(Image: L’Oursin)

(Image: L’Oursin)

L’Oursin is using lessons from the pandemic to help invigorate its block on the edge of the Central District-Capitol Hill intertidal zone as it shapes a new market and bar project on E Jefferson.

Jonathan Proville tells CHS Bar Bayonne should be up and running by summer next door to the nearly seven-year-old French and Pacific Northwest restaurant that brought the flavors of the Salish Sea to what was then a bustling area of food and drink projects along E Jefferson in 2016. A pandemic later, other businesses and the neighboring Honeyhole expansion have gone dark.

Up the street, bike cafe Peloton has doubled down and expanded. L’Oursin’s Proville and Zac Overman are gearing up for a similar ride after the fall 2022 closure of the neighboring cask ale-focused Capercaillie Pub.

L’Oursin’s new sibling in the former pub space will represent a major shift for the business with plans for daytime hours.

Bar Bayonne will be a cafe by day featuring sandwiches, quiches, coffee… and wine, and a transition to an evening mode that is more wine bar and small plates.

Proville says to expect a “more casual version” of L’Oursin, a little Basque while still very, very French but with ’60s vibes, and “super cute.”

Bar Bayonne will be a more casual — but still very French — version of the original (Image: L’Oursin)

Bar Bayonne will also feature a wine shop and mercantile that highlights the most successful items from L’Oursin’s pandemic days when it opened as a market to keep the lights on during COVID-19 restrictions. Proville says the Bar Bayonne selection will be “selective and limited” with favorites like pate, confit, and foie gras and not “a lot of dried pasta flying around.”

Proville says L’Oursin has been ready to grow and help make its neighborhood more active but the right opportunity hadn’t yet been lined up.

“We’ve had the space next door to us— it was just a matter of time,” Proville said. “We’re trying to activate this block with all kinds of shenanigans going on.”

Shenanigans, in this case, is apparently a French term for getting something not quite right. After the successes so far with L’Oursin, it seems like the recipe for Bar Bayonne will be, how do you say it, sans shenanigans.

Bar Bayonne is being planned for an opening in “about three months” at 1315 E Jefferson. Learn more at loursinseattle.com.

$5 A MONTH TO HELP KEEP CHS PAYWALL-FREE
🌈🐣🌼🌷🌱🌳🌾🍀🍃🦔🐇🐝🐑🌞🌻 
Subscribe to CHS to help us hire writers and photographers to cover the neighborhood. CHS is a pay what you can community news site with no required sign-in or paywall. To stay that way, we need you.

Become a subscriber to help us cover the neighborhood for $5 a month -- or choose your level of support 👍