(Image: Capitol Lounge)
A venue in the heart of E Pike’s nightlife core is getting a new investment of energy and enthusiasm for Latin nights and international DJs.
The ownership that took over 15th Ave’s Smith pub earlier this year tells CHS it is preparing the former Capitol Lounge to reopen as a new club dedicated to Pike/Pine’s “industry nightclub scene.”
According to state business permits, a venue called Cultura under the Smith ownership company is now registered at the address.
The family’s Jorge Gonzalez will be host of the new business, a representative tells CHS.
The Gonzalezes were busy earlier in 2023 reopening Smith after purchasing the neighborhood pub originally launched by Linda Derschang in 2007. At Smith, the recipe was to keep things basically the same.
At the new club taking over the shuttered Capitol Lounge venue, change is coming. Gonzalez will set out to build a schedule around the popularity of Latin-focused dance and music nights and DJs.
CHS reported on efforts earlier this year to revive the lounge under its previous owners as a hookah joint but that venture will give way to the new ownership group.
The Cultura effort will reactivate the space in the core Pike/Pine nightlife block neighboring venues and businesses including the Comet Tavern, the corner that has been home to a tavern for more than 100 years. Legend tells of tunnels once used for smuggling liquor during prohibition still below The Bluff Building, the 113-year-old three-story building the Comet calls home. The upper stories remain boarded-up and locked-off. The city, by the way, says there “are no active permits” and “no active code compliance cases” requiring the closure of the upper floors. CHS inquiries to the longtime ownership of the building have not been answered.
The previous nightlife tenant had debuted in March 2017 under ownership including Seattle’s Japanese hot dog king Shinsuke Nikaido who opened the club in the former home of the Lobby Bar to neighbor his Ikina Sushi joint. Ikina is now gone — replaced by Casablanca Express from another Pike/Pine hot dog entrepreneur. Meanwhile, the area lost a dance club earlier in 2023 when lower Pike/Pine club Mint Lounge closed this winter and has remained shuttered.
Out of all that, a plan for Cultura now emerges next door at 916 E Pike. An opening date has not been announced.
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Best of luck on the new venture but a real shame that for decades the owner keeps the residential space above vacant in a city desperate for more housing. Why is this happening and what governmental or social or finance obstacles keep it this way?
Have you been up there? It would take a lot to get it up to any code or livability standard. It’s surprising this building is still standing.
Build up in Wallingford and parking lots first then let’s talk about historic buildings.
There ARE people living in there… In disgusting living conditions that I suspect aren’t up to code. When you’re in those buildings you can hear people playing music or drums, and I’ve had people in the neighborhood tell me they’ve been invited inside by people for one reason or another. In one of the windows you can also see a relatively fresh-looking fridge that wasn’t there 1-2 years before.
It’s a disgusting building he doesn’t upkeep to be cheap. He also owns the building Lost Lake is in where he says AC can’t be installed, so during heat waves people get heat sick in the kitchen or they have to close due to the heat, as well as the Joybird building. I haven’t spoken to anyone there, but I’m dying to know the state of that building.
yeah it would take a lot of money to upgrade the building to the point where it’s really livable. friend of mine lived right above the comet a while back and it was NOT great. I suspect the owner is just absorbing rent and waiting for a knockout offer.