Capitol Hill at Pine and Boylston, looking southwest at downtown, Seattle, Washington, July 22, 1991. 707 E Pine is in the foreground and Linda’s was about to be born. (Image: University of Washington Libraries, Special Collection)
So, you know the secret of how Linda’s has survived and thrived on Capitol Hill for 30 years — Linda Derschang isn’t wrong when she says it is about people.
But the 1927-built store turned Middle Eastern restaurant with belly dancing turned grunge-era bar is also a key component.
Somehow over its three decades at 707 E Pine, Linda’s hasn’t directly faced the challenges that come with new landlords and new development plans.
King County records show the same family who gave Linda’s its first lease 30 years ago continues to hold the property.
TODAY’S TOP STORIES
The Yee family has owned the Linda’s building and the neighboring cornershop home to Pine Street Foods for decades, holding on even as a massive, block-long development rose around them on the old BMW showroom and garage properties that covered most of the rest of the block.
Today, the Pike Motorworks mixed-use building home to hundreds of apartments, the Redhook Brewlab, and its newest tenant and Linda’s neighbor, the Pinoyshki Bakery and Cafe, rises above the block and over the Linda’s patio. The development’s windows are apparently thick enough to help keep the relationship mostly peaceful between the popular bar and its multifamily neighbors.
Ali Baba Restaurant, June 1978 (Image: Seattle Public Library)
In the 1920s, the building rose as a retail or service opportunity amid the area’s auto row showrooms and garages. For a time it housed a furniture and goods retailer and was home for a period to East Pine Roofing. By the 1970s, the Ali Baba restaurant was already resident on the block with “Middle Eastern music and belly-dancing” on Fridays and Saturdays in its heyday. Ali Baba lasted until the 1990s before making way for a first-time bar owner looking to make a splash in the city’s nightlife scene.
“Located on Pine one block west of the Egyptian Theater, Linda’s is everything you want In a watering hole; cozy interior, the privacy of separate booths. appropriate jukebox fare, coffee (but no espresso), Hefeweizen on top and Schmidt in cons, a pool table, and a buffalo head over the bar,” The Rocket music and entertainment magazine wrote about the new bar in 1994.
That first lease has now been renewed across three decades. The fortunate relationship between Linda’s and a longtime family ownership echoes across the bartop of another of Capitol Hill’s most enduring hangouts.
CHS reported here on the Bluff Building at 11th and Pike and its long history — stretched even longer by its current family ownership — of making a space for a community watering hole on Capitol Hill. The Comet Tavern’s space has been a bar for more than 100 years. Linda’s has its work cut out for it.
You can compare and contrast the fates of Linda’s and the Comet with another Derschang creation. Her Bait Shop reached a decade after carrying on under the ownership of Derschang Group veterans Mike Leifur and Jonah Bergman. But the Broadway bar won’t have an easy sail to 30 years — its building is now lined up for demolition to make way for new housing and a mixed-use building.
Linda and Linda’s in The Rocket, February 1994
As for historic protections, don’t count on it. The city’s landmarks program has been developed around architectural standards, not cultural value. Talk of cultural preservation incentives that could someday match Pike/Pine’s archictecture-focused height bonus program hasn’t gone anywhere.
Given all that, Linda’s E Pine corner seems destined to someday join the Bait Shop block in making way for much needed new housing and the new restaurant, bar, and retail opportunities that can come with it. For now, enjoy Linda’s as the Capitol Hill rarity it is.
Happy 30th birthday, Linda’s. Here’s to may more.
I’ll chain myself to the building if they try to develop it. Enough is enough.
You know nothing is forever right?
Proof that not all change is bad! I bitched and moaned about the loss of my beloved Ali Baba to some “trendy” bar that would put the Comet out of business. I remember a lot of “how dare she!” talk around the Comet that week. With days we were ALL at Linda’s and loving it.
I love this perspective and reminder. The
Nice to see my piece posted here; I wrote this caption, and the Lip Service column as well. The 1990s was a great decade!
The scan from this page of The Rocket says that both Lip Service and that caption were written by Johnny Renton. Was that your pseudonym?
Yep! The first person who used it (the pseudonym) was John Keister. When he left to work for KING 5, I began writing the column and we just kept the same pseudonym.
Bring back Ali Baba! Enough is enough. How dare you!!!
…or I’ll meet you all in the middle by providing my Kurdish belly dancing show on the back deck the last Thursday of every other month. Deal?