David Martin, hard at work on Capitol Hill (Image: CHS)

Did you think that we had already written about all the tech startups on Capitol Hill? Nope, not even close. This week visit Trakstar, a little human resources software firm that calls E Pike home. We talked with founder David Martin in Trakstar’s offices right above Via Tribunali, which you can see from the street if you’re at the Capitol Hill Block Party, or say, a post-election happy riot.

Trakstar doesn’t just seek to automate HR processes that can become onerous as a company gets larger – Martin says that he also sees his mission as improving communication within a company, and making the performance review process better.

After over a little more than six years on Capitol Hill, Trakstar has a staff of 12 (6 in Colorado and 6 in the Seattle office), and more than 500 customers worldwide.  They’re still growing too – if you’re a Rails software engineer who really likes foosball, Trakstar might be the place for you.

Martin started Trakstar out of his dorm room at Colorado State University in 2001. However, the business (then called Promantech) wasn’t a full time endeavor until he moved to Seattle in the summer of 2006.  “I had a friend who moved up here and was always having a ton of fun, and I was jealous, and I had no employees, said Martin, “so I moved.”

Trakstar has been based out of Capitol Hill ever since Martin moved to Seattle; first out of his Capitol Hill apartment, then in the Packard Building, and finally in their present offices starting in June 2012. “The location is perfect,” said Martin, “I mean Broadway and Pike, you can’t beat that, anywhere in Seattle.”

Employee performance history is only one of the ways that you can slice and dice data with Trakstar

The present location is where Promantech transformed into Trakstar, with the completion of a full rewrite of the original software accompanying the change in name and branding.

Trakstar VP of Engineering Ken Everett and founder David Martin engage in a fierce game of the company pastime, foosball (Image: CHS)

Trakstar’s specialty is web-browser based human resources software, in the niche of employee performance management – tracking what employees are working on, preparing performance reviews, and communicating company goals.  It also allows for continuous communication between employees and their higher-ups, instead of only having periodic bursts of feedback in the form of annual reviews or goal-setting memos.

According to Martin, Trakstar differs from its competitors in HR software because of their dedication to transparency.  Demos and pricing estimates of the software are freely available on the website, something that Martin says is not common across the industry.  This transparency is reflected in the software as well – employees can log into Trakstar at any time and see their previous appraisals, the metrics their performance is being measured on, and company and department goals.  The configurability of the software to fit a particular business as well as the many different ways that the reports can slice up data were also mentioned as selling points.

Trakstar currently focuses only on employee performance, making it a product that works best for companies from 25 to 5,000 employees. “Larger companies (2-5000) also want compensation and succession planning built in,” says Martin. Next year, Martin said Trakstar will work toward providing this next tier of features.

Martin said that Trakstar has decided to stay on Capitol Hill because it can. “We don’t have to be in a particular neighborhood, and this is the neighborhood we’d like to be in,” he said.  Since Trakstar is a web-browser based product, it isn’t reliant on suppliers and has a customer base distributed worldwide. This frees up Trakstar to locate based on other criteria. Martin named neighborhood, central location for employees who live spread through the Seattle area, proximity to his house (“selfishly I want to be able to walk to work”) and good places to eat as reasons he chose Capitol Hill as the location for his HQ.

You can learn more at promantek.com.

Tech Notes

• Remember our post about start-up EnergySavvy’s plea for help finding affordable office space so the company could remain on Capitol Hill? Didn’t work out. The producer of clean energy software is holding a game night open house in their new Pioneer Square home this Thursday.

More Capitol Hill Tech

• Maggie Finch & Casey Selleck of King of the Web
• Donte Parks of Substantial
• Colin Henry of SimplyMeasured

The Seattle Choral Company’s annual Cathedral Christmas program will again feature fresh interpretations of old favorites, new works on holiday themes, and a few surprises, too! Swedish composer Anders Öhrwall’s elegant, quietly modern settings of Renaissance melodies will compliment Kirke Mechem’s playful, whimsical collection of Christmas carols. Newly composed carols by Stephen Paulus and festive arrangements by Mannheim Steamroller’s Jackson Berkey will complete the program, along with a rousing audience sing-along. Featured music includes: Gaudete from the Piae Cantiones of 1582 (by Anders Öhrwall), Seven Joys of Christmas (by Kirke Mechem), seasonal carols, and a pre-concert sing-along.

