Category Archives: Food & Drink

Catch award-winning Ben’s Bread pop-ups at 12th Ave’s Southpaw

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(Image: Ben’s Bread)

These days, pop-ups, takeout dinner kits, and ordering online are just some options restaurants, and consumers alike have had to navigate in the new pandemic-normal. For Ben’s Bread however, husband-and-wife duo Ben and Megan Campbell have been operating bread pop-ups for almost six years. Last year when brick-and-mortar establishments shuttered temporarily, to later transition to takeout, Ben’s Bread maintained their monthly pop-ups at Southpaw on 12th Ave. throughout the pandemic without missing a beat.

“When we first started . . . I remember having to explain to people, ‘Okay, you just order and you pay for it online, and you show up at this place and time where it’s ready for you. You don’t have to pay once you show up.’” Campbell said. “That was so much of our effort was convincing people that we were real people who weren’t trying to take their money, and they’d show up and there would be bread. Now . . . . People are used to looking online for where to get their food, planning it in advance, going out of their way and making a little extra effort to find something they think is going to be special. We were already set up to do that.” Continue reading →

The Capitol Hill Farmers Market is moving to Capitol Hill Station — Here’s what it will look like

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(Image: CHS)

Sunday, the Capitol Hill Farmers Market will realize community hopes more than a decade in the making as it moves to its new home in the middle of the Capitol Hill Station plaza and along the E Barbara Bailey Way “festival street.”

Here’s how it will look with the new layout including E Denny/Barbara Bailey closed to cars during the market every Sunday, vendors lined up along the street, and a cluster of more vendor tents and tables inside the plaza. Continue reading →

HoneyHole to expand to Central District with second, ‘three times larger’ location

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(Image: HoneyHole)

Pike/Pine classic sandwich joint the HoneyHole is expanding with a second, much larger location only a few miles from the original where the Central District meets the edges of 12th Ave and Seattle University.

The new owners of the classic sandwich joint are hoping to bring together a recipe inspired by the E Pike original to transform the new second location on E Jefferson, a restaurant space most recently home to Central Smoke before that venture shuttered pre-pandemic in early 2020.

“We’re super excited about the opportunities this larger location provides,” HoneyHole owner Kristin Rye said in the announcement of the expansion. “We can host parties, pop-ups, community events and even live music, which were all a bit of a challenge at our Cap Hill location.” Continue reading →

With birria and churros, Carmelo’s Tacos opens new, just a little bit larger 12th Ave location

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The Asada Tacos at the new Carmelo’s

Born as as a walk-up counter with the slimmest of seating areas part of the Hillcrest Market, tiny Carmelo’s Tacos is getting bigger with its new 12th ave at Cherry location now open.

“It’s been fun. A lot of people are coming out to try the birria and new items,” manager Miguel Cruz says. “We feel the support from the community. We’re grateful.”

Cruz said the new location is picking up speed, serving 100 to 150 people a day — still nowhere close to the staggeringly busy pace the original location inside the quick mart at Summit and E Olive Way has kept up through the pandemic. Continue reading →

URL Coffee introduces a design-savvy café on First Hill

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Over a year in the making, URL Coffee features a specialty coffee menu, plans for a future in-house food program, and an eye for design. URL’s shelves and table are by Italian designer Enzo Mari (Image: URL Coffee)

The playful, design-forward URL Coffee at 524 Broadway just opened in mid-March, and despite being sandwiched between a couple other cafe options at Sharetea and QED Coffee, URL is already carving out a unique space on First Hill. Launched by wife and husband duo Zoey Jung and Ethan Choi, URL aims to provide a “healthy pleasure,” that begins with coffee, and expands beyond just caffeination alone.

Jung studied art in South Korea, running an art studio there, and Choi worked as a vintage designer furniture collector, but both had shared interests in coffee and food. After they moved to Seattle, they started searching for a café location in November 2019. After three months, they decided on the roughly 1400 square foot space on Broadway, signed the lease, and shortly after that, the pandemic hit. Jung said they endured “endless delays, in every single step” of the buildout.

Now open for business over a year later, either for takeout or limited seating at 25% capacity, the café boasts a stylish interior of eclectic tastes.

