(Image: @d_j_notsogood)

(Image: Cha Cha Lounge)

Some of the last remaining progenitors of Pike/Pine cool are handing over a key neighborhood hangout to a new generation. New permits and state corporation filings show E Pike’s famed Cha Cha Lounge is moving into 2026 in new hands. Its street-level sibling Bimbos Cantina is apparently along for the ride.

“Viva La Cha Cha!,” is all owner Jeff Ofelt said in reply to a string of calls, texts, emails, and social media messages over the past week as CHS tried to pin down the Cha Cha’s iconic ownership group to learn more about the deal.

The business face and voice of Cha Cha and Bimbos over recent years, Ofelt first crafted the Mexican lounge and cantina vibe 30 years ago with its original location on E Pine with co-owners Rebecca Olson and future husband and Pike/Pine founding father Wade Weigel.

Ofelt’s and Weigel’s hands, of course, are all over Hill hospitality history as major exporters of Pike/Pine cool with their parts in creating the Rudy’s Barbershop and ACE Hotel chains. The modern era for some of those creations like Rudy’s and its wrestling with private equity haven’t been as fun as their pasts.

Often in partnership with other Seattle luminaries like Olson and Linda Derschang, Ofelt and Weigel have been part of launching a host of Capitol Hill and Emerald City institutions including the original Chop Suey,

(Image: @d_j_notsogood)

Originally part of a strip of E Pine nightlife along with Manray and the Kincora and retailer Winner’s Circle that was notoriously razed to make way for one of the early waves of post-Y2K Capitol Hill development, Bimbos and Cha Cha successfully moved the party to E Pike in 2007 where it now lives in a transformed auto row-era garage that has made home to hipsters and party crowds while also making space for neighbor Cafe Vita’s coffee beans.

Along the way, a Cha Cha was also crafted in Southern California. Whether the mid-2000s opening of a Cha Cha in Los Angele is best represented as a Seattle export or proof that there is a Capitol Hill-Silver Lake time-space continuum is up to you.

In Seattle, the business overcame the pandemic when, yes, even the Cha Cha got plexiglass dividers and has also faced some of the plagues of modern Pike/Pine — a person was hospitalized this summer after gunfire in a fight that spilled out of the packed bar.

Now, the Cha Cha is beginning a new era in the new Pike/Pine.

According to state records, the new ownership at the Seattle Cha Cha includes Barry Smith, rocker Robin Peringer, and Meaghan Darling, a production manager at nearby Annex Theater.

The new group has not responded to CHS’s inquiries about the takeover. State corporation filings show a company registered to Smith — cheekily named Kimono My Lounge, LLC — active at the Bimbos and Cha Cha address while the original Cha Cha Lounge, LLC registered out of Palm Springs to Ofelt, Weigel, and Olson has, as of December 9th, been administratively dissolved.

We’re still checking to learn more about the new ownership, workers, and any new plans for the venue.

As for the Cha Cha in LA, we don’t cover that part of the Pike/Pine multiverse. Check the Silver Lake Blog for details.

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