Ticket prices are: $25 (general), $20 (65+), & $10 (to 25)
To purchase tickets, call (800)838-3006 or visit www.seattlechoralcompany.org.

Broadway Veterinary Hospital is located at: 1824 12th Ave on Capitol Hill.

Cats are becoming the pet of choice and the number of cat owners is increasing at a faster rate than the number of dog owners.

In 2011, more than 86 million cats were pets, compared to 78 million dogs. Only 41% of cat owners visit the veterinarian for vaccinations and only 39% of cat owners say they would only take their cat to the veterinarian if they were sick.  60% of cat owners report that their cat hates going to the veterinarian and 38% of cat owners report they get stressed just thinking about bringing their cat to the
veterinarian. Most cats do not like the carrier and traveling to the practice. Some cat owners feel practices may not be aware of how to handle fearful or stressed cats.

In order to help provide the same opportunity for preventative health care that dogs now enjoy the American Association of Feline Practitioners has developed a certification for practices to achieve called the “Cat Friendly Practice.”  Practices that achieve this certification have met stringent standards, some of them include:

• Physical Design & Environment. The layout of the practice waiting and exam rooms must be conducive to cats. To keep stress to a minimum, facilities must have separate cat waiting and kennel areas.
• Acquisition of Appropriate Equipment to meet feline needs. There must be good lighting throughout. There must be adequate safeguards to ensure that cats cannot escape.  Stethoscopes should be of appropriate sized for feline use (e.g. human pediatric stethoscope with small diaphragm). Accurate and properly calibrated scales that is appropriate for feline use.
• Designation of the “Cat Advocate”, the point person for educating the whole practice and encouraging everyone to be vigilant about the special needs of cats. To help staff understand cat owners and the challenges of transporting cats. Helping staff to become  familiar with cats and can take note of their behavior. Teaching how to handle cats using minimal restraint techniques.

The staff and doctors at Broadway Veterinary Hospital invite you stop by for a tour of their cat friendly practice today.  Call them at 206.322.5444

This week, the crow learned this bird’s political affiliations aren’t particularly unique. Yay for that.

Jeff and Chris (right)

How do you think the results of tonight’s election will affect life for those of us on the Hill, and for you personally?

Jeff: I’m not sure what Obama’s going to do, but at least we’re moving forward, not backwards. As far as the initiatives, marijuana legalization will push police force towards actual crimes. And we’re so hopeful for 74!
Chris: We’re expecting a child, so we want 74 to pass so our child won’t be a bastard. Of course, we say that in joking terms!

Do you know if you’re having a boy or a girl?
C: A boy.

Congratulations! Do you have a name picked out?
J: Yes, but it’s a secret! We haven’t even told our parents.

How long have you guys been together?
C: Sixteen years.
J: We met in college, at Cornell. We met through an LGBT student group. After college, we lived in New York City for a while before we moved here.

What brought you to Seattle?
J: A lower cost of living, for one.
C: And I’m from here originally. I always knew I wanted to come back and live here, which is why I wanted to go to school on the East Coast.

Do you guys live on the Hill?
Jeff: Yes, up on 15th.

What do you do for a living?
J: I’m an architect.
C: I’m in property management.

A lot of couples these days—gay, straight, whatever—wrestle with the decision of whether or not to have kids. Did you have a process for making such a big decision?
J: We actually did a retreat four years ago. I figure, corporations do that, and we’re worth it as a couple to figure out our direction. After putting up all these charts and thinking, “Hmm. What are our priorities in life?”, we came to the conclusion that having kids was one of them.