“We wanted to create a unique mood at URL by gathering the beauty that we have imagined, all in one place,” Jung said. “We mixed mid century modern designer furniture with contemporary furniture . . . URL presents new beauty by bringing together old, established things, Eastern and Western things, and things from different times and spaces.” Continue reading →

Broadway’s busiest 80 square feet now home to Antojitos Jalisco and its Capitol Hill fruit cocktail plans

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Soul Shack on da Hill, we barely knew you. It is now Antojitos Jalisco’s turn to put Broadway’s busiest 80 square feet to work.

Owner Caesar Martinez tell CHS his taco truck is currently operating and selling both food and drinks but April 9th is the real big event to look forward to. That’s the day his new business will first appear for delivery service on Uber Eats and Facebook. It is also the day he fully turns the former DreamBoyz Espresso stand into a fruta shack selling mangonadas, diablitos, raspadas, and other fresh fruit concoctions on Broadway in the parking lot of Teriyaki and Wok.

The family owns and operates the Capitol Hill taco truck and fruit stand and also has a taco truck at Rainier Ave S at S Graham. Continue reading →

Lobster Daddy nets Vermillion’s kitchen for Capitol Hill pop-up

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Lobster Daddy’s UwU Roll (Image: Lobster Daddy)

Vermillion’s mix of booze, community, and art has survived more than a decade of changes in Pike/Pine. It is adding an ambitious new partner to add good eats to its menu for Seattle’s COVID-19 reopening era.

Lobster Daddy will bring lobster rolls, seafood chowder and creations, plus some witty merchandise and marketing to be part of the offerings at the 11th Ave art bar:

Lobster Daddy (LD) is throwing their first soft-open event at Vermillion on April 2nd and 3rd from 3pm-9pm. LD will be featuring crab rolls and lobster rolls with a variety of amazing ingredients from Asia. You also won’t want to miss their beautiful octopus carpaccio dish (Akkorokamui) named after a giant octopus-like monster from Japanese Ainu folklore.

Owner Kodey Currier says the plan is for Lobster Daddy to continue the pop-up as Vermillion’s kitchen, first as takeout only and, hopefully, with sit-down service as the city and the bar fully reopens in May or June. Continue reading →

Now arriving: Flight Wine + Chocolate touches down on Capitol Hill

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(Image: Flight Wine + Chocolate)

(Image: Flight Wine + Chocolate)

A flight delay at 13th and Pike? Owners at the new Capitol Hill chocolate shop and wine pairing cafe Flight Wine + Chocolate say they may have missed a few planned opening dates over the last few months but are now safely landed and open for business.

“We will be in ‘soft’ open mode for a few weeks – wine bottle, chocolate, merchandise, and gift card sales. Seated tastings, by appointment only, should be available by late April,” husband and husband team David Wildman and Kevin Morton tell CHS. Continue reading →

On Capitol Hill’s Bellevue Ave, Cafe Barjot — Joe Bar’s palindromic sibling — will close to make way for Finch and Pine

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(Image: Cafe Barjot

Wylie Bush now lives in the wild suburban rurals of Seattle and is raising a family. His Seattle cafe family will be changing.

Cafe Barjot will close at the end of the month to make way for a new restaurant project after seven years of business on Bellevue Ave E. Its palindromic older sibling Joe Bar will live and love on.

“As melancholy as I feel about closing Barjot I am as excited to write that the space will be reenergized by a new restaurant run by two wonderful people who will serve you food and drink that will quickly make Barjot a happy memory,” Bush announced over the weekend.

First-time food and drink owners and industry veterans Sara Moran and Paolo Gentile are taking over the space to open Finch and Pine later this spring. Moran most recently was part of the kitchen at Melrose’s Terra Plata while Gentile will bring deep wine and cocktail knowledge to the project. Continue reading →

Washington addresses the Vivace paradox, adds restaurant workers to COVID-19 vaccine eligibility ranks starting March 31st

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Gov. Jay Inslee and Washington health officials are solving the Vivace paradox: How can you allow restaurants and cafes to reopen with increased indoor seating capacity without making sure the workers who serve those un-masked eating and drinking customers are eligible for vaccination?

The answer is you can’t so, come March 31st, restaurant workers will join the ranks of the essential workers who formally qualify for COVID-19 vaccination in Washington.

Inslee announced the change Thursday. People 60 to 64 and those experiencing homelessness that live in or access services at shelters and congregate settings will also be eligible.

CHS reported here on the dilemma faced by Capitol Hill-headquartered Cafe Vivace and restaurants and cafes across the Hill as COVID-19 restrictions lifted but food and drink workers were not included in the state’s current vaccination phase.

Continue reading →