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 →
Surrounded by Capitol Hill landmarks, the intersection of E Denny Way and E Olive Way is a cross-section of a neighborhood known for both night and stoner life. With Holy Smoke to the northwest, The Reef to the south, and Dino’s pizza to the southwest, a cannabis inspired morning or night can be found at one Hill intersection. The other corner also has a “how high were they when they thought of this?” vibe. Capitol Hill’s Arcade Plaza has never quite grown beyond a fun idea for a pavement park but on the right day can be an interesting spot to sit down and watch the flow of the busy intersection as cars, bikes, and people make their ways up, down, over, and across Capitol Hill.
9’s is a regular photo series with a simple premise. CHS visits a corner of the Hill twice — once at 9 AM and again at 9 PM — to capture the scenes of the neighborhood in motion. Have a space you’d like us to feature? Let us know in comments.
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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 →
You would be forgiven, by some, if you thought you were looking at a corner of Capitol Hill. But this is 23rd and Union and the heart of the Central District where the development waves many associate with Pike/Pine or Broadway are continuing to reshape the environment. The massive, wrapped construction is Midtown Square, a three-piece, seven-story mixed-use apartment development with more than 400 market-rate and affordable units, a quasi-public central plaza, and a huge underground parking garage on the site of the former Midtown Center shopping strip. When it opens later this year, it will be only the latest major development to transform the intersection that is now busy with old originals like Earl’s Cuts and big new additions like a PCC. By day, there are two coffee shops ready to serve — Union Coffee and Squirrel Chops — plus Cafe Avole on the way. As nighttime activity grows again, the original Uncle Ike’s draws crowds while Seattle Soul Food restaurant Communion looks forward to eventually hosting a busy bar.
9’s is a regular photo series with a simple premise. CHS visits a corner of the Hill twice — once at 9 AM and again at 9 PM — to capture the scenes of the neighborhood in motion. Have a space you’d like us to feature? Let us know in comments.
THANKS! WE DID IT! 1,000 CHS SUBSCRIBERS -- We asked, you answered. Thanks for stepping up! Support local journalism dedicated to your neighborhood. SUBSCRIBE HERE. Join to become a subscriber at $1/$5/$10 a month to help CHS provide community news with NO PAYWALL. You can also sign up for a one-time annual payment.
The intersection of Pike and Boren on the western slope of Capitol Hill is almost as busy with pedestrians and bicycles as it is with cars and buses. Connecting downtown to Capitol Hill, the intersection hosts Plymouth Pillars Park where four Doric pillars stand rescued from Plymouth Congregational Church, salvaged after the 1965 Puget Sound earthquake damaged the structure beyond repair. The intersection also is home to the historic Hotel Avondale now known as the Villa Apartments and Zaika, the Salvation Army Food Bank and shelter, and, toward downtown, Pike Grocery and the Homewood Suites.
9’s is a regular photo series with a simple premise. CHS visits a corner of the Hill twice — once at 9 AM and again at 9 PM — to capture the scenes of the neighborhood in motion. Have a space you’d like us to feature? Let us know in comments.
THANKS! WE DID IT! 1,000 CHS SUBSCRIBERS -- We asked, you answered. Thanks for stepping up! Support local journalism dedicated to your neighborhood. SUBSCRIBE HERE. Join to become a subscriber at $1/$5/$10 a month to help CHS provide community news with NO PAYWALL. You can also sign up for a one-time annual payment.
In the middle of a major expansion and the challenges of 2020, Capitol Hill’s Urban Animal is hoping to help the neighborhood’s pets and owners get a healthy start on 2021 with a first come, first served vaccination clinic.
It’s not just people waiting in lines for vaccines right now. Many dogs and cats have also been waiting for vaccines or boosters while COVID-19 restrictions and busy human schedules have made getting things scheduled a little more difficult than normal. Tuesday at the Capitol Hill clinic, Dr. Cherri Trusheim and her staff are hosting a day of walk up vaccinations and quick wellness checks to try to help Urban Animal families get needed care.
The first come first serve walk-up clinic will be from 11 AM to 2 PM on Tuesday, February 23rd. According to Liz Weber of Urban Animal, “this will be a low cost, brief exam, vaccine day where people who haven’t been able to get into our clinics for an appointment with the restrictions can now get updated.”