Do you have a surrogate?
J: Yes, we have a surrogate down in Oregon.

Capitol Hill seems like a great place for same-sex couples to raise a family.
J: One of the things I love about Seattle so much is that when we moved here, Chris’s mother said, “Maybe you should get a bigger house with a bigger yard, so someday when you have children…” I want to raise my kids in this neighborhood. There’s such a great energy here.

At this hour, it’s looking like 74 is going pass. Do you have any plans to get married when the law goes into effect?
J: We probably will have some sort of a ceremony before the baby comes. Back in 2004 we had a commitment ceremony on the Cornell campus. After 16 years together, getting married almost seems like a formality. It’ll be nice to finally be able to say, “this is my husband” in public. It won’t be like we’re posing or lying. It won’t be like, “Oh, your pretend husband”…
C: Yeah, We already had the big party back in 2004. There were 150 people there—it felt like a marriage ceremony, even though it wasn’t legal. This time, we’re just going to have a smaller party.

Any other thoughts on the election, life on the Hill, or anything else?
C: One interesting thing about the election is that my parents, who live in Seattle and have almost always voted Republican, voted for a Democrat for President. Last night, we were having dinner with them, and they raised a glass and told us they were voting for Obama.

Do you think their opinion was influenced by fact that they’re going to be grandparents to a child with same-sex parents?
C: I think that played a big part in it. It’s not something abstract for them. The question is, “should the government recognize your family?” And they realized the Republicans weren’t going to do that.

How would you describe the atmosphere here at Wildrose this evening?
People are dancing, they’re happy. I’m SO happy—I’m overjoyed. I’m proud to be gay, and I’m proud to live in a state that supports my rights.

Do you live on the Hill?
I live in Redmond. But I wanted to come out here to celebrate everything I believe in and everything I’ve worked for for so many years.

How do you think the election will change life on the Hill, or for you personally?
It validates everything we’ve struggled for, and I think it’s fantastic that so many people have fought so hard for everything that’s come into the picture tonight. I think it’s absolutely beautiful.

Do you have any plans to get married?
Personally, I don’t. But I think it’s awesome and important that we now have that civil right. We should’ve always had that right, and now the law is going to give us equal rights. That means so much to those of us in the LGBT community.

Did you participate in the Approve 74 campaign?
My whole life, I’ve fought for it. I didn’t participate in any of the rallies or anything formal, just day-to-day testament and advocating for it.

What line of work or you in?
I manage corporate cell phone stores.

Any other thoughts on the election?
I think it’s great for women and women’s rights, too. It’s hard to predict what’s going to happen exactly, but I think it’s all on the right side.

What brings you out tonight?

I just wanted to come celebrate. I’m straight and I have a wife and kids, but I just love the fact that now everyone can be married, and have the same civil rights that I have.

Do you live in on the Hill?
I live on Beacon Hill.

Do you hang out in this area very often?
Yeah, there are a lot of good restaurants around here. I used to go to Seattle Central, so I know the area pretty well.

You mentioned restaurants—any places you would recommend?
I don’t know the name of it, but just a few blocks away there’s a great Mexican place.

I think it’s called Rancho Bravo, but, shhhh! I think the name is some sort of State Secret.
Yeah, there’s no sign or anything. But the food is great.

How do you think tonight’s election will affect life for people in this area?
I think things will run much smoother, on the whole. As for 74, it will let people know that they’re respected and they’re wanted. Seattle in general is democratic and a great place to be, so it fits well for us. And I’m so glad Obama was elected for four more years. I’m really relieved.

Were you very worried that the election would go the other way?
I was. If Romney had won, I don’t know what I would’ve done.

Are you a Seattle native?
I was born here, but I grew up in Bellingham.

How does life in Seattle compare to Bellingham?
Bellingham is a diverse place that’s a lot like Seattle. The difference is, 30 minutes east of Bellingham it’s all white people, and a lot of them are very conservative.

