It isn’t the largest piece of the puzzle but one of the holes recently torn in Capitol Hill food and drink is about to be filled back in.

Permit and license paperwork shows a new restaurant project from the Tyger Tyger food and drink family is lined up to take over the Stateside space on E Pike just above Melrose.

There are few details about the Blue Willow project from restaurant owner Benjamin Chew who has grown Tyger Tyger into a Sichuan favorite in Lower Queen Anne.

Chew is familiar with Capitol Hill.

He was part of the ownership that took over Lionhead from Broadway restaurant legend Jerry Traunfeld before exiting the space to make way for the new Cheers! Hong Kong project from Sen Mao. Cheers! debuted last November.

Chew is now busy in the 300 block of E Pike where Stateside and its sibling bar Foreign National shuttered to end summer after a decade of French Vietnamese flavors in the neighborhood.

The space is on track to be the first reopening in an area of the Hill currently facing a few major tears in its business fabric.

Middle Eastern favorite Mamnoon shuttered last month around the corner on Melrose after 13 years in the neighborhood. The biggest gap ripped open later in the month as Starbucks made the shocking decision to permanently close its more than $20 million Capitol Hill roastery that opened in 2014 as the first in the coffee giant’s showcase concept.

For now, plans are underway to open Blue Willow soon at 300 E Pike. Watch CHS for updates and, hopefully, good news about the other spaces soon.

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