In late 2019, CHS reported on Urban Animal’s big plans to expand on Capitol Hill as Cafe Solstice got out from under its expensive just off-Broadway lease. The plans for a new expanded clinic — complete with separate entrances for dogs and cats — have been delayed through the pandemic. Urban Animal is currently operating out of the old cafe space while remodeling the original location next door as part of the expansion.
“We feel like all we do is tell people no all day, they call and we tell them we can’t get you in, because we can’t have people waiting outside,” Trusheim said. “It’s been really challenging. The expansion will help, we will be able to get more people in the door.” Continue reading →
The intersection of Broadway and Roy is another spot where Capitol Hill zigs when you might have expected it to zag. Capitol Hill’s main drag shifts a block here, becoming 10th Ave E if you are headed north. Southbound as you shift, you are entering the Broadway core of Capitol Hill. Some of the older buildings have hidden evidence of this adjustment to the street behind facades and additions to fill the weird gaps that happen when you move a road and sidewalks. These days, the zig zag is home to a collection of neighborhood favorites including the old like the DeLuxe and Rom Mai and newcomers like Carrello and Bait Shop. Broadway continues 1.6 miles south until it ends at a T junctions with E Yesler Way.
9’s is a regular photo series with a simple premise. CHS visits a corner of the Hill twice — once at 9 AM and again at 9 PM — to capture the scenes of the neighborhood in motion. Have a space you’d like us to feature? Let us know in comments.
“I can say I was born in a chocolate factory,” Carlos Rios tells CHS.
Rios and Valeria Calles have opened the first ever Rey Amargo in the United States here on Capitol HIll, bringing the respected chocolate maker’s flavors to E Pike in what the couple hopes will be the start of a family of cafes around the Seattle area, and, maybe eventually, beyond.
“In 1939, my grandfather started the factory in Mexico,” Carlos Rios said. The chocolate maker opened his first store in Jalisco near Guadalajara in 2009.
Chocolate based drinks are the focus at Rios’s Rey Amargo, the first shop in the States, and the eighth counting the originals in Mexico. Continue reading →
The corner of Union and Madison, facing west toward downtown, beyond where 12th, Madison, and Union meet, is a signature intersection of Capitol Hill. The streets combine with the overheard trolley lines to bring your eyes to the acutely angular Viva building. With Seattle University to the south, the Ferrari dealership to the north, Seattle Academy of Arts and Sciences to the southeast, and Mighty O donuts to the northeast — and Pony due south east — this intersection is a true Capitol Hill crossroads at night and at day.
9’s is a new regular photo series with a simple premise. CHS visits a corner of the Hill twice — once at 9 AM and again at 9 PM — to capture the scenes of the neighborhood in motion. Have a space you’d like us to feature? Let us know in comments.
THANKS! WE DID IT! 1,000 CHS SUBSCRIBERS -- We asked, you answered. Thanks for stepping up! Support local journalism dedicated to your neighborhood. SUBSCRIBE HERE. Join to become a subscriber at $1/$5/$10 a month to help CHS provide community news with NO PAYWALL. You can also sign up for a one-time annual payment.
“Every day we had a line out the door,” says Makoto Kimoto, owner of Broadway’s Rondo, as he described the first couple of months of regular business in 2020.
Now, a year later, the lines have changed. Delivery drivers line up to pick up to-go orders instead of customers waiting to dine in.
The restaurant opened last January as a Broadway “daytime” counterpart in the Suika Capitol Hill restaurant family has instead become the center of Kimoto’s efforts in the neighborhood as restaurants and bars do what they can to keep employees and patrons safe while trying to outlast months of COVID-19 restrictions.
A year after its debut, Rondo still has a patio, and you can still sit down and eat and drink there, but the indoor tables are now mostly used to prepare to-go orders. Kimoto tells CHS that he “can’t complain, because everyone is experiencing the same issues” but notes his sales have dropped but take out “doesn’t compare”. Like most restaurants, alcohol sales are a primary contributor to profit, and although Rondo sells to-go drinks, they can’t compete with people drinking while eating at the restaurant.
“I’m not depending on alcohol sales right now” Kimoto says, “We’re concentrating on making customers happy.”
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