The corner grocery store isn’t dead yet in Seattle but you might have to pay a little more for your chips. A small neighborhood grocery in Madison Valley is set to reopen as part of the Kitchen & Market “boutique grocery chain” that says it is “chef- driven” and “primarily focused on bringing fresh products and meal kits to market.”
“I am so excited that we are opening a store in Madison Valley,” Stephanie King, Kitchen & Market’s founder and CEO, said in the announcement of the store’s opening. “Madison Valley has long been a neighborhood of fabulous customers of Kitchen & Market via our delivery service and now they can visit us in person.”
The change for the market across the street from neighborhood anchor Cafe Flora is another burst of life for the neighborhood’s struggling business community as it has asked for more support to make it through this final year of construction to create the new RapidRide G rapid bus line to connect the waterfront to Madison Valley via First Hill and Capitol Hill along E Madison. Continue reading →
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 →
Work on the route through downtown is pretty much complete (Image: Seattle Department of Transportation)
By CHS’s calculations, construction along the Madison corridor to create the new RapidRide G bus line has another year to go. But a merchant group representing businesses along the route says patience with the construction mess, utility shutdowns, and transit impacts has run out.
“The RapidRide G – Madison St project now sits at 75% completion!,” the Seattle Department of Transportation announced in its latest construction update this week on the 2.4-mile route promising six-minute service during most hours of the day between 1st Ave downtown and MLK Jr Way in Madison Valley with stops across First Hill and Capitol Hill along the way.
But the Madison Valley Merchants Association isn’t celebrating. The group is calling on the city and Mayor Bruce Harrell to implement a small business council to address “the city’s lack of communication and planning regarding the Madison BRT project,” Marceil Van Camp, board member and owner of Kamp Social House, tells CHS.
The association cites “a substantial loss of 20% of the businesses along the Madison Avenue corridor, spanning from 24th Avenue East to 32nd Avenue East” and says “an additional loss of 10% is anticipated by the conclusion of 2023” in a letter documenting its complaints. “This persistent decline is unsustainable for the well-being of the Madison Valley community, especially when weighed against the benefits derived from the Madison Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) – RapidRide G Line project,” it reads.
Van Camp says other areas along Madison have also met with the Greater Seattle Business Association about the challenges.
The full letter can be found at the end of this report.
While the letter also cites some familiar, sometimes shortsighted concerns around things like the loss of street parking, there are plenty of more substantial issues raised in the letter including the haphazard re-routes and wholesale loss of transit service by existing key routes in the area. In its latest construction update, SDOT says the detour of Route 8 away from Madison Valley will last for months into 2024.
Unfortunately, the pains for those living along the route of the Madison project are not new. Continue reading →
Katy Knauff and Marceil Van Camp (Image: Kamp Social House)
When it comes to growing into your place as a neighborhood hangout, identity is important. Kamp Social House is experimenting with its identity in Madison Valley.
“We were just finding that there were certain nights where it’s like, this is a restaurant full of lesbians, like everybody in here is queer,” Marceil Van Camp tells CHS. “I truly think it’s just that openness that allows for others to know that it’s a space where you can just sit at the bar.”
Van Camp and her wife, Katy Knauff, moved to Seattle from Long Beach in 2019 and fell in love with the Seattle food scene. Knauff is a lifelong restaurateur with 17 years of experience. Van Camp left a career in tech sales. The couple began looking for restaurant locations but then the COVID-19 pandemic hit, and they put a pause in it. By the summer of 2022, Kamp Social House opened its doors in the space formerly home to neighborhood mainstay Luc. In the beginning, it emphasized Madison Valley and being “sober curious”-friendly as its leading attributes.
Van Camp said she and Knauff are very loud, open, and unapologetically proud about their love and business story which helps with make it a welcoming space for all.
The first lesbian dance nights at Kamp started this Pride. The overarching goal was to hold dance parties while celebrating queer love. The parties took place on Mondays because those were the queerest of nights at Kamp during summer. On the first night, Van Camp said that the line to enter was out the door, and she knew that Kamp had connected with something. Continue reading →
King County Metro will hold the first of two planned open house sessions Thursday night on the proposed changes to Routes 10, 11, 12, and 47 in conjunction with the 2024 start of service on the E Madison RapidRide G bus line.
Open houses Thursday, April 6 – 6:00PM to 7:30PM
Miller Community Center
330 19th Ave E
Friday, April 28 – 6:00PM to 7:30PM
Yesler Community Center
917 E Yesler Way
CHS reported on the proposals last month. Metro says the new “Madison Street Area” network would alter Routes 10, 11, 12, and 47 in the Capitol Hill, Central District, First Hill, and Madison Valley neighborhoods to “improve public transportation connections and transfers,” reduce duplication with the new RapidRide G line, and “address service that was suspended since COVID began in 2020.”
