Author Archives: AGPhoto

One year later: How Bonito Café y Mercadito became Capitol Hill’s newest cultural hub

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What began as a simple pop-up market to celebrate their photography has transformed into something much larger for Ismael Calderon and his husband Daniel on Capitol Hill.

One year after opening Bonito Café y Mercadito at Melrose and E Olive Way, the Bakersfield transplants have filled a distinct gap in Capitol Hill’s coffee landscape, creating a community hub that weaves together Latino and queer culture while reimagining traditional flavors through an innovative lens. From the Calderon’s first space in the old Rainier Brewery, where Aqui photography studio first sparked this unexpected journey, Ismael reflects on how a modest celebration evolved into one of the neighborhood’s most distinctive gathering places.

Bonito’s origin story begins with that impromptu celebration two years ago at the opening of Aqui. What started as a one-off event featuring about 10 vendors quickly grew into something more significant when attendees kept asking when the next market would be.

“There was such a vibe, and there was such a warm feeling that people felt when they came,” Ismael Calderon recalls. “Everyone was like, okay, cool. When are you gonna have another one?”

That market, focused on POC and queer vendors, has grown. This summer, they hosted over 15,000 people at the waterfront in what Calderon called the biggest event of its kind. The success of these markets inspired the couple as they leapt into brick-and-mortar cafe culture and retail.

“We wanted a market that felt something close to us, being queer and Latino,” Calderon explains. “We wanted something that represented us.” Continue reading →

With Petit Pierre Bakery bike shop pop-up, pastry chef brings a cycle of perfectly layered croissants to Capitol Hill

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Pierre Poulin’s passion for perfectly layered croissants has found a new home on Capitol Hill. The French pastry chef, who operates two Petit Pierre Bakery locations in Magnolia and Phinney Ridge, has opened a six-month pop-up inside Capitol Hill’s Metier, bringing his meticulous approach to French pastries to a new neighborhood.

“We do several bakes a day,” Poulin said . “We have our first bake that comes out around 7 am, then we have a second bake that comes out at 10, and a third bake that comes at 1. At one PM, you’re still getting fresh product coming out of the oven, and the difference is just striking.” Continue reading →

A third generation of owners at Capitol Hill cocktail classic Tavern Law

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Capitol Hill’s pioneering cocktail destination Tavern Law has new ownership, with Brazilian/American restaurateur Saulo Cruz and tech industry veteran Kenneth Jones taking over the 12th Ave establishment they hope to elevate while preserving what makes it special.

The duo represents an interesting blend of experience and fresh perspective. Cruz has operated La Fontana in Belltown for four years with another business partner — Rodrigo Parisi, managing partner of Capitale Pizzeria on Broadway.

Jones, who moved to Seattle just a year and a half ago, brings a hospitality-focused background from the tech industry.

Their partnership has an unexpectedly personal foundation. “His wife, I consider my adopted daughter because she is my daughter’s best friend,” Cruz explains. When both families moved to Seattle years apart, the connection deepened. “Her family is far away, so we took her in. She’s part of the family.” Continue reading →

Mintish Coffee House brings Palestinian heritage and community connection to Capitol Hill

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Brothers Nano and Mahmoud Farajallah and friend Abdullah Alabed

Capitol Hill has a new gathering spot. Mintish, a Levantine-inspired coffee shop on Harvard Ave E, represents both a business venture and a cultural bridge for brothers Mahmoud and Nano Farajallah and friend and business partner Abdullah Alabed.

The cafe is now open at 515 Harvard Ave E in a space that the owners transformed themselves from what was once the last vestige of legendary Capitol Hill hangout Bauhaus.

Mahmoud Farjallah, who was born in Seattle but raised in the Middle East, returned to Washington 12 years ago to study accounting at the University of Washington. His friend Alabed grew up in Jordan. Both are Palestinian-American, and their family story reflects the displacement many Palestinian families have experienced over generations. Nano was in Dubai during the interview with CHS.

“My dad was born in Gaza,” Mahmoud Farajallah explained during the shop’s soft opening week. “Unfortunately, I never went to Palestine, but it always grew up with me.” Continue reading →

In court-embattled Denny Blaine Park, a show of defiance, nudity… and puppets

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While the battle to keep Denny Blaine nude is playing out in court, members of the queer and nudist communities that love and utilize the park have continued to visit the popular beach this summer.

In a city where developers and wealthy NIMBYs seem to be nearly constantly scheming to carve up public space for private gain, revolutionary energy is also bubbling up at Denny Blaine in the form of puppets, nudity, and unapologetic queer defiance.

This weekend, guerrilla performances transformed the lakeside park into a stage for radical satire, bodily liberation, and a middle finger to privatization. The shows were part absurdist comedy, part scathing political critique, and directed their ire at figures like Stuart Sloan, the wealthy neighbor who has spent years trying to sanitize Denny Blaine, and Mayor Bruce Harrell’s laughably inept attempts to placate the NIMBYs.

One performance swung between nostalgia for freer times and biting commentary on whose bodies get to take up space. “These are my boobies!” declared an actor, fully nude except for a top hat. It was cheeky but the message hit home. Freedom has some rough edges — and the battle isn’t done. Continue reading →

Pitch the Baby is a Capitol Hill sports bar for everybody — ‘even if you’re not there to watch a game’

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Custer and Dimas

19th Ave E has come alive with the sounds of cheering fans and clinking glasses at Pitch the Baby, the new Capitol Hill sports bar that is rewriting the playbook on gameday culture.

