Author Archives: AGPhoto

Kink Center wants Capitol Hill to know it’s mostly about the ‘center’

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Walk past the E Pike sidewalk sign for Kink Center and you might expect something out of a dirty movie.

Step inside on a typical night and you’re more likely to find a board game in progress, a book club mid-debate, or somebody passing around cupcakes.

“I think that people see these opening scenes of The Matrix as the idea for what a kink club looks like,” said Luna, the volunteer-run venue’s director of marketing.

“… and we’re just in here eating cupcakes.”

That gap between expectation and reality is kind of the point. Kink Center opened last year as what its organizers call a third space, a community center first, oriented toward kink and queer folks and built around accessibility.

Executive director Raven Dubh says the idea grew out of need. Seattle has some good options for kink events, but few built around the accessibility the team wanted, and almost none affordable enough for a beginning organizer to take a swing.

“It’s a very expensive failure if you try somewhere else,” Dubh said.

Dubh said friends trying to organize their own events ran into cost and resource challenges.

“The more I was trying to help people do that, I realized they couldn’t,” Dubh said. “They couldn’t front that kind of money.”

Accessibility at the center takes many forms: masking and clean-air policies with HEPA filtration, ADA-accessible bathrooms and elevator access, rental rates kept low so tickets can be cheap or free. Continue reading →

Riders sound off on fare gates coming to Capitol Hill Station

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Fare gates are coming to Capitol Hill Station, and the neighborhood has feelings about it.

As CHS reported last month, the Sound Transit board voted to move forward with an $87 million pilot to install fare gates at 14 stations on the 1 and 2 Lines, Capitol Hill included. Gates aren’t expected to show up at Broadway and John until 2029 or 2030, but the vote is a real shift for an agency that has run Link as an open, proof-of-payment system since 2009.

The reason: systemwide farebox recovery has been running around 11% to 14%, far short of Sound Transit’s 40% goal. Fare evasion hit roughly 45% of riders in 2023 before gaining with Fare Ambassadors on board; the agency projects it’ll still sit near 25% by 2029, well above the 2.4% rate seen before the pandemic. Capitol Hill Station itself sees about 11,000 boardings a day, some 40% above pre-pandemic levels.

CHS asked a few riders at the station what they think.

Matt is on board: “I’m pro. I’m a fan of fare gates,” though he doubts gates move much revenue on their own. Dee pointed to peer cities: “San Francisco, New York, Tokyo. They all have fare gates.” For riders who already pay, Dee said, nothing changes: “How would it impact you? Not at all.”
Continue reading →

El Pastorcito Taqueria brought the tacos — It’s also working on a fresh tortilla machine and even more Mexico vibes on Broadway

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El Pastorcito Taqueria recently opened on Capitol Hill, with more big plans already underway—from importing a custom tortilla machine straight from Mexico to an upcoming dining room remodel.

“People like the food, they keep coming,” owner Fabian Munoz said.

A tortilla machine is on order from Mexico, though it will take time to arrive. “That will take two or three months because they are making the machine, then we have to import it,” Munoz said. “It takes time and money.” The masa and meat will still be made in-house, and the machine takes over the part of the job that is nearly impossible to keep up with by hand.

El Pastorcito Taqueria opened at 314 Broadway E in the former Broadway Grill space this summer. Co-owned by Pedro Barragan Bautista, who also operates the original location in Kent along with Mr. Cammaron Bar & Grill and the El Pollo Rey food truck, the taqueria brings the flavors of Tijuana to Capitol Hill with trompo tacos and tortas.

The Mexico vibe is part of the pitch. Munoz pointed to the Coca-Cola tables and chairs, the promotional furniture restaurants get free from beverage distributors in Mexico. Continue reading →

At Sea’d In, the wood fire is burning again in Capitol Hill’s Chophouse Row

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Two of the most important names in the Pike/Pine business community are behind the creation of Sea’d In, a new Capitol Hill restaurant that treats fish like fine steak.

