(Image: CHS)

The spirit of Groucho’s lives on at 17th and Galer. The Volunteer Park Cafe is open again on Capitol Hill.

Melissa Johnson and Crystal Chiu are so busy in the overhauled kitchen and the cases are so full that they have barely had time to update the website or post operating hours. Those things will come.

UPDATE: “Now that the cat’s out of the bag, will we see you this weekend? We’ll be here with pastries, snacks and drinks galore (wine pours by the glass included 🍷) and AC,” the cafe’s latest update to Instagram reads.

For now, the Canlis veterans are learning the ropes of operating this new iteration of the neighborhood favorite. VPC is now the Volunteer Park Cafe and Pantry, a nod to aspirations to revive more of the cornershop spirit of one of the last spaces of its kind in a city that used to be a little more mixed in its “Neighborhood Residential” uses.

Restarting that history has been a chore. James DeSarno, principal at D3 Architects and co-owner of the Freehand Cellars winery, purchased the 1904-built, two-story market and apartment on this corner of northern Capitol Hill’s single family-dominated residential zone in a $1.4 million deal that was in the works for months after a previous plan to purchase the property fell through. DeSarno said his plan for VPC was to try to keep a good deal of the relationship with the neighborhood in place with cafe and coffee offerings but add a renewed focus on wine featuring his Yakima Valley winery’s creations.

For its start, the Volunteer Park Cafe is focused on daytime offerings and its pastry case along with a well-stocked selection of bottled libations.

(Image: Volunteer Park Cafe and Pantry)

(Image: Volunteer Park Cafe and Pantry)

(Image: CHS)

Johnson and Chiu joined DeSarno’s project earlier this year to head up the food and drink end of things while the architect set about refreshing the cafe inside and out:

Johnson was the baker for the bagel shop Canlis set up at the edge of its parking lot—one of the first of its many storied pivots. Thus bagels will surface occasionally at the cafe. Johnson also wants to reinstate favorite recipes from the original Volunteer Park Cafe (customers are asking about those pear-cardamom muffins). “We want to have fun with it and change often,” she says. “But we don’t want people to come back and feel like it’s completely different.”

New Yorker Johnson’s fingerprints can also be found on the beverage menu. Volunteer Park Cafe is now serving $5 egg creams.

Volunteer Park Cafe debuted in 2007 as a collaboration between Ericka Burke and baker extraordinaire Heather Earnhardt. Before VPC, the building housed the infamously odd Cafe Europa and old timers still refer to it as Groucho’s for the old market that served the Hill back in the days of Paul Anka and Connie Francis.

With its reopening this week, the cafe revives a neighborhood space idled since the pandemic while continuing its history as a community hangout and place for kids to score a cookie or a bubble gum ball.

We hope to learn more about what comes next including logistics like opening hours and, more importantly, what Johnson and Chiu are hoping and dreaming for the new start on the old favorite.

Volunteer Park Cafe is located at 1501 17th Ave E. Learn more at volunteerpark.cafe.

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