Under the RapidRide G planning, Metro is making the case to permanently axe Route 47 while proposed changes to Route 10 and Route 12 are being intertwined with a proposal for the lines be “reoriented” to operate along E Pine instead of E John and Madison, until they turn north on 15th Ave and 19th Ave. Metro is also proposing to move Route 11 off Pine. Continue reading →
Metro’s plan is to keep the electrified trolleys of Route 12 and 10 rolling once RapidRide G comes along (Image: CHS)
With construction of the new line now at “50%,” officials are collecting feedback on proposals to alter existing bus routes that will connect with the Madison RapidRide G line when it begins service in 2024.
The new “Madison Street Area” network would alter Routes 10, 11, 12, and 47 in the Capitol Hill, Central District, First Hill, and Madison Valley neighborhoods to “improve public transportation connections and transfers,” reduce duplication with the new RapidRide G line, and “address service that was suspended since COVID began in 2020,” Metro says.
The new configurations could also fit better with the streetscape overhaul currently underway that will make Pike and Pine one-way between downtown and Bellevue Ave.
Metro’s plan is to roll the proposals out now and collect survey feedback through May before possibly revised revisions go out later in the year and are finalized in time for RapidRide G’s start of service in 2024.
Metro is promising “a final proposed bus route network that reflects community input from this survey, conversations with community members, and equity analyses” by fall 2023.Continue reading →
Kamp has soft serve, an overhauled restaurant and bar space, and executive chef Bridgett Lewis going for it (Images: Kamp Social House)
The signature cocktails at Kamp can be ordered boozy, partly boozy, or, yes, unboozy (Image: Kamp Social House)
Madison Valley has been enjoying the “boozy,” the “partly boozy,” and the “unboozy” party without us.
Kamp Social House opened over the summer and is hitting its stride as a neighborhood restaurant and bar centered around inclusivity and a social cocktail combining old school buzz with non-alcoholic enjoyment.
“Don’t be a stranger,” the neon reads.
CHS reported in May on the concept from business and life partners Marceil Van Camp and Katy Knauff as the veteran restaurant consultants cooked up a plan for a Mad Valley bistro providing cocktails, beers, and wines — with alcohol and without — with daytime and nighttime aspirations of serving the surrounding area. Kamp was made to gracefully serve everyone, Van Camp told CHS, whether you want your Negroni wet, damp, or dry — or boozy, partly boozy, or unboozy as the menu breaks it down. Continue reading →
Police are asking for help in locating the suspect in an attempted rape and robbery in the Madison Valley and say the suspect in the August 31st attack frequents Capitol Hill. SPD reports:
Detectives have identified the suspect as Jordan Alexander, and there is a warrant for his arrest. He is a 33-year-old Black male, 6’1”, slim build, with a shaved head. During the attack, he was wearing an orange shirt under a long-sleeved button-down shirt with a checkered pattern, an orange hat, jeans, and black work boots.
In incidents from previous years, Alexander has attempted to disguise himself by wearing a head wrap, mask, sunglasses and light-colored make up.
He is known to frequent Capitol Hill, especially the areas around 27th Avenue East/East Madison Street, Pine Street/Broadway, 22nd Avenue East/East Madison Street, and Cal Anderson Park.
City People’s Garden Store, October 1988 (Image: City People’s)
This is really it. The final growing season at E Madison’s City People’s. The popular Madison Valley garden and supply store announced it will permanently close at the end of 2022 to make way for a long-planned redevelopment of its acre of Central Seattle land. The Madison Valley PCC and a new six-story, 82-unit apartment building above a 140-vehicle parking lot is coming.
“With a heavy, heavy heart we announce that we will close our doors on Madison at the end of the year,” Wednesday’s announcement sent to the plant and gardening store’s customers reads. “We have reached the end of our lease extensions on this property, and City People’s Garden Store will lose its home of 34 years.”
F. Geza de Gall of developer Velmeir Companies confirmed demolition planning is underway and said construction work could begin late in the first quarter of 2024. Continue reading →
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Van Camp’s recipe for a NA Negroni: 1 oz Monday Non-Alcoholic Gin 1 oz Lyre’s Dry Italian Spritz 1 oz Dhōs Orange 1 dropper All the Bitter Aromatic 1 dropper All the Bitter Orange (Image: The Dry Year)
A new food and drink venture with Capitol Hill roots and centered around inclusivity and non-alcoholic enjoyment is under construction just downhill in Madison Valley. Its 2022 opening in the area around Madison and MLK will hopefully be part of a pulse of recovery for blocks that have been recently hit by food and drink shutterings and shutdowns.
Business and life partners Marceil Van Camp and Katy Knauff say the opening of Kamp later this year along E Madison will be the first of many for a concept the experienced restaurant consultants know their Capitol Hill, Central District, and Madison Valley neighbors are looking for.
“It shouldn’t be an ask — ‘Do you have non-alcoholic options?,'” Van Camp tells CHS.
Kamp will be a bistro providing cocktails, beers, and wines — with alcohol and without — with daytime and nighttime aspirations of serving Madison Valley. Kamp will gracefully serve everyone, Van Camp says, whether you want your Negroni wet, damp, or dry. Continue reading →