Chef Heong Soon Park said the spark for the wood fire-powered concept came in a call from Chophouse Row developer Liz Dunn, who Park credits with keeping Capitol Hill’s character intact as the neighborhood changes and grows. She had a showcase restaurant space open and one question for him up front: Did he like cooking with fire?

Park had already been circling an idea for a seafood restaurant, something he had originally pictured closer to the water, but that concept never found the right home. When Dunn reached out, he brought the idea to her instead, and the two of them worked out the shape of it together. “She inspired me, and then I filled in the blanks,” he says.

While Dunn — Chophouse Row, the Piston & Ring Building, Melrose Market — is the shaper of many of the core commercial spaces of modern-day Capitol Hill, Park is responsible for a growing fleet of neighborhood restaurants.

Park’s first venture in Capitol Hill’s restaurant scene was Meet Korean BBQ which has been part of Capitol Hill since its inauspicious opening in the winter of 2020 only weeks before the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns hit.

In 2024, Park took on the reinvention of a space that had been home to a deeply rooted Capitol Hill food legend with the transformation that saw his Grana Padano and Parmesan-laden Cheese Room take over the longtime Melrose at Pine home of Machiavelli as its ownership decided to focus on its Edmonds location. Continue reading →

CHS Pics | ‘ROUND AND ROUND THEY GO’ — Tilted Thunder Roller Derby battles on 15th Ave E

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There was a taped-out oval on the floor of the Quality Flea Center on 15th Ave E this weekend and it didn’t get there by accident.

Taylor Sloan, who runs the bar at The Hopvine across the street, spent part of her week free-handing a flat track onto the flea market’s concrete floor, no measuring tape required.

“I’ve taped out a million tracks at this point,” Sloan said. “I use upholstery foam and gaffer tape for the pole covers, because it’s supposed to be like a fun, DIY, punk rock sort of thing.”

Sloan has been skating with Tilted Thunder Roller Derby for 17 years. Normally, that means suiting up on the league’s regular turf: a 6,000-square-foot wooden track the team builds from scratch at the fairgrounds in Monroe, home to a growing in popularity event –polished, bleacher-seated, and fiercely competitive. But this weekend at the Quality Flea Center was something else entirely with a stripped-down expo bout, played bank track rules on the flat surface with skaters squaring off against each other for the fun of it. Continue reading →

Meat, cheese, and Broadway: Calozzi’s Cheesesteaks rolls onto Capitol Hill

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You can now grab a cheesesteak on Capitol Hill. A new food truck parked at the 76 gas station on the north end of Broadway is serving up the Philly-style sandwiches.

The trailer belongs to Juan Avila, owner of the Calozzi’s Cheesesteaks original brick-and-mortar walk-up in Georgetown. Avila purchased the trailer along with its prime North Broadway location from a friend in the food truck business. “He sold me this trailer with the spot,” Avila explained, noting he maintained the existing rental contract with the gas station owners.

The venture grew out of a franchise agreement. After working for Calozzi’s original owner for years, Avila sought to launch his own business. “I talked to him last year… I want to start my own business, and he wants to open as a franchisor,” Avila said. Under the deal, Avila took over the Georgetown shop and brand name while the original owner retained a percentage of profits as a silent partner.

As he looked for where to expand his cheesesteak empire, Avila researched the options on Capitol Hill. Continue reading →

Nobody is coming to save you — That was the point of Capitol Hill’s Urban Survival Fair

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Disaster preparedness usually gets framed as an individual problem. Your kit, your plan, your family, maybe even your pet. But last Sunday’s Urban Survival Fair at Volunteer Park made a different case: surviving the next big disruption, whether it’s an earthquake, a heat dome, or an ice storm, is going to depend just as much on knowing your neighbors as on what’s sitting in your closet.

That message was repeated from the volunteers staffing the booths. When disaster hits, the fire department is not coming, not right away, and maybe not for days. The people who show up first are going to be the people who already live next door to you.

While FEMA suggests being ready for 72 hours without assistance, the city of Seattle’s Office of Emergency Management is more realistic for our region, suggesting Seattle residents be prepared for 7 to 10 days without assistance.

