Tag Archives: coffee

AT&T pulls the plug on its Capitol Hill ‘Lounge’ retail experiment and Ada’s Discovery Cafe

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The AT&T Lounge and Ada’s Discovery Cafe (Image: CHS)

Telecommunications giant AT&T has ended its Capitol Hill experiment. The Lounge by AT&T and Ada’s Discovery Cafe will not reopen as COVID-19 restrictions are slowly lifted.

“With more customers shopping online, we are closing a small percentage of our retail stores to reflect our customers’ shopping practices,” Jim Kimberly, director of corporate communications for AT&T, tells CHS. “While these plans are not new, they have been accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic.”

Ada’s owner Danielle Hulton confirmed the closure, telling CHS that AT&T’s decision to shutter the store meant the end of the cafe. Continue reading →

Fuel to join Ada’s family, adding books to blend of coffee, community

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(Image: Fuel Coffee)

(Image: Fuel Coffee)

It’s a blend that should work out, mixing the 15-year-old creation of a Seattle coffee veteran  with the energy of two Capitol Hill entrepreneurs who have a vision for growing cafe communities and independent book retail.

Fuel Coffee and its three locations in the 19th Ave E Stevens neighborhood, Montlake, and Wallingford is becoming part of the Ada’s family of bookshops and cafes. The merger is the outgrowth of conversations that started well before the outbreak and is ready to move forward now that reopening plans are taking shape, both sides say. It’s now a vision that seems even more clear after weeks of COVID-19 restrictions with neighbors sticking mostly to their nearby streets.

“Community is even more important,” Danielle Hulton says.

The new Fuel will be a flip of how the original Ada’s was shaped on 15th Ave E. Ada’s is a community built around books — Fuel shops will be built around coffee. Continue reading →

Signs of Capitol Hill normalcy: Vivace returns — Plus, Capitol Hill’s COVID-19 ‘Phase 1’ takeout cocktails

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(Image: Espresso Vivace)

This week started with another step toward normalcy on Capitol Hill — Espresso Vivace is back open:

Vivace will open it’s Brix location at 532 Broadway Ave. E. tomorrow morning at 7 AM for coffee to go. In addition Alley24 will be open at 10 AM both of which close at 5 PM. 321 Broadway,our sidewalk bar, will open on Saturday.

Hope you can make an announcement for our devoted customers

Ty

David

The heart and soul of Capitol Hill craft coffee for more than 30 years, Vivace joins the hardworking core of neighborhood coffee joints that have been pulling shots and foaming oat milk throughout the outbreak. Feel free to add a thankful shoutout to your favorite in comments.

As Capitol Hill food and drink gears up for the challenges and opportunities coming in the transition to “Phase 2” restrictions for restaurants and bars, an in-between period could carry on for a long while as your favorite neighborhood joints try to recover with creative — and tasty — “to go” creations. Continue reading →

18th Ave’s Tougo Coffee one of the first confirmed Capitol Hill and Central District business casualties of the COVID-19 crisis

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(Image: Tougo Coffee)

When it comes to the life of Capitol Hill and Central District businesses, we might not know with certainty about any sad passings until the COVID-19 crisis subsides.

Two neighborhood cafes are closing this week — one is clearly saying goodbye while the other’s fate is obscured by the fog of the crisis.

The Central District’s Tougo Coffee will become one of the area’s first confirmed business casualties of the COVID-19 crisis. Owner Brian Wells announced his decision Wednesday: Continue reading →

After a bitter 2019, Caffe Vita’s new owner wants to give employees voice

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By Ragini Gupta, UW News Lab/Special to CHS

Caffe Vita began 2020 with a new start but its new owner wants to make sure the E Pike-headquartered company addresses the issues that arose in 2019.

A few months after protests against Caffe Vita for firing two employees who gave away food to homeless people, restaurateur Deming Maclise took ownership of the 25-year-old company from founder Mike McConnell on January 1st.

Maclise began his career in 1991 as a barista when the term wasn’t as popular — it was just called “making coffee,” he said.

Maclise opened Caffè Fiore after 10 years of working as a barista and managing coffeehouses and then progressed to opening several of the most popular restaurants in Seattle, including Bastille, Poquitos, and Rhein Haus, between 2009 and 2018. At some point he started missing the coffee world and wanted to incorporate more of it into his business.

“You show up in a neighborhood with a coffeehouse, you can really create a hub of the community and the neighborhood around that cafe pretty powerfully if you have the right environment, the right people, the right interaction going on,” Maclise said. Continue reading →

Cafe to become Love + Flour as Essential Bakery exits Madison Valley

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(Image: CHS)

The dreaded paper sign in the window has gone up at the Essential Bakery Cafe in Madison Valley but in this case, the message is not about a closure on E Madison.

Or, at least, it won’t be a long one.

The Seattle baking company has sold its cafe to a new owner who is ready to keep the comfortable hangout full of soups and sandwiches, baked treats, and fresh Essential bread.

“We’re just looking to keep our little family here,” Jenny Finau told CHS Wednesday afternoon. Continue reading →

King of Capitol Hill’s coffee culture, Caffe Vita is in new hands

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There were signs something new was coming. In the last days of 2019, a Seattle real estate investment company purchased the E Pike building home to the headquarters and roasting facility of Caffe Vita from Vita owner Mike McConnell for $5 million and also rolled out a new 10-year lease for a new Vita entity incorporated last August with ownership that only listed a lawyer and a law firm.

Seattle Met has the scoop. Caffe Vita has a new owner:

On January 1, Deming Maclise officially took over Vita’s 10 shops (spread across Seattle, Portland, Los Angeles, and Brooklyn), three roasting facilities, and a network of hundreds of wholesale customers in all 50 states, not to mention a critical mass of Seattle bars and restaurants.
Continue reading →

CHS Pics | Jeff Goldblum drank coffee and planted a tree on Capitol Hill this summer

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It turns out when one of the largest media corporations in the world spends around $3 billion on a new project and one of the shows planned to be showcased during its launch is filming in your neighborhood, you’re not going to see much. The picture above? That is Jeff Goldblum inside Broadway’s Espresso Vivace in July.

It’s about as close as we got to the action. And now we can finally share what we saw. Continue reading →

MotMot Coffee Launch Party for Tȃm

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MotMot Coffee launches Tam Vietnamese coffee on November 19

MotMot Coffee, a Seattle University student-run business, and the Seattle University Vietnamese Student Association, will be launching their newest premium coffee, Tâm, on November 19, from noon to 2 p.m. at the Seattle University bookstore.

MotMot Coffee is proudly fair trade and employs ethical business sourcing in its operations. ‘We strive to fix the industry issue where farmers are only paid 6 cents per cup of coffee by cutting out the middle man and giving farmers the resources they need,’ says Andrew Gao, vice president of marketing for MotMot. ‘Ethical business starts with awareness and we are just trying to spread our message while offering amazing coffee at the same time.’

MotMot is the name of Nicaragua’s national bird. MotMot Coffee works with Nicaraguan coops where coffee farmers are paid upfront.

The launch party is open to the public.