What line of work are you in?
I’m in the healthcare field.

As such, how do you feel about the healthcare issues in the election?
I hope that Obamacare comes through, and that everyone will have health insurance. Making sure people have equal access to healthcare and education—those are the two most important issues facing our country.

Do you have any other party plans tonight?
No, I’m just going home to my family. My kids are four and five months, so I don’t do a lot of late-night partying these days!

Angie and Carissa (right)

What brings you guys out tonight?

Angie: To celebrate!
Carissa: This is the epicenter of the party, where it’s emptying into the streets!

How do you think the election tonight will impact life in Seattle, or your lives personally?
C: I have friends who live in Texas, but they’re planning to come here in April to get married. But they were waiting to see if the marriage referendum passed.

Do you guys live on the Hill?
C: Close, in the Central District.

Are you Seattle natives?
A: I’m from Tampa, originally.
C: I grew up on Whidbey Island.

Do you hang out on the Hill very often?
A: Yes. All the time.

Do you have any favorite places?
C: Century Ballroom, for West Coast Swing Dancing. It’s pretty awesome.
A: Also, The Cuff.

The Cuff? I always thought it was mostly….well, for the men-folk.
A: It is, except on Fridays, they have country line dancing and two-step.
C: It’s a sweet crowd.

I grew up in the South, so when I think “country line dancing,” my next thought isn’t “gay leather bar.” But that sounds hella fun.
A: You should totally come to The Cuff on Fridays, if you like line dancing. It’s all people dressed like rednecks—like the kind of people who would normally want to shoot someone like me, but they’re at The Cuff, and they’re line-dancing. It’s so cute.

Did you go to any fun parties tonight?
A: We were at the Lobby for a long time. It was packed. Then, we were just in the street.
C: The gays know how to party!

May I ask what line of work you guys are in?
A: I work for the phone company, I supervise a team of people.
C: I’m a life coach and a wellness coach. I help people improve their lives, and be happier.

What sort of advice would you give someone who wanted to be more well and happy?
C: Figure out what you really like to do, and do it more.

I really like watching TV and playing video games. Are you saying I should do a LOT more of that? Because, I’m totally down with self improvement…
C: Hmmm. Maybe not!

Any other thoughts on Capitol Hill, or life in general?
C: I’ve lived on or around the Hill for 12 years, and I love that you have such a sense of community. I grew up in a small town and it reminds me of that; I love that aspect of it.
A: I like the resiliency. A few years ago, we all had to move to Georgetown because rent is jacking up, but Capitol Hill kept its essence, even though it’s getting so much more expensive.

Did you move to Georgetown during this exodus?
A: I didn’t, but…

You mean, like, a metaphorical Georgetown.
A: Right!

With gentrification, do you think the Hill is going to remain the “alternative” place, or is that going to become somewhere like, say, Georgetown?
A: I feel like it’s kept its essence so far.
C: Capitol Hill on a Saturday night is a lot like Belltown. You see a lot of straights, a lot of girls in short skirts… But what I love about tonight is that the crowd is so diverse. It warms my heart.

More CHS Crow:

• Elinor, Victor & Dave — ‘Yes, my lair is right next to Volunteer Park’
• Doug, Tiffany & Marty — ‘I may be on Capitol Hill, I’m not sure’
• Lou, Carrie & Yohan — ‘The ghost messed with me a lot’
• More…

Marguerite Kennedy is a freelance writer, semi-professional thumb wrestler, and recovering New Yorker who currently resides on Capitol Hill. She blogs at www.marguerite-aville.com, and does that other thing @tweetmarguerite.

With a 7.7 earthquake to the north at Haida Gwaii and Hurricane Sandy working over the East Coast, it’s a good time to have Arne (@nwquakes) talk with emergency management expert Carol Dunn (@caroldn) about a higher-risk group: renters. Part 1 is here. 

What’s a good strategy for getting together emergency supplies in your apartment, given that you don’t have a lot of spare space?

