Tag Archives: 11th ave

Char the Chicken: Influencer chef and restaurant group ready to hatch new grill concept on Capitol Hill

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A growing Pacific Northwest incubator of restaurant chain concepts emphasizing health and sustainability is being joined by a celebrity chef for a high-profile poultry re-start on Capitol Hill.

The Conscious Hospitality Group is preparing the 11th Ave space formerly home to the flagship location of scuttled sustainable chicken sandwich concept Mt. Joy for a reboot as Char the Chicken, a “fire-grilled rotisserie chicken” concept that Instagram-famous Matt Broussard told the Seattle Times will overcome the challenging realities of the current Seattle dining economy because of his passion.

“Any other social media cook, they’re not gonna open a restaurant,” Broussard tells the Times. “Like, this is the dumbest thing you could do.”

The Conscious Hospitality Group backing will help.

CHG is a Bellevue-based restaurant collective and incubator led by co-founders Norman Wu and Danny Brawer. The company dedicated to “health, sustainability, and ethical business practices” pairs in-house concept development with operating partnerships, providing shared infrastructure, supply-chain scale, and administrative backing needed to expand sustainable, wellness-oriented food brands across the Pacific Northwest. 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 →

Treating fish like fine steak, Sea’d In brings ‘dry-aged seafood’ to Capitol Hill

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(Image: Sea’d In)

Heong Soon Park’s approach to “dry-aged seafood” and “open-fire cooking” is now on display at Sea’d In, the chef’s newest addition to the Capitol Hill food and drink scene.

Bringing a technique traditionally reserved for fine steak to fresh seafood, the Sea’d In kitchen dry-ages fish to draw out moisture, intensify umami, and create a richer texture before finishing it over open flames using a wood-fired hearth and grill.

“At Sea’d In, we believe that the finest seafood isn’t just caught—it is crafted. We have stripped the modern kitchen back to its two most honest foundations: Time and Fire,” the Sea’d In pitch reads. Continue reading →

Capitol Hill Block Party is 21+ but there’s a free all-ages festival right outside the fences

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This weekend’s 2026 Capitol Hill Block Party may still be 21+ but there will be a block of all-ages energy right outside the fences with music and DJs. And it will all be free.

The weekend on 11th Ave will also mark an important milestone for Eleven:Eleven as the all-ages community venue launches a key fundraising drive. This weekend, the venue and street will be a busy — and the organizers say, safe — place for kids to enjoy some of the Block Party energy. Continue reading →

Capitol Hill’s Tailwind Cafe is keeping the cycling culture as sibling bike shop Good Weather Bicycles pedals off for new start

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(Image: Tailwind Cafe)

(Image: Tailwind Cafe)

After seven years as a staple of Capitol Hill’s Chophouse Row, Tailwind Cafe is beginning a new ride under new ownership as its sibling bike shop Good Weather Bicycles makes its own way in a new location.

Originally moving into 11th Ave’s Chophouse Row development in 2017 as a hybrid bicycle shop and cafe, the business celebrated its five-year anniversary in 2022 by expanding its food menu and cocktail efforts. To allow both concepts room to grow, co-owners Brandon Waterman and Jason Marqusee moved the bicycle repair and shop operations a block away to 1423 10th Ave last October. The move separated the “dirty work” of bike maintenance from the community cafe space, paving the way for the cafe’s latest evolution.

This summer, Waterman and Marqusee finalized the sale of Tailwind Cafe to new family owners Tushar and Vivek Gupta. A central condition of the sale for the founders was preserving the existing team and culture. Waterman says the entire staff is being kept on as the new investors take over. Continue reading →

A Seahawk and Amazon are building a 7-story affordable apartment building on Capitol Hill — UPDATE

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UPDATE: The project has provided this updated rendering of the design from Atelier Drome

A Capitol Hill development plan on ice since 2021 is ready to break ground as an affordable project backed by a development team that pairs “Super Bowl champion and former Seattle Seahawk” Cliff Avril and Amazon.

The Pointe at Thomas development will rise seven stories on land at 11th and Thomas currently home to a 1963-built, nine-unit apartment building.

The renewed 67-unit project is now moving forward under C&A Development, a joint venture from Avril’s CA Family Properties and the Cohen Properties investment firm.

According to the announcement, the Pointe units will be available to households earning between 40% and 80% of Area Median Income, $46,000 to $92,000 for a one-person household. Under the Amazon funding and affordable program, the units will be under covenant to remain affordable for 99 years. Continue reading →

Ready to start your own PNW nation? Vermillion hosts Cascadia Day Poetry Explosion

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Mark this day of revolutionary fervor — and 46th anniversary of the Mount St. Helens eruption — with a Cascadia Day Poetry Explosion at Capitol Hill’s Vermillion:

Join Cascadia Democratic Action as we celebrate Cascadia Day with a lively reading by four poets in Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood. Join us at 7 pm, Monday, May 18 at Vermilion Bar & Gallery at 1508 11th Ave. for an evening of poetry inspired by the Cascadia bioregion. Continue reading →

With Sea’d In, Heong Soon Park is becoming the biggest name in Capitol Hill food and drink

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It’s not Ethan Stowell or Renee Erickson.

The biggest restaurateur on Capitol Hill is chef Heong Soon Park who is preparing to open his fourth food and drink venture in the neighborhood with Sea’d In inside Chophouse Row.

Park’s newest concept will bring fresh Pacific Northwest seafood to the Row’s inner restaurant space and courtyard, replacing wine bar Light Sleeper after its closure earlier this year.

Sea’d In will join a mix of food and drink in the 11th Ave development including the elevated Vietnamese of Xóm and the comfortable Tailwind Cafe at Good Weather Bikes.

The refined seafood venture is a prime example of Park’s continued growth in the neighborhood as he takes over a fantastic space in a grade “A” location and fills it with thoughtfully rendered concepts and farm-fresh ingredients. Continue reading →

Fundraiser supports The Waxing Diva after unexpected hospitalization

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Powell

Friends and neighbors are coming together to support a longtime part of the Capitol Hill business and creative community.

A fundraiser to support Travis Powell — 11th Ave’s The Waxing Diva — has raised thousands after his unexpected hospitalization.

“Our dear friend Travis Powell, the one and only Waxing Diva, is currently in the hospital dealing with a serious and unexpected medical situation,” the message from Vermillion owner Diana Adams reads — Continue reading →

Chicken sandwich chain Mt. Joy once had hopes of 1,000 locations — its Capitol Hill flagship is now ‘temporarily closed’

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(Image: Mt. Joy)

Whatever is going on with the chicken sandwich shop experiment in food and drink capitalism that is Mt. Joy, its original Capitol Hill location has been shuttered and has been listed as “temporarily closed” in online searches.

Messages to the three-year-old sustainable chicken sandwich venture have gone unanswered — though it isn’t clear which entrepreneur CHS should be dogging.

The food start-up’s social media hasn’t been updated since June. That’s when the state’s business licensing paperwork also shifted control of the 11th Ave restaurant to a new corporate entity under Daniel Brawer, founder of the Conscious Hospitality Group.

The quiet changes and silent shutdown are a major shift from the much-hyped launch of Mt. Joy. Continue reading →