(Image: CHS)
The massive Infinity building
One of Capitol Hill’s biggest 2015-era food and drink ideas is coming to a close. A decade after opening on the backside of Pike/Pine, the Renee Erickson-helmed complex of new era steakhouse Bateau, Boat Bar, and General Porpoise filled doughnuts will be shuttered, ownership announced Thursday. Plans call for the spaces to reopen later this year with a new, refreshed approach more in line with 2025-era Capitol Hill food and drink economics.
“After these many years, we will be taking this time to reflect and refresh our concepts,” the announcement reads. “We look forward to welcoming guests and staff back to a reimagined Bateau and Boat Bar later this year.”
The final day of business for the current incarnation of the corner is June 19th.
The closures comes as parent restaurant family Sea Creatures has been tightening its belt and streamlining its businesses. The planned temporary closure on E Union will bring the end of the Capitol Hill General Porpoise, Erickson’s first in what had grown into a small chain. By this summer, only two will remain. The Capitol Hill shop neighboring Bateau and the bar will become a private dining room.
(Image: CHS)
Key exits have also been part of the decision. Seattle Eater reports chef Taylor Thornhill and general manager Jamie Irene had announced their departures.
Employees had voted to organize earlier this year. A vote approving the formation of United Creatures of the Sea was tallied in February. Ownership says recent efforts for Sea Creatures employees to organize were not a factor. “We are comfortable with the union. That’s an employee’s right, and we are all good with that,” Jeremy Price of Sea Creatures told the Seattle Times.
We have questions out to Price about the future of Capitol Hill Sea Creatures employees.
UPDATE: Price provided details of the plans for employees —
Yes, a few B+BB employees (cooks), and most all of the GP CH baristas have positions lined up at our other restaurants and cafes. We don’t have many server / bartending openings right now elsewhere, but this can change in the next 2-1/2 weeks when B+BB temporarily closes. When we re-open former staff will be recalled. We hope all are able to return.
When it debuted in November 2015, the restaurant, bar, and cafe was one of the first in a generation of major Capitol Hill food and drink investments made as restaurateurs took on multi-concept challenges to fill massive spaces created in the Pike/Pine area’s wave of preservation incentive-boosted redevelopment of auto row-era buildings.
Erickson’s creations filled a combined 4,500 square feet in the Broadstone Infinity development that was so large it infamously inspired a re-working of the development incentives included in the Pike/Pine Conservation District. Meanwhile, the auto row-era facade of the building had to be rebuilt brick by brick after inspections showed the original masonry was not safe.
Heliotrope Architects designed the triplet of food and drink components, connected together along E Union on the southern side of the building at 11th Ave. Originally Bar Melusine, Boat Bar was an icy bright and glistening raw bar, while Bateau was shaped as a Francophilic steak restaurant with a view of giant cow carcasses hung from orange meat hooks. “All are, as you would expect, gorgeous. Even the dead cow window,” CHS reported at the opening.
Ten years later, stubbornly high rent demands mixed with high labor costs and equally stubborn inflation have changed the food and drink economy on Capitol Hill and beyond. The Capitol Hill food and drink complexes are being reinvented. On E Pine, another is being reshaped this summer below new rooftop bar Cantina del Sol.
The Bateau change is planned to be iterative, not a reinvention, with reconfigured seating and new upholstered booths. “The new menu will have offerings at a broader array of price points. We will eliminate the delicious and creative, yet spendy, tasting menu,” Price says. “Lastly, we plan to streamline steps of service, so things feel a little less fussy to guests.”
Boat Bar, in name, is going away, Price says, as Bateau looks to streamline its presentation to customers and more fully incorporate the bar’s connection to the restaurant. That will bring an end to a separate name for the bar, a more limited bar menu, and am emphasis on “cocktailing service.”
Price tells CHS that Bateau as currently configured has been operating at a loss for the past 18 months and the changes are intended to get the business “things back on track.”
How the changes come together at 11th and Union remains to be seen but, for now, Erickson and Sea Creatures are staying in the neighborhood.
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Well, I loved the food at Boat Bar but admittedly I didn’t go there more than once or twice in 10 years because it was like $100/person every time I was there. Good to hear they want to lower prices.
UNION BUSTING IS DISGUSTING
I am sure they will miss your business.
“has been operating at a loss for the past 18 months”.
American unions are astoundingly evil – advancing the interests of their people over the interests of the common man (the majority of which are not in their union or even any union). No one has caused more negative outcomes for the lower half of the income distribution than the likes of the AFL/CIO and their ilk. Don’t even get me started on their anti-immigrant and anti-global poor stances.
Wait, aren’t unions the reason we have weekends off and 8-hour workdays etc?
No. Government laws are why we have those things.
WRONG! Do your research! Unions drove those changes. Back in the day union busting included companies going out and shooting and sometimes killing people who were striking. Unions protect employees. Mis-information just hurts employees, companies and America. Research is good.
Great example of a Seattle Big Business, like Amazon and Starbucks, that has lost touch with the lives of employees who run their locations. How can a restaurant corporation be strapped for cash if it can close down three linked locations (probably in a high rent building) for a “reimagining and retooling” for up to 6 months, while opening a new bistro concept. This all on the heels of designing and opening Lioness not long ago. Remember when they owned a burger chain, too? Renee Erickson is a world traveling celebrity Chef that has been writing and promoting her own cookbooks for years. On whose dime? Anyone who thinks she is involved in the day-to-day of these restaurants in Seattle should take a closer look at her socials. Hopefully the staff who are being forced into unemployment will be hired by establishments that don’t need to shutter for months to change the prices on their menus. It is doubtful they will be hired back to Sea Creatures Co. if they are unionized. Maybe the “Accidental Empire” (via Seattle Met article) is Striking Back. Bateau and Boat Bar are obviously unique and award-winning restaurants because of the onsite staff. What a loss.
Irrelevant rant by someone who didn’t read the article.