop in. Glo’s plans to reopen above Capitol Hill Station at 118 Broadway E alongside the plaza in summer 2022. Visit gloscafe.com to learn more.

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Subscribe to CHS to help us pay writers and photographers to cover the neighborhood. CHS is a pay what you can community news site with no required sign-in or paywall. Become a subscriber to help us cover the neighborhood for as little as $5 a month.