CHS took you inside new Capitol Hill cocktail bar Guillotine, the latest addition to Broadway’s nightlife, earlier this week.
Here is a look at the latest addition to Broadway’s day-life.
Seasmith opened a couple weeks back above Capitol Hill Station after years of anticipation. Continue reading
Thanks to reader Sandy for the tip and picture!
E Barbara Bailey Way finally has a coffee shop. Some five years after planning for the project first began, the Seasmith cafe and casual hangout from the Burien Press family of businesses has opened above Capitol Hill Station.
The opening is a pull of happy news in a sad week around the busy transit facility.
The opening of Seasmith has been quite the endeavor. CHS reported here in November as light could finally be seen at the end of a subway tunnel of pandemic, government, and property management bureaucracy red tape.
Even then, it has taken another six months for the cafe to finally go into motion. Continue reading
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Part of the neighborhood for 24 years, the original Victrola Coffee cafe is rolling out the upgrades as it also makes changes to its food menu.
The new setup and seating in the old favorite comes in changing times for Capitol Hill’s daytime hangouts emerging from the pandemic. Some of Capitol Hill’s best spaces changed forever in that time. Most recently, E Pike’s former Kaladi Brothers cafe has begun a new life as a home for the Capitol Hill expansion of beer hall and bottle shop the Last Drop. Continue reading
There is a new organic bakeshop and cafe in the heart of Pike/Pine. Shikorina Pastries celebrated its “grand re-opening” and is now settled in on E Pike.
“Cake is back!,” the latest social media post for Shikorina exclaims. “Chocolate chiffon w/ strawberry jam and vanilla buttercream,” the hand written sign promises.
CHS reported here last month on the plans from baker Hana Yohannes to move the Black, queer, and woman-owned “organic, sustainable Central District bakery” off of E Union and into the heart of E Pike in the space left empty by the exit of Portland vegan Jewish deli chain Ben and Esther’s.
The move is an opportunity to leave lease, financial, and personal challenges behind, Yohannes said. Continue reading
A still from a video purportedly showing the roastery mosh pit
Seattle Police were called to a reported mosh pit inside the Starbucks Roastery on Melrose at the base of Capitol Hill Sunday afternoon.
According to East Precinct radio reports, police were called to the massive Melrose at Pike coffee venue just after 3 PM to a report of some type of band playing music and a small group of dancers forming a mosh pit inside the popular tourist stop.
By the time police arrived, the disturbance had cleared and there were no signs of a band or any dancers.
The incident does not appear to be related to the Emerald City Comic Con that was underway nearby at the convention center.
On Reddit’s r/Seattle group, the folk punk band Sister Wife Sex Strike took credit for the stunt saying they planned the show as a pop-up for fans in celebration of the group’s new EP.
“We had a goal of getting through all 4 songs but had to leave after 2 because cops were called. videos coming soon :),” the group’s account posted, adding a “fuck starbucks” for good measure.
There were no arrests and no injuries reported.
This was reported on the Citizen App as a mosh pit.
This happened at the Starbucks Reserve Roastery in Seattle this afternoon. pic.twitter.com/BILFJJgEHc— DonaldBTacoma (@DonaldBTacoma) March 4, 2024
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(Image: Bonito Cafe y Mercadito)
By Juan Jocom
An amalgamation of a classic coffee shop with a shopping experience you’d typically find in Latino mercados, Bonito Café y Mercadito, is preparing to open on E Olive Way, neighboring Capitol Hill’s Pie Bar and Donna’s.
It will soon serve locally Latino-grown sourced coffee and will be hosting mercado events featuring Latino vendors.
From photographers to monthly hosts of Aqui Mercado in Pioneer Square, couple Daniel and Ismael Calderon, are soon to open their dream business that was inspired last year after they hosted their first mercado event. Over the past months hosting their mercado, they were able to build a community of hundreds of supporters and fans.
It was never the plan to open a cafe-market hybrid store. However, after positive feedback from the Latino and queer community from their mercado, the couple decided to pursue opening the business that captures the vibrancy of their monthly event into a daily experience. Continue reading
A rendering of the new signage at Black Coffee Northwest
Things are rounding into form and improvements like a pour of new concrete are taking shape as Black Coffee Northwest prepares to put this important Central District corner back into full motion.
Black Coffee Northwest’s Central District location at 23rd and Jackson is planned to open at the end of February, but ongoing construction may push the opening towards early March. A primary challenge of getting this location up-and-running has been building a small business out-of-pocket. Darnesha Weary said the community enthusiasm for the new cafe is strong but meeting capital needs has been a slow climb.
“We’re feeling that. We’re feeling all of the data on how Black businesses get less access to capital,” Weary said. “The city has been really helpful. The Office of Economic Development, they have funded the majority of our project, which is really great.” Continue reading
What a difference a year makes. Capitol Hill’s coffee and cafe scene has gone from shrinkage to growth with the start of 2024. Fuel is rocking its new place in the Broadway streetscape, the reborn Bauhaus is born again, and Overcast has added its pulls to the Pike/Pine mix with a new space on 12th Ave.
At the top, the famed Vivace walk-up counter has new life as the books and coffee business family behind Fuel took over the caffeine bar with an end of 2023 neon-lit debut on Broadway.
CHS reported here on Fuel’s overhaul of the space below the Casa Del Ray apartments to be its fourth Seattle location and second on Capitol Hill as Vivace decided to end its decades of service at the counter over challenges around staffing and proximity to its Broadway Brix location. Continue reading
Seasmith will have a lot in common with its Beacon Ave sibling Fable (Image: Fable)
Capitol Hill Station’s crowds of light rail passengers are back to pre-pandemic levels — and then some. The mix of apartments and new residents above the stations has created a busy new Broadway neighborhood. Now the hopes of new businesses above the nearly eight-year-old Seattle subway stop are also returning to pre-pandemic levels.
“I don’t think I could have imagined that a project could take us that long but back then,” Mathew Wendland, owner of Seasmith said. “But I also couldn’t have imagined any of the things we were all going to go through within COVID.”
Seasmith is the happily anticipated, long awaited coffee shop and casual hangout from the Burien Press family of businesses. It will have been in the works to join Capitol Hill Station’s new development at the corner of Broadway and E. Barbara Bailey Way for five years when it finally opens in 2024 joining the expanded Glo’s Diner (May 2023), and H Mart’s M2M grocery market (April 2022) as the development’s commercial tenants finally reach critical mass.
Seasmith will be “all day cafe, really looking at how do we create something that is activating every part of the day — coffee, fresh food in morning, full kitchen, lunch, dinner, beer, natural wine,” Wendland said about the project when we first spoke to him about it in 2021.
When it finally opens next year, Seasmith’s story will be one of pandemic challenges, transit oriented development bureaucracy, and creative perseverance. Continue reading
Hulton (Image: Fuel Coffee)
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Fuel Coffee is busy overhauling the space below the Casa Del Ray apartments to be its fourth Seattle location and second on Capitol Hill as it prepares to continue “the legacy of great coffee and quick service” of the famed walk-up counter.
“As you all know, Vivace made this location a community pillar, and we all mourned its closing,” the Fuel announcement reads.
Don’t worry. The old Vivace shrine featuring Caffeina, Goddess of the Waking Day should still be in place. Continue reading
