Author Archives: jseattle

About jseattle

Justin is publisher of CHS. You can reach him at [email protected] or call/txt (206) 399-5959. Follow @jseattle on Twitter or be best pals on Facebook.

Broadway loses its holy spirit: Southern-style cocktail joint Witness has closed

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(Image: Witness)

Beginning with a summer sermon on Broadway just shy of ten years ago, Southern spirited cocktail bar Witness served its final Capitol Hill congregation Sunday night. Let us pray.

“We’re honored to have been able to serve the Capitol Hill community for almost 10 years alongside amazing staff who’ve graced Witness with their brilliance and given it its character,” owners Gregg Holcomb and Alison Holcomb said in their goodbye message for the bar on social media. “It’s meant so much to us to be able to raise a child in the light of Witness and stitch a family and small business into the fabric of a neighborhood we’ve loved since first calling it home in 2000, back before Gregg’s first bartending gig.”

Gregg Holcomb tells CHS he will remain in the food and drink business on Broadway. In 2019, Holcomb opened Olmstead chef Jesse Elliott, bringing the old Broadway Grill space back to life. Continue reading →

The HoneyHole emails: a fired employee, thousands of dollars in rotten meat, and a Capitol Hill sandwich legend struggling with staffing and management issues — UPDATE

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A message HoneyHole ownership says was sent by a disgruntled employee after they were fired Sunday

It has been a rough two years and three months in the sandwich business in Seattle.

Sunday, things got a lot rougher for the HoneyHole.

“HoneyHole Owner Harasses Employees,” isn’t the kind of subject line you typically see on a marketing email blast to thousands of customers on a Sunday afternoon. HoneyHole’s social media accounts also lit up with the same message. “For the last two years under new ownership, hundreds of employees have been retaliated against, harassed, discriminated against, demeaned, degraded, and treated like a subhuman species,” it began.

“We Were Hacked,” read a second message that arrived a couple hours later.

But the damage was done. The first message spread across social media with calls for everything from a boycott to a sandwich protest as fans lamented possibly having to go without The Gooch and the Veggie BLT.

HoneyHole owner Kristin Rye, who purchased the legendary Pike/Pine sandwich shop and bar with her husband Patrick Rye and moved to the area in 2021 to grow the business, tells CHS that the HoneyHole remains open on E Pike and the “hack” was the actions of a manager who Rye said was fired Sunday. Continue reading →

Teen injured in Garfield High School parking lot shooting — UPDATE

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Seattle Police and Seattle Fire were called to the parking lot at Garfield High School late Thursday afternoon after a shootout in front of the school.

According to emergency radio updates and Seattle Fire, a 19-year-old was reported shot in the leg and police were looking for suspects seen in a vehicle leaving the area.

The shooting was first reported around 4:40 PM about an hour after the final bell of the school day on the still busy 23rd Ave campus.

Seattle Fire says the teen was transported by paramedics to Harborview in stable condition. Continue reading →

Police search for car theft suspect near Volunteer Park — UPDATE: In custody

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The suspect was captured on security video systems as he made his way through yards and alleys eluding police

Seattle Police fanned out across the neighborhoods to the southeast of Volunteer Park Thursday morning in a search for a suspect reported fleeing through yards and alleys in the area during a long manhunt.

Seattle Police has not confirmed details of the search that began after a reported car prowl was interrupted and reported to police on 17th Ave E around 9:30 AM.

The King County Sheriff’s Guardian One helicopter began circling above the area during the search around 11:30 AM as SPD and a K9 unit searched below in areas around 15th Ave E near the park.

Residents were being advised to stay inside as police continued the search.

UPDATE: The suspect was reported taken into custody on 15th Ave E just before 11:45 AM.

UPDATE x2: It is not clear if the interrupted car prowl is related to the arrest. SPD says the suspect it took into custody was involved in a reported burglary at an occupied house. SPD says around 11:00 AM, they were called to the 700 block of 16th Ave E after a homeowner said her alarm went off and someone was in her house. The suspect was gone when officers arrived but was later tracked down and arrested on 15th Ave E.

 

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‘Tree retention evaluation’ — City sorting out how to keep Cal Anderson’s maple trees and fix the sidewalk around the park

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Thanks to the many readers who have alerted us to the signs (Image courtesy a CHS reader)

Ominous “tree retention evaluation” signs that have gone up on the dozens of Red Sunset Maples surrounding Cal Anderson Park have caused a stir as Seattle experiences record May heat.

A city spokesperson’s words about the signs probably won’t do much to cool things down though the representative wanted it made clear the notices do not — necessarily — “indicate that we intend to remove these trees.”

