Category Archives: Food & Drink

A new look but same neighborhood vibes at 15th Ave’s original Victrola Coffee

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There is a new look for an old coffee friend on 15th Ave E. One of Capitol Hill’s favorite hangouts has given its interior an overhaul with new seating and benches and a new layout.

Part of the neighborhood for 24 years, the original Victrola Coffee cafe is rolling out the upgrades as it also makes changes to its food menu.

The new setup and seating in the old favorite comes in changing times for Capitol Hill’s daytime hangouts emerging from the pandemic. Some of Capitol Hill’s best spaces changed forever in that time. Most recently, E Pike’s former Kaladi Brothers cafe has begun a new life as a home for the Capitol Hill expansion of beer hall and bottle shop the Last Drop. Continue reading →

Amid soaring delivery costs, Seattle looks at rolling back minimum wage requirements for app-based workers

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(Image: Uber Eats)

A Seattle City Council committee will begin new debate Thursday on Seattle’s minimum wage for app-based delivery workers just months after it was implemented.

The council’s economic development committee chaired by Council President Sara Nelson will hear reports on the impact of the minimum wage requirements approved by the council in 2022 but put into effect this year.

According to an analysis completed for Nelson, network companies like Uber “raised delivery fees and service fees, and some added a Seattle-specific fee,” and “fewer customer orders and longer wait times for workers to receive offers, impacting worker earnings” have been reported.

The council committee will also hear from Drive Forward Seattle, an industry group formed by “activist rideshare drivers” to advocate for delivery workers. The group maintains compensation to delivery workers has dropped somewhere between 11% and 50% compared to 2021 inflation-adjusted levels as both earnings and tips have reportedly plunged due to fewer orders and increased fees demanded by the network operators. Continue reading →

Happy Capitol Hill Spring — Mezcaleria Oaxaca’s Patio Cielo is open for the season

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(Image: Mercado Luna)

Another Capitol Hill sign of spring is blooming. Mezcaleria Oaxaca’s Patio Cielo reopened for the season over the weekend.

The space is one of Capitol Hill’s most fun decks and crowns the restaurant which just marked its tenth year on Capitol Hill.

CHS reported here on the 2014 opening of Mezcaleria Oaxaca as the ambitious Graham Baba-designed project from the Dominguez-Perez family and sibling to their La Carta De Oaxaca original took shape out of a former auto garage. Continue reading →

How about some Massive banh mi? New Capitol Hill club adding space for Vietnamese sandwich joint

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(Image: Massive)

One of Capitol Hill’s biggest new nightclub investments is adding an interesting food and drink expansion to its mix.

City permits show plans in the work for a new banh mi sandwich shop to join the ground floor complex of the new club Massive in the former R Place building at Pine and Boylston.

The project is being readied to carve out the tiny new E Pine Vietnamese sandwich joint from the existing kitchen and separate the new venue from the club’s first-floor bar area.

The new component creates a new opportunity for restaurant entrepreneur Tam Nguyen of the Tamarind Tree Restaurant Group, a Massive co-owner. Continue reading →

Capitol Hill’s Coastal Kitchen boarded up as real estate deal apparently off the table

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Thanks to a reader for the picture

An important deal for the stability of the 15th Ave E business core has apparently fallen through.

Large “for sale” signage has been put up on top of the plywood panels covering the shuttered Coastal Kitchen following last month’s announcement that the restaurant and its building had been sold.

CHS reported in early February on the announcement from the Sound Restaurant Family company that includes the Mioposto pizza chain as well as a roster of South Sound venues including The Poodle Dog in Fife that it had a deal to sell the Capitol Hill Coastal property to new ownership bringing a new concept to the building that has housed the restaurant for more than 30 years. Continue reading →

With ‘wellness and more,’ Guillotine set to replace Witness on Broadway

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It seems when it comes to cocktails, the guillotine holds a place similar to the legendary sidecar — 10,000 recipes that can vary from bartender to bartender, night to night.

We’re still learning what the recipe will be at new Capitol Hill restaurant and bar Guillotine when it opens soon on Broadway. Any kings and queens might want to watch their step.