Storage space can be a problem in rental units, but you shouldn’t make that an excuse not to have backup food and water. Find ways to make it work. Remember, disaster supplies are simply things you own that are useful in disasters. A lot of people’s mental picture of disasters supplies involve shelves of specifically bought supplies gadgets kept in a shed or garage—that actually isn’t the best way.

You should try to make disaster supplies part of your everyday life. Your goal is to find a way to have backup ways to get water, food, medicine, heating, information, and light. The best way to do it is to see what you already have. Designate some space to let you pull your supplies together. This can be a shelf in a cupboard, or under, behind, or inside a piece of furniture.

Tips for Supplies

Water: Store water either by buying multi-gallon water jugs or by filling cleaned soda bottles with water. Learn different techniques for purifying water. If you don’t have a water heater (which is a good source of emergency water), find out how your building provides heated water. Often there are large central water tanks that hold hundreds of gallons of water.

Talk to the management company or building owners about their plan for a water emergency. Who has access to the tanks? How can residents contact the manager/building owner if none of their representatives are on site during the emergency? Your goal should be to have a gallon of water per person per day for at least three days, but it’s best if you can store even more. It is a lot of water, so be clever in how you store it. Don’t let the large amount give yourself permission to put off doing it. Store what you can to start with.

If you are filling your own bottles, be sure to refill them every six months: tap water can in fact “go bad”; that is, it can get contaminated by bacteria over time. If you have any reason to worry about the quality of your water, purify it before drinking it.

Food: Energy/snack bars and nutritional drinks are easy to store emergency food.

Medicine: Insurance/Medicaid rules often make it difficult to have back up prescriptions. Get in the habit of requesting refills the date you are allowed to request them and not when you are running out. Also keep a list of prescriptions, doses, and the number of your doctor and your pharmacy in your wallet. It is possible to get emergency replacements for prescriptions that were lost due to a disaster. Having the ability to provide information about your medical needs will speed up the process. You can also request replacement prescriptions by going to a public health clinic or an emergency shelter and talking to their staff.

You should get together some first aid supplies in case of injury. Bandages, gauze, aspirin, disinfectant, tissues, plastic gloves, soap: They’re all compact, inexpensive items you’ll need if you get injured and help can’t reach you and you can’t reach help.

Heating: Blankets, sweaters and hand warmers can provide safe heating. Avoid heaters that generate fumes of any sort. In long-term power outages normal ventilation in buildings no longer runs, so air is not moving. Over time, this can make non-electric heating devices, like propane heaters or camp stoves, dangerous—even if their labels say they can be used indoors.

Information: Keep a battery or crank radio handy so you can get information about the location of shelters or emergency food and prescription replacement. If you have a car, consider buying an inverter so it can charge phones and laptops. Emergency information in our area is usually available on local radio stations (often AM 1000, or FM 97.7 or 97.3), online at www.rpin.org, www.seattleredcross.org, and most city government websites, or by calling 211. Keep a paper list of phone numbers for the people and services that are important to you.

Lighting: Use flashlights, glow-sticks, or battery- or crank-powered lanterns. If using batteries, have spare batteries on hand.

Want to learn more?
Red Cross Free Emergency Preparedness Training
When: Saturday, November 10, 2012 10:30 AM – 12:30 PM
Where: Umpqua Bank — 539 broadway e seattle washington 98102
What: Come and learn how to preprare yourself for fires, earthquakes, and winter storms and get great tips on making a family emergency plan and emergency kit. 

The SunBreak is an online magazine of news & culture. A conversation about the things on Seattle’s mind.

JKPOP! has progressed from a small, sweaty basement dance party to a full-blown audio/visual experience celebrating the various sights, sounds, and styles coming out of Japan & South Korea. JKPOP! is Seattle’s only J-pop & K-pop intergalactic dance extravaganza.

JKPOP! // Thurs. Dec. 6th, 2012

DJ Bishie
DJ Hojo

9PM-2AM
$3
21+

Music Videos!
Glowsticks!
Surprises!

