Seattle’s MLK Day celebrations will include the grand opening of a new cafe at 14th Ave’s Washington Hall hoped to create a new community venue while providing job training and a creative space to gather, relax, and collaborate in the Central District.

The Creative Cafe is a new coffee-centered project from Washington Hall organizations Black Power Unlimited and Creative Justice, the South Seattle Emerald reports:

Creative Cafe will be primarily staffed by the youth involved with Creative Justice, who will be serving espresso from Fulcrum Coffee Roasters and getting guidance from Blas Alfaro of Fulcrum and Luis Rodriguez of The Station. The staff will not only be trained on how to be baristas but will learn the ins and outs of different facets of the coffee industry, everything from how to ethically source and roast beans to how to fix espresso machines. In addition to on-the-job training, youth will also learn from a labor rights curriculum so that regardless of where they go after Creative Cafe, they’ll know how to advocate for their workers’ rights.

Creative Justice is an arts-based restorative justice organization headquartered at Washington Hall and led by executive director Nikkita Oliver.

Black Power Unlimited was part of the major renovation that overhauled Washington Hall before its 2016 reopening and continues to be part of maintaining and activating the community space. A cafe operated by BPU previously at the Hall shuttered during the pandemic.

The new cafe is hoped be part of restoring more day to day community activity at the facility. The South Seattle Emerald reports that this 2022 shooting outside Washington Hall created “interest in the café coming back as a way of building community and bringing more intergenerational spaces to the historic venue.”

Monday, the cafe will be ready to celebrate a MLK Day grand opening and is encouraging the community stop through following the annual march from Garfield High School starting at 4 PM for food, coffee, sweets, and an open mic — “Bring your friends, bring your kids, bring your poetically political poetry and help us open the Creative Cafe at Washington Hall”

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