(Image: Eat Local)
A part of the thousands of square feet of retail added to Broadway as part of new, seven-story mixed-use development up and down Capitol Hill’s main commercial core during the start of the 2010s has shuttered.
A representative for Vancouver, B.C.-based Performance Kitchens tells CHS it is shutting down its remaining stores as it moves fully to “an ecommerce model” and partners with grocery chains on its lines of ready to eat meals and “nutrition-focused” frozen foods.
Acquired by Performance Kitchens in a merger in 2019, the Broadway store opened as an Eat Local in 2012 in the newly opened Joule development.
Remarkable at the time for its concept — frozen, ready to eat meals at craft scale — and its place in the neighborhood — the north Broadway development needed years to fill its commercial spaces with tenants as Seattle and Capitol Hill emerged from the global financial meltdown of the late 2000s — Eat Local in many ways was a pioneer for retail concepts that now dot the neighborhood but felt new here in 2012.
“We’re expensive,” Eat Local’s founder told CHS in 2012. “But expanding has allowed us to make things more affordable.”
Eat Local, indeed, feels closer to 11th Ave’s Glossier and Australia’s Frankie4 concept shoe shop now open on E Pine than it did to many of its early 2010s Broadway retail contemporaries. In Joule, the early retail mix also predicted another north Broadway retail trend — chains and franchises. The arrival of minute clinics and dentists would emerge later.
The arrival of Eat Local did not, however, herald the end of Capitol Hill’s food and drink scene. While the grocery industry is as robustly represented in the neighborhood as ever — with more on the way — it turns out Capitol Hill residents can also continue to support a hugely diverse and busy food and drink scene, even through a pandemic.
With its closure, the Eat Local/Performance Kitchen store will leave an open retail space at 503 Broadway E. Performance Kitchen locations on Queen Anne and in Kirkland are also part of the shutdown, the spokesperson said, adding that retail employees were transitioned to new positions with the company.
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Vancouver BC… not that local eh..
Their meals are prepared in Burien, which is local enough but they are overpriced in my opinion. (Their $8 Indian entrees are only slightly better than Trader Joe’s $4 ones.) I did go in whenever I got a 2-for-1 coupon in the mail, which happened a few times a year. Usually I was the only customer in the store, so I’m not surprised at this news. The workers there were always super-nice though. I wish them the best.
That’s not what local means. McDonald’s prepares my meal in their store. Not a local thing though.
Well, as the story say, it was acquired by Vancouver based Performance Kitchens in 2019. Sounds like it was more locally owned prior to that point. I recall being able to purchase some of their products fifteen years ago for delivery in a local farm produce delivery service.
It was expensive, but tasty. Hadn’t gone in in years. I would have spent a lot more money there, but somehow they despite everything being frozen food, they could never manage to keep a reliable stock of any one item. Really poorly managed.
I’m surprised it took this long for Eat Local to close down. Prices were high and portions were small. Whenever I walked by, there were few if any customers in the store.
Hopefully the business space will get filled soon, or else we’ve just given birth to another tent camping spot thanks to our progressives and Sawant supporters who think it’s a person’s right to camp on a public sidewalk, block pedestrians and ADA users, and stage shoplifting runs to QFC and other petty yet destructive crime that progressives believe should never be prosecuted. As Capitol Hill continues to degrade because our Council representative would rather fund raise internationally for the Socialist Alternative than deal with D3 problems locally.
Very well said.
Although its more of an extreme socialist mentality than a progressive mentality. I’m very progressive but very anti Sawant.
If you’re anti Sawant you’re anti progress. No one else fights for renters and taxing of big businesses like she does. And if these aren’t progressive ideas to you then you’re basically a lib centrist or Republican. Aka NOT progressive. And so therefore you’re anti working class and poor and marginalized people.
8 years of Sawant fighting for renters and taxing big business is why we now have such low rent in Capitol Hill, and why we solved the homelessness crisis with all that money she got from the big businesses.
And THIS is why most people find Sawant supporters to be insufferable.
Thanks for gatekeeping James. You don’t get to define my political identity. She does jack shit.
Yeah… maybe you don’t remember what this part of Broadway used to be like.
The people you’re talking about weren’t conjured by “our progressives,” they have always been here and in this part of Capitol Hill particularly, since long long ago. A lasting solution to homelessness, addiction, and mental illness is not the responsibility of one council member over a handful of years, it is a systematic failure over decades that I’ve witnessed firsthand.
Sawant could certainly do more (and I’d like her to) but it’s myopic and incorrect to lay long-term and citywide issues at a relative latecomer’s doorstep.
Having lived here since the early 1990s I know very well what here used to be like: A thriving Broadway Ave with no tent camping and no city park camping and much less criminal vibe along Broadway ave. Always a few panhandlers. But nothing like now. Sawant’s tenure has coincided with the degradation of quality of life here. As she’s more focused on performance art and fundraising internationally rather than listening to businesses or residents near Broadway Ave.
Look who likes to bring something liberal to whine about to a totally unrelated story.
It was called Eat Local because everything was sourced locally.
I wanted to support the place but $16 or more for a small frozen dinner is just an insult and waste of dough for cash strapped workers, i.e. everyone but tech bros.