When Ruth True opened NuBe Green on the corner of 10th and Pine in 2009, she was a self-described newbie to living the green lifestyle. Hence the name, pronounced new-bie. Almost three years later, NuBe Green has established itself in the local shopping scene and is helping grow Capitol Hill’s presence in the world of sustainable fashion.

“People are beginning to ask where things are made,” Truth tells CHS. “The demographic, especially on Capitol Hill, is supportive.”

It’s also getting easier to achieve the Green part, True says.

Everything that can be at NuBe green is sourced and assembled domestically. When she opened three years ago, she said it was harder to find goods that fit her strict criteria. As time passed and consumers become more concerned with a sustainable lifestyle, she found it easier to source and sell more eco-friendly products. 

Ruth has deep roots in the Seattle art and design community. She is a third generation Seattleite and ran the late Western Bridge Gallery in SODO for eight years with her husband, Bill. She opened NuBe Green because she felt a passion and an urgency to raise awareness about sustainable consumerism. She chose to set up shop on Capitol Hill because, like many of us, said, “it felt like home.” CHS talked with True in 2010 about her shop, her background and her future plans. Today, things have played out in some unpredicted ways.

One of those new paths’s is NuBe’s STATE fashion line. True and designer Adrienne Antonson plan to present their fall-winter 2012 clothing collection featuring repurposed pieces Friday night from 7-9pm. It’s a big city fashion event in Seattle. You can check out the “look book” here via Facebook. Following Thursday night’s DEVONATION show at the Social, things are feeling downright haute couture on the Hill.

10th Ave has also become a bit of a high(er)-end fashion destination. With NuBe Green ensconced on the ground floor of the Odd Fellows building, boutique Totokaelo joined the street earlier this year. Meanwhile, just across E Pike, you’ll find the mix at Kaleidoscope Vision presenting a bridge to more traditional Capitol Hill vintage fashion retail activity. Retailers like E Pike’s Veridis round out the mix.

Back at NuBe Green, Ruth wanted to connect consumers with the people that make products. She says she wanted to create more “ah-ha moments” when shoppers consider where their purchases come from.

“People make the things that we sell,” she said of the goods in her store. And those people can usually be found in the area.

Many products at NuBe Green are made right here in the northwest. Building relationships and connections with local artist in the community is a main feature of NuBe Green, as local brands have grown with the store over the years.

Over three years she has expanded to an on-line shop, is working on a book titled “Mindful Consuming” and later this month will be debuting a pop-up shop in the University Village for the holiday shopping season. The mobile store will be housed in a repurposed shipping container and will feature some of your favorites from the brick and mortar as well as goods with gift-buyers in mind. The holiday shop will be open the day after Thanksgiving, on Friday, November 23rd.

Local love is popping up at University Village this holiday season! We’re filling our brand new mobile shop (newly re-newed, that is, from a salvaged shipping container!) with giftable favorites that are big on local flavor. Designed by Graypants and fitted by NK Build, the shop pops with vintage and antique fixtures in an industrial-chic frame. Pop in for bike-tube bags for him, cozy eco-throws for her, and classic toys for kids. 

Pop In!

Starting Friday, November 23

University Village, Seattle 

One day, Ruth would like to expand to five cities across the country. But says she would never leave her home in Seattle.

James Monosmith and companion (Image: CHS)

LTD Art Gallery is celebrating its one year anniversary on the Hill with a show featuring over 50 artists. We’ve posted the details of the art walk-connected party here. CHS checked in with LTD to find out what we could learn about the business of art on the Hill from the new gallery’s first year at 307 E Pike. 

“I’m not from Seattle,” said LTD’s James Monosmith. “I moved here to open this gallery. This was my first business, my first business in Seattle, and my first business on Capitol Hill.”

His background is in art publishing. Having spent ten years creating limited edition prints and originals, working for Lucasfilm, 20th Century Fox, Cartoon Network, Adult Swim, Disney, Microsoft — and then selling artwork to galleries around the world, he was ready to do his own thing.