“In an emergency, it is most likely that in that first hour after an emergency, you will be rescued by your neighbors and not by the fire department, the city, any of that,” said Nicole Bahr, a volunteer with the North Capitol Hill Emergency Hub, which meets weekly from 6-7pm on the lower level of the Volunteer Park Seventh-day Adventist Church at 13th Ave E and E Aloha.

“It’s going to be your neighbors, and so you might as well know who your neighbors are.” Continue reading →

From takeout to queer POC nightlife, Spice Bliss expands across Broadway with Spice Bar & Bites

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Broadway Indian takeout favorite Spice Bliss isn’t moving anywhere but its new sibling across the street is establishing a home base for neighborhood queer people of color.

“It’s culture, and it’s building itself. All you have to do is give it a space,” manager Keith J says about Spice Bar & Bites.

The new hangout has hopes of growing on this stretch of Broadway between Pike and Pine as a bar and a space for “dance nights & events with seasoning on ‘em.”

You will also see some familiar faces from other venues who are banding together to make Spice Bar their own.

“Seattle nightlife has become this monotonous, the same song played in every bar on Capitol Hill for the past five years,” Keith J says. “You give people a place that actually lets them dance, and they’re like, ‘Finally!'”

The hopes around Spice Bar are growing. Continue reading →

Under new owners, Belmont now has a bar worthy of its Capitol Hill couch and cocktail vibes

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Jitmongkonkul and Cantrell

Born as a wine bar and bottle shop transformed out of a long ago pet supply store, Capitol Hill’s Belmont has always had a few quirks and limitations as a cocktail bar.

This summer, Belmont has new owners who are using their experience in Seattle hangouts to give the Capitol Hill cocktail lounge a behind the scenes overhaul.

Anthony Cantrell, Tanner Jitmongkonkul, and Erin Wilbur have taken over Belmont from longtime owners Mark and Carmen Brown who were ready to retire from the lounge. For Jitmongkonkul, the deal was years in the making. He worked behind the bar at Belmont in 2021 before opening Otter on the Rocks in West Seattle. When Mark and Carmen reached out about selling this year, he said, “it was hard to say no.”

Cantrell, who previously spent a decade at Itto’s in West Seattle, had discussed potential partnerships with Jitmongkonkul for years. When the Belmont opportunity arose in February, he didn’t hesitate. “It was too good of a deal to pass up,” he said.

The low lighting and leather couches remain, by design. Both owners wanted to preserve the moody, lounge-y atmosphere that has made Belmont a Capitol Hill fixture since 2018, a lower-key alternative to the neighborhood’s louder, faster bars.

“I kind of like that this is a place where you can go and have a mellow vibe,” Cantrell said. Continue reading →

Five years of Ltd Edition and Chef Keiji Tsukasaki, Capitol Hill’s DJ of sushi

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Chef Keiji Tsukasaki is celebrating five years at Ltd Edition, a sushi restaurant on Capitol Hill that has combined his traditional sushi training with his diverse background in nightlife and Japanese culture to earn accolades as one of the “best restaurants in America.”

Tsukasaki describes himself as both a traditional chef and a party organizer. “Especially with ownership here, I feel like a party organizer too,” he tells CHS. This blend of experiences shapes how he approaches sushi and hospitality, making Ltd Edition a unique part of Capitol Hill’s food scene.

Tsukasaki compares working a sushi bar to dropping a beat.

“It has a live feeling, similar to DJing to the audience,” Tsukasaki says. He appreciates the analog nature of sushi craftsmanship in contrast to today’s digital world. After experiencing the COVID-19 lockdown, he decided to open his own restaurant.

“Maybe this is a crazy idea, but I want to share the traditional Japanese style of sushi with a younger audience. ”

Tsukasaki was born and raised in the coastal town of Fukui, Japan, and grew up immersed in Japanese street culture, dance music, fashion, art, and food. He came to the U.S. as a DJ in the 1990s and decided to live abroad permanently after experiencing a culture shock and discovering a broader world. Continue reading →