(Image: Fainting Goat)
Thanks to a reader for the picture
On this rainy “Spring Forward” Monday, let us turn our attention to thoughts of summer bus rides to Madison Park — and a gelato stop in Madison Valley along the way.
Fainting Goat Gelato is expanding south of the Montlake Cut with a new shop in Madison Valley. You can also find Fainting Goat in Fremont. The Wallingford shop is currently listed as “temporarily closed” as they work on a new location. Continue reading
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(Image: Wunderground and Salt and Straw)
Capitol Hill mushroom coffee joint Wunderground is pairing up with Portland-born artisanal ice cream purveyor Salt and Straw on three new flavors featuring the cafe’s adaptogenic mushroom coffees and tea in a fundraiser to boost Mental Health Awareness Month.
Friday, company Jody Hall of Wunderground and Kim Malek of Salt and Straw will be at Wunderground’s E Pike headquarters to celebrate the launch of the new flavors with free scoops for cafe customers.
The link-up is creating three new flavors to join Salt and Straw’s online “direct to consumer” offerings:
Friday between 1 and 4 PM, Wunderground customers purchasing a coffee or tea drink will get a free scoop to try the new flavors as they also join the flavors for sale on saltandstraw.com. Proceeds will benefit the Jed Foundation in support of Mental Health Awareness Month.
CHS reported here on Wunderground’s 2021 debut as Hall shifted her focus from cupcakes to the new coffee company and its fusion of the “health benefits” from mushrooms like Lion’s Mane, Chaga, Reishi, and Cordyceps with the daily ritual and the “antioxidant properties” of coffee plus plans for the new flagship cafe and headquarters on E Pike.
Salt and Straw, meanwhile, arrived in Pike/Pine in 2018 and now features scoop shops from the Pacific Northwest to Disneyland. Mushroom coffee is nowhere near the weirdest things it has ever mixed into its scoops.
Wunderground Cafe is located at 1111 E Pike. You can learn more at wundergroundcoffee.com.
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Subscribe to CHS to help us pay writers and photographers to cover the neighborhood. CHS is a pay what you can community news site with no required sign-in or paywall. Become a subscriber to help us cover the neighborhood for as little as $5 a month.
(Image: Old School)
After more than a decade of business on Capitol Hill, Old School Frozen Custard is scooping its final treats for customers this weekend.
“Like many small businesses impacted by the complexities of Covid, Old School has hit the end of the road,” Old School’s owners said.
Old School arrived on Capitol Hill in 2009 as part of a small chain of frozen custard shops. In 2016, new owners Meg and CJ Chaney stepped in and took over the business, introducing more cookies and baked goods to the offerings. While other new dessert options coming to the Hill mostly emphasized new trends and flavors, Old School kept its focus on creamy, comfortable scoops, and plenty of butterfat. Continue reading
(Image: Frankie and Jo’s)
After weeks of COVID-19 restrictions, Capitol Hill-born plant-based ice cream shop Frankie and Jo’s is back serving scoops on E Union. With the world busy with COVID-19 recovery and the wave of protests calling for racial justice and an end to police brutality, the small chain of scoop shops is taking a slow start in solidarity with the movement:
We have decided to shift our focus from reopening to being in solidarity with this important movement in racial equality. we are choosing to keep our hours limited from 12 – 3pm, Wednesday through Sunday. June and everyday flavors will be available in pints only. we love you, stay safe.
Started in 2016, the vegan ice cream business is part of the sweet Capitol Hill offerings of Autumn Martin of Hot Cakes and Kari Brunson of Juicebox Cafe who joined together to form Frankie and Jo’s. The Ballard shop has also reopened with limited hours.
Meanwhile, you can also find a treat on E Pike where scoopers are back at work at Salt and Straw.
More details on the Frankie and Joe’s reopening can be found here.
There are silver linings to this COVID-19 cloud settled across the small business communities of Capitol Hill — buttery, silky smooth silver linings.
Tiny but hugely delicious E Olive Way pastry shop Crumble & Flake has added online ordering and is sticking to its summer plans despite the restrictions to add what is likely to be a popular new offering: Glacier de Crumble & Flake.