It wasn’t until he started going to places like Gallery 1988 in LA, and saw their success with selling pop culture-inspired art firsthand that he chose to open a gallery of his own. “I chose Seattle because it’s a really geeky city, but there wasn’t a lot going on with low-brow pop culture artwork,” said Monosmith. He also saw that there was already support in seattle for a version of his aesthetic, as indicated by the success of galleries like Roq la Rue with their pop surrealism and perennial celebrations of the lowbrow like the Official Bad Art Museum of Art. 

“I saw that all of these Seattle artists kept selling their work at Gallery 1988, and I thought I could pull it all together up there,” he said. Going back further, the gallery was inspired by the now defunct market of selling animation cels. When animation went all digital, studios supplemented that market with limited edition prints. Movements beget movements. 

One Lesson of the past year has been about growing the local base of artists. “I try to use Seattle-based artists as much as I can, but at the same time I think it’s important to bring in artists from around the country and world who are doing the same thing as here as well.” The best ratio has worked out to be roughly 60/40 local vs imports. Another lesson has been that group shows mitigate the damage that would otherwise be unavoidable with a poorly received solo show. With group shows there’s more variety, and likelihood for sales. 

As Monosmith sees it, part of the success for LTD comes from the one-two punches of Seattle’s innate geekiness, and the current trend of geekiness being cool. He points to the success and growth of Gamma Ray Games, the expansion and the new tables surrounded by gamers at Raygun Lounge, as well as the imminent pinball joint John John’s Gameroom, and he sees the western slope of the Hill as showing lots of geek love. 

Another way that LTD has made its mark has been by working with PAX, and Emerald City Comicon. Mint Condition, a comic book-themed art show sponsored by ECC, was one of the most successful shows of the past year. “It was a hugely successful show for us. We’re doing it again next year.” This next show will be called Mint Condition Issue Two. Knowing your audience seems to have worked out for LTD. The most successful show was Press Start, a video game-themed show during PAX. 

The largest stumbling block is being overlooked by local media. The business has a strong online presence, and they show the work of many nationally known artists. This has led to write-ups in Wired, Gawker, Boing Boing, etc., but not much local attention. Hopefully we just helped to fix that situation.

Going forward, the James and Melissa Monosmith intend to play to past successes with ECC and PAX tie-ins and continue to serve the Hill, Seattle, and the online world their lowbrow pop culture art. After a year their doors are still open. They intend to keep them that way.

You can learn more at ltdartgallery.com.

Sugar welcomes the cool winter weather with an exciting new croissant, the Thanksgiving Croissant. With sage butter rolled in to the dough, the croissant is filled with house-made stuffing, gravy, turkey and cranberry sauce.

The Sugar Bakery & Cafe Thanksgiving Croissant is inspired by the Momofoku MilkBar version which was introduced in 2010. The croissant will be available now through November 30

^th.

Other items in the Fall lineup include caramel apple croissants, spiced pear brioche, pumpkin whoopee pies, pecan tartlets and more items made fresh daily.

About Sugar Bakery & Cafe

Sugar Bakery & Cafe on First Hill in Seattle bakes all their pastries and desserts from scratch using locally sourced ingredients. Coffee, sandwiches, salads and house-made soups are also available. For more information, visit sugarbakerycafe.com or call 206-749-4105.

 About the Chef

Chef Stephanie Crocker began her baking career professionally by selling her pastries wholesale and through the University District and West Seattle Farmer’s Markets. Her dream of opening a retail shop finally came through in 2007, which she financed using mostly credit cards and built mostly by herself and her husband. She is extremely passionate about scratch baking, and enjoys sharing her love of baking with her customers and friends.

Bakery Hours: 
Mon-Fri: 7am-6pm 
Sat: 9am-1pm
Sun: closed

Contact:

Stephanie Crocker

Chef/Owner

(206) 749-4105