(Image: Converge Media)

(Image: Converge Media)

The Postman’s indefinite closure will end with the Central District small business’s owner Keanna Pickett vowing to overcome fear and expand at MLK and Union.

“Despite the challenges faced, The Postman remains committed to the community it serves,” Pickett said in an announcement earlier this week reported by Converge Media. “We have actively been a part of finding solutions to the issues of gentrification and gun violence that have plagued our neighborhood.”

CHS reported here in October as Pickett decided to close the mail services shop after early morning gunfire shattered the business’s windows on the anniversary of the shooting that took he life of her husband D’Vonne Pickett, Jr. outside the business a year earlier.

Keanna Pickett is now vowing to reopen and grow The Postman with a new, larger space in the same building and and expanded services including work space and inclusion in Amazon’s hub system.

The new shop will look out onto E Union which now bears an honorary street name marking D’Vonne’s valued place in the community. Keanna had reopened The Postman in November 2022 after Pickett, Jr. was gunned down October 19th outside the mailing services shop he opened with her in 2018. The father, business owner, and youth football coach was 31. D’Vonne Pickett told CHS in 2018 his grandfather served as a mail carrier for the USPS in Seattle for nearly 40 years and was an inspiration for the store.

CHS reported here on the public memorial held at Climate Pledge Arena for Pickett. The man charged in Pickett’s murder amid a “psychotic” string of shootings leading up to the MLK and Union killing pleaded not guilty in the slaying and remains held. CHS also reported on a mistake made in the emergency dispatch process that cost valuable minutes in the efforts to save Pickett’s life.

Keanna Pickett said The Postman will move into the new space around the corner of MLK early next year.

Pickett and The Postman are also part of the Black Black Friday effort to bring attention to Seattle’s black-owned businesses. Mayor Bruce Harrell will appear at an event Friday afternoon at E Cherry’s Metier Brewing Company — one of the few black-owned breweries in the nation — to promote the effort.

The Postman is currently located at 1143 MLK Way. Learn more at thepostmanseattle.com.

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