The bar has been open in a kind of preseason mode as the new operations ramps up and prepares for this Friday’s grand opening. CHS huddled with owners Ani Custer and Monica Dimas to learn about their unconventional approach that’s already drawing crowds.

Let’s start with the name which comes from an idea that may seem as far from sportsball as you can get.

“It is a Cocteau Twins song about childbirth from an album that Monica just loves,” Custer says. The owners leaned into the quirky vibe, noting it “kind of sounded to us like cutesy, kind of sportsy, like a little bit of League of Their Own.” Dimas added with a laugh, “It shouldn’t be that deep.”

While the newly installed big screens show plenty of sports action, the owners designed Pitch the Baby to stand out from typical sports bars. “The goal was to make a sports bar with offerings that you would want, even if you’re not there to watch a game,” Custer told CHS. Continue reading →

Fostering communities and open mics, Capitol Hill’s Hopvine Pub is turning 30

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Summer will end on Capitol Hill with one of the neighborhood’s most enduring beer institutions preparing to mark a significant milestone. In September, Hopvine Pub will celebrate 30 years of pouring craft beers, serving comfort food, and fostering communities and open mics at its 15th Ave location.

The story of the Hopvine is fully linked to Seattle’s craft beer revolution. When owner Bob Brenlin first opened the doors in 1995, the city’s beer landscape looked dramatically different.

“Back in ’95, we were one of the first places focusing exclusively on local microbrews,” Brenlin recalls, leaning against the well-worn bar that has borne witness to three decades of stories. Continue reading →

‘Let the people have rat’ — Work party restores Cal Anderson Park mural

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A symbol of Capitol HIll’s “Hot Rat Summer” has been restored — partially — on the historic Cal Anderson Gatehouse.

Dedicated neighbors, artists, and two members of the Seattle City Council gathered on the hottest day of the year so far to restore the surprisingly radiant rat mosaic after the city painted over it in what some are calling a bureaucratic blunder and others see as an act of erasure.

“It’s such a beautiful mural that’s taken so many hours,” said Bug, a Vegas transplant new to the city, who showed up solo to help uncover the piece. “Just to cover it up, like, out of spite? It didn’t make sense to me. Especially in a city that’s so filled with art.”

Bug, who said they first saw the mural on Instagram and later learned it had been painted over through Reddit, wasn’t the only one moved to act. Other dedicated mural appreciators were there. “I just came and did it on my own,” Bug said. “This is the second time I showed up to uncover it.”

The mosaic mural was painted on the side of the landmarked Seattle Public Utilities Gatehouse building above Cal Anderson’s reflecting pool. It has became a source of neighborhood pride in the spunky expression of a neighborhood dedicated to having a good time despite any hard times and challenges. That made it all the more surprising when city crews painted over it.

Seattle City Councilmembers Joy Hollingsworth and Alexis Mercedes Rinck joined residents Wednesday to help gently scrub the white paint off the rat. Continue reading →

Central Cinema celebrates 20+ years: How a sculpture studio became Central District’s quirkiest neighborhood theater

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When Kevin Spitzer first rented a former auto repair shop just off E Union in the late ’90s, it was his studio, a raw, industrial space in a then-neglected stretch of Seattle’s Central District.

“This was actually my sculpture studio in here before the theater,” Spitzer says. “It was Jean’s first tenant when she and Jack bought the building out of an auction.”

The building at 1411 21st Ave has lived many lives since it was constructed in 1929. “It was originally built in ’29 as a car dealership. “Pretty sure it was Ford,” Spitzer explains. “Then what I heard is it became a dairy for, like decades, it was a bottling plant.” By the time the Spitzers arrived, the area was far from the bustling hub it is today.

This summer, Central Cinema is celebrating its 20th year in the neighborhood — though it has been on the block a little longer.

“There was no 20/20 Bike Shop, or Katie’s coffee or anything like that,” Kate Spitzer remembered. “It was like storefronts with plywood on them. The gas station was just Jimmy and Al fixing cars.” Continue reading →

Seattle’s mysterious Sea Dragonsss artist reveals story behind Capitol Hill’s time-traveling sculptures

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If you have wandered across Capitol Hill, Columbia City, Seward Park, or even Los Angeles, you may have spotted them — colorful, CD-studded dragon faces grinning from telephone poles, their reflective surfaces glinting in the sunlight. Emerging from the imagination of the pseudonymous Sea DragonSSS, these sculptures carry the mystery of their creator with backstories involving time travel that are as deliberately obscure as the artist himself.

The artist — who goes by Eddie after his signature dragon character — shared with CHS the story behind his decade-long journey from obscure noise musician to guerrilla sculptor, his installation mishaps, and his ambitious plans to bring his time traveling dragon universe to life through animation.

FROM FAILED MUSICIAN TO STREET ARTIST: THE UNLIKELY ORIGINS OF SEA DRAGONSSS

Long before dragons adorned Seattle’s streets, Sea DragonSSS was a struggling experimental artist.

“I started as a musician. Was playing music in the 90s, mostly noise, not very popular stuff. Got some grants along the way to put out CDs. I also was a filmmaker too. CDs and DVDs of my work, none of them sold. Well, I shouldn’t say none of them, but not very many of them.”

Faced with boxes of unsold discs, he saw an opportunity. Continue reading →