“We have it in the shop until we run out pretty much like everything else around here,” Crumble’s Toby Matasar tells CHS about her new small-batch operation to turn out “silky smooth” French ice cream and sorbets.
En quoi c’est français?
“They use butter instead of cream,” Matasar says of her education in Parisian ice cream. “That’s really all you need to say right there.” Continue reading
Rainier Shine — with AG Farm Rainier cherries… and Rainier beer (Image: Sweet Alchemy)
Now it is finally time for legendary locavore Kurt Timmermeister to cut his ice cream-y ties with Capitol Hill. By early next year, his tiny Chophouse Row ice cream parlor Kurt Farm Shop will make a home for another purveyor of one of a kind frozen deliciousness who also shares Timmermeister’s love of purity and do it yourself effort.
“Most people opt to purchase their ice cream base from a local daily farm,” Lois Ko tells CHS about Sweet Alchemy’s creations and labor intensive effort to pasteurize its own milk as a WSDA certified creamery.
By early February, the University District born company will open its third Seattle shop on Capitol Hill.
You also have a few more days to enjoy Kurt Farm Shop. Timmermeister announced a planned December 29th closure for his Chophouse Row counter. “It’s time for me to retire from ice cream and head back to my dairy farm full time to make cheese and take photographs,” he writes. “It’s been a great nearly-five years and I’ve loved all the customers and the great folks that have worked scooping ice cream.” Continue reading
In a season of Capitol Hill closures with large leases and high rents as the culprits, the 15th Ave E expansion of Seattle ice cream and arcade chain Full Tilt is also declaring game over.
Owner Justin Cline announced the plans for the Capitol Hill shop to close at the end of December after just under two years of business.
“I am proud of the team we have had there, and they effort everyone put into making it work. It just didn’t. It is not the right area for us,” Cline wrote. “We knew the cost of rent when we went into this space, but we thought we would have the traffic to support it. That did not happen. The wonderful employees are going to work at our other locations, and we have some new projects in the works.” Continue reading
(Image: Kurt Farm Shop)
Kurt Timmermeister turned the proceeds from his sale of the legendary Septieme into his now-legendary Kurtwood Farm on Vashon Island.
Now Timmermeister is considering the sale of his latest Capitol Hill creation but he tells CHS not to worry about Kurt Farm Shop’s ice creamy goodness going anywhere anytime soon.
“I have had a great summer at the Farm Shop with such a long, hot summer that continues,” Timmermeister tells CHS. “Although I did mention it to someone, I have no plans to sell at this time. The neighborhood has become the center of ice cream for the city and I am loving being a part of it.” Continue reading
(Image: Molly Moon’s)
Between today’s golden age of frozen treats and the end of the 31 flavors era, there were dark days on Capitol Hill. Then Molly Moon’s opened on E Pine across from Cal Anderson. And there was ice cream.
Thursday, the Seattle chain of scoop shops celebrates its birth 10 years ago in Wallingford:
Hooray! We’re turning 10 this Thursday, May 10, and to celebrate our birthday, we’re giving free scoops to the first 100 customers at each of our shops, which are located in Wallingford, Capitol Hill, Madrona, Queen Anne, University Village, Redmond and Columbia City!
Molly Moon Neitzel opened her Capitol Hill shop a year later in 2009. “Molly Moon’s Homemade Ice Cream is a great local hang-out where families, kids, hipsters, and ice cream addicts alike, can congregate and celebrate their favorite dessert,” the marketing text read. Continue reading
At 4 AM, Portland is even closer to its bigger, richer Pacific Northwest sibling Seattle. It’s a good thing. The Salt and Straw delivery truck is coming through.
“Making it all in Portland, driven up every day, that was a huge decision for us,” Salt and Straw’s head ice cream nerd Tyler Malek tells CHS. Building a big, strong Rip City kitchen team gives Salt and Straw a center to its ice cream creation process and make hiring the best talent easier, Malek says.
Capitol Hill customers are getting their first scoops of the I-5-imported ice creams and frozen creations as the shop made its E Pike debut Friday at 11 AM. Ice cream for breakfast. Ice cream for lunch. Continue reading