“We value our tree canopy and all the benefits it provides. The purpose of the postings was to share information with the public about an upcoming evaluation and scheduled maintenance activities that have the potential to impact the trees,” the spokesperson tells CHS.

The City of Seattle’s transportation department says that the trees, many decades old, are being evaluated “to consider possible solutions to address sidewalk damage with minimal impact to the trees.”

The Seattle Department of Transportation says it is looking into whether the sidewalk alignment can be adjusted around the trees and is also considering “other possible solutions to preserve the trees in any areas where this is not feasible.” Continue reading →

Unreported Friday night Central District shooting sent two to hospital

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A video of a shootout that fortunately left no victims in its wake at a Central District gun violence trouble spot Friday night went viral — but social media and the Seattle Police were quiet about another shooting in the neighborhood an hour earlier that sent two people to Harborview including one in critical condition.

According to a review of East Precinct radio broadcasts, police were alerted to the shooting Friday night just after 10 PM when two gunshot wound victims were dropped off at Harborview.

Seattle Fire units weren’t called to the shooting scene at 27th and Jefferson about two blocks from Garfield High School and it is not clear when SPD officers arrived to collect evidence. Continue reading →

With $11B plan in limbo, King County Regional Homelessness Authority CEO resigns

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(Image: King County Regional Homelessness Authority)

Ending Seattle’s homelessness crisis with a regional approach is going to be easier said than done. The latest setback starts at the top. Tuesday, the King County Regional Homelessness Authority announced that CEO Marc Dones was stepping down after two years in the role as the organization was taking shape and finally getting off the ground:

The KCRHA team and our City and County partners are grateful and appreciative of the visionary work of CEO Marc Dones in starting up the King County Regional Homelessness Authority as a new regional agency. Mx. Dones has served as CEO since 2021, and was deeply involved in the design of the agency from its first inception in 2018. They have been a tireless advocate for racial equity and social justice, centering lived experience, increasing affordable housing, highlighting root causes of economic instability, and working together to iterate on new approaches to transforming the homelessness response system.

Continue reading →

Not Boujie: Change in plans has Marjorie making nine-block move to the Central District

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(Image: Marjorie)

Fans of 14th and Union’s Marjorie already had some good news to soften the blow of Donna Moodie’s decision to shut the restaurant down after 13 years on the block and 20 years of business in Seattle. The busy restaurant entrepreneur and one of the few black owners in Seattle food and drink was preparing plans for a new Boujie Bar in the Central District.

Now, Moodie says she wants Marjorie to live on — Boujie Bar will have to wait. The restaurateur announced the switch in plans in a recent Seattle Times interview saying the 23rd and Union project will be “Marjorie 3.0” after her start in Belltown and eventual move in 2010 to Capitol Hill.

“I just couldn’t part with Marjorie,” Moodie told the Times. “It came to me when I was in the process of saying goodbye.” Continue reading →

With the candidate field apparently set, 2023 race for District 3 seat on the Seattle City Council shaping up as friendly debate, not heated political battle — UPDATE

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With the candidate filing deadline only days away — and the first legitimate candidate forum now under their belts –the field appears set for the Seattle City Council election in District 3. With these candidates, the 2023 D3 campaign seems less likely to be a race and political battle and more likely to be a conversation about how best to represent the neighborhoods around Capitol Hill and the Central District at Seattle City Hall.

“I have seen how different communities particularly historically excluded communities have been falling through the gaps of our policies throughout our entire city,” candidate Joy Hollingsworth told the crowd at last week’s MLK Labor Council D3 candidates forum. “I’m just a person that has certain type of values that wants to be able to unify our voices and amplify voices as well the fight for community.”

The first to announce and the frontrunner so far in campaign donations, the Central District resident and cannabis entrepreneur could easily be speaking for any of her competitors. If the May 9th forum is any indication, there will be few stark divides in the race to determine the top two candidates in August followed by the final election in November.

The 2023 election will be a big change from the last D3 battle when Kshama Sawant was defending her seat against a chamber of commerce-backed candidate. Egan Orion would eventually say Amazon and business-backed cash cost him the race. Along the way, the candidates traded jabs and lobbed incendiary accusations.

In 2023’s race, Sawant is shaping up to be a footnote after her announcement in January that she would not seek reelection to focus her Socialist Alternative group’s efforts on the formation of a new national effort.

Meanwhile, the organizers who failed to remove Seattle’s longest serving member of the council in a 2021 recall battle have not reemerged now that Sawant is stepping away. There is no Recall Sawant candidate who has yet joined the race and none of the registered candidates have told CHS they supported the effort to have Sawant removed. Continue reading →