The new project with a solid dose of Seattle mixology is being built out this month in the space left empty by the exit of Southern-style cocktail joint Witness last spring after nearly 10 years of business on the street. Continue reading →

Madison Valley’s new corner store? Kitchen & Market ’boutique grocery’

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(Image: Kitchen & Market)

The corner grocery store isn’t dead yet in Seattle but you might have to pay a little more for your chips. A small neighborhood grocery in Madison Valley is set to reopen as part of the Kitchen & Market “boutique grocery chain” that says it is “chef- driven” and “primarily focused on bringing fresh products and meal kits to market.”

“I am so excited that we are opening a store in Madison Valley,” Stephanie King, Kitchen & Market’s founder and CEO, said in the announcement of the store’s opening. “Madison Valley has long been a neighborhood of fabulous customers of Kitchen & Market via our delivery service and now they can visit us in person.”

The change for the market across the street from neighborhood anchor Cafe Flora is another burst of life for the neighborhood’s struggling business community as it has asked for more support to make it through this final year of construction to create the new RapidRide G rapid bus line to connect the waterfront to Madison Valley via First Hill and Capitol Hill along E Madison. Continue reading →

HoneyHole, now part of Rumba’s food and drink family, ready to reopen on Capitol Hill

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(Image: HoneyHole)

HoneyHole will reopen soon under new ownership and a much more stable future befitting the popular sandwich joint’s decades serving the neighborhood.

CHS reported here in December on efforts to revive HoneyHole by restaurateur Travis Rosenthal who has grown a family of popular Capitol Hill and Seattle food and drink venues including E Pike rum bar Rumba and its post-Tiki sibling Inside Passage.

The deal is now done and Rosenthal’s Pike Street Restaurant Group is taking over the 700-block E Pike bar and sandwich counter. Continue reading →

‘YOU DESERVE A SWEET LITTLE TREAT’ — Shikorina Pastries now open on E Pike

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There is a new organic bakeshop and cafe in the heart of Pike/Pine. Shikorina Pastries celebrated its “grand re-opening” and is now settled in on E Pike.

“Cake is back!,” the latest social media post for Shikorina exclaims. “Chocolate chiffon w/ strawberry jam and vanilla buttercream,” the hand written sign promises.

CHS reported here last month on the plans from baker Hana Yohannes to move the Black, queer, and woman-owned “organic, sustainable Central District bakery” off of E Union and into the heart of E Pike in the space left empty by the exit of Portland vegan Jewish deli chain Ben and Esther’s.

The move is an opportunity to leave lease, financial, and personal challenges behind, Yohannes said. Continue reading →

Reborn and revived on Capitol Hill, Kedai Makan readying Belltown expansion

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Sayap Ayam Pedas wings and a coconut shake, please (Image: Kedai Makan)

First, Kedai Makan came back from restaurant limbo with a new life at 15th and Pine. Now, it is getting ready to expand to Belltown.

The Capitol Hill Malaysian favorite says it is working on the new 1st Ave location and ready to expand from the E Pine corner where it reopened last year under after founders Kevin Burzell and Alysson Wilson decided they were ready to step away.

At 15th and Pine, the new Kedai Makan is continuing the traditions started at the original Bellevue Ave location and the many farmers markets where the Kedai Makan approach to Malaysian flavors were perfected. It has been a happy transition for the collaboration from Khampaeng “KP” Panyathong with Joe and Lucy Ye of Hangry Panda who originally came together to form the short-lived Money Frog concept.

Kedai Makan now moves forward under the Hagnry Panda ownership.

The old Bellevue Kedai Makan spot is now home to the Jilted Siren lounge.

Permit records show work is underway to make upgrades for the 1st Ave location where “Asian fusion” restaurant Lai Rai closed last summer.

Kedai Makan says only that the new location will open “soon.”

Kedai Makan is located at 1449 E Pine. Learn more at kedaimakansea.com.

 

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Subscribe to CHS to help us pay writers and photographers to cover the neighborhood. CHS is a pay what you can community news site with no required sign-in or paywall. Become a subscriber to help us cover the neighborhood for as little as $5 a month.