(Image: SOMA Kombucha)

(Image: SOMA Kombucha)

2024 ended with Portland invading the Capitol Hill junk food scene with a new almost around the clock Voodoo Doughnuts shop on Pine.

2025 is beginning with a Portland creation from the other end of the health spectrum as SOMA Kombucha started the year with a new self-serve Capitol Hill taproom on E Pike, its first in Seattle after years of growth in Portland.

SOMA calls its Rose City-brewed creations the “world’s healthiest kombucha” and claims its bacteria and yeast-generated beverages contain more probiotics and nutrients than other brands.

What might be more unique is the “un-staffed” taproom business model. SOMA is part of a growing wave of businesses using mobile phones and access systems to provide more open hours to customers. To shop at the Capitol Hill SOMA every day between 6 AM and midnight, get the app, scan the code, unlock the front door, and ring up your purchase of on-tap kombucha by the pint or the growler, plus SOMA’s add-ons like its house CBD tinctures and, if you’re into it, red light photobiomodulation therapy. Far out, man.

Founder — and yoga instructor — Jean-Pierre Parent says he started SOMA in 2008 after sharing his homemade brew with his classes. It has grown to three taproom locations in Portland with two more across the border in Vancouver. The E Pike taproom makes its sixth.

The E Pike space has seen some turnover lately including the short-lived but also fungus adjacent SPORELUST! that shuttered in 2023 (Image: SOMA Kombucha)

There have been a few booch players in the neighborhood over the years including a Mystic Kombucha tasting room on 12th that is now the home of the Atulea cafe.

The SCOBY daddy of all Central Seattle kombucha can be found on E Union at 21st Ave’s CommuniTea, recognized as Seattle’s first kombucha brewery.

It will be interesting to watch how the SOMA experiment plays out on Capitol Hill only a block from the area near the Harvard Market QFC that property owners, business groups, and the police have said is a center of the area’s drug crime and street disorder crisis. Other “un-staffed” businesses in the neighborhood include 2022-born Seatown Pottery at 19th and Aloha. Self-pour wine bar Rapport closed on northern Broadway to start the year.

Meanwhile, counter, kiosk, and QR service continues to be a growing element in Capitol Hill food and drink as businesses try to keep up with the spiraling costs of rent, goods, and workers.

SOMA’s small-scale self-serve approach is also landing on Capitol Hill only steps from where one of the corporate giants failed in its new era retail aspirations for the neighborhood. A year ago, Amazon Fresh pulled the plug on its “just walk out” technology as it permanently shutted its four-year-old Capitol Hill location.

SOMA has a softer take on the brave new world of no and low staff food and drink. SOMA, Parent says, means “nectar of life” and “drink of the gods,” “and its root literally means distill, extract, or sprinkle.”

“Back in the aughts I would bring my family recipe kombucha to my yoga classes so students could take a little probiotic elixir with them in their bellies, the naturally caffeine-removed benefits distilled from tea, and a sprinkle of community,” he says.

SOMA Kombucha’s Capitol Hill taproom is located at 701 E Pike. Learn more at somakombucha.com.

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