(Image: EcoDistrict)
Sunday, June 16th will bring the second annual REVIVAL: Juneteenth Pop-up Market to the Central District’s Midtown Square development at 23rd and Union.
The annual market event returns with support of the EcoDistrict and the Urban League of Metropolitan Seattle as well as Midtown Square’s Arte Noir gallery.
(Image: EcoDistrict)
(Image: Soul Collective)
Folino
By Nicholas Williams/UW News Lab
A Central District hair salon has become the unexpected host of monthly poetry nights in the midst of neighborhood development at 23rd and Union.
Soul Collective, located on the block with the neighborhood PCC and across the Midtown Square apartments and neighboring businesses Jerk Shack, Neighbor Lady, Raised Donuts, and the Arte Noir gallery, is a space committed to sharing its artistic expertise of diverse ethnicities, backgrounds and hair textures.
Owner Alexandria Folino says she founded the small business to desegregate hair care in an environment of unpretentious luxury.
“I decided to embark on a journey of creating a space that felt right for the type of hair on my head and others that look like me because they have all heard that their hair is a specialty in the beauty industry,” Folino said.
Folino was approached with the idea of hosting poetry nights by poets Joshua Griffin and Julie Feng.
“Alex is from the district. Julie’s from the south end. I grew up in the north end and we’ve all seen this city change,” Griffin said.
“We can speak back to what 23rd and Union used to look like. So what are you going to do now after you leave this space? Hopefully, continue to find ways to be in the community and not find ways to uproot the community.”
Folino acknowledges the Central District has changed a lot since she grew up there and says, by having events like these poetry nights, she can participate in building the new culture of the neighborhood. Continue reading
(Image: @jerkshackseattle)
Speaking of new opportunities for Black ownership in the Central District, Trey Lamont’s new 23rd and Union location of Jerk Shack is now open in the Midtown Square development.
The Carribean restaurant is one of the first of the development’s commercial tenants to open on its inner square.
CHS reported here on the mix of Black-owned and neighborhood businesses opening in the mixed-use development that also has added more than 400 market rate and affordable apartment units on the southeast corner of 23rd and Union including the new Jerk Shack, the Arté Noir arts space and gallery, Raised Doughnuts, and a new home for The Neighbor Lady. Continue reading
The bar at Marjorie would make excellent inspiration for whatever is coming at Boujie bar (Image: Marjorie)
(Image: Midtown Square)
So, what is this CHS hears about one of the leading Black restaurant owners in the city and a Capitol Hill community leader working on a project to become part of the impressive food and drink mix at the Central District’s Midtown Square development?
It’s true — though details are limited on exactly how Boujie Bar from 14th and Union favorite Marjorie’s Donna Moodie will take shape.
CHS included the coming venue here in our look at the 17+ Capitol Hill and Central District bars and restaurants to look forward to in 2023 as Moodie’s new bar and first new food and drink project in years will join a robust mix in Midtown Square at 23rd and Union.
While Boujie Bar remains a super secret work in progress and Moodie declined to provide details of the new project at this time, she has grown the now 20-year-old Marjorie into a Seattle favorite and remains one of the few Black owners in Capitol Hill area food and drink. The 14th and Union joint’s bar is also pretty swell and a good spot to enjoy Moodie’s “steel drum” plantain chips and a cocktail or a Red Stripe.
Born in Jamaica and raised in Chicago, Moodie would trail her mother around the kitchen as a young girl, and she gained respect for her “scratch” cooking, while using the highest quality ingredients supplied by local merchants and farmers. Moodie opened Marjorie in 2003 in Belltown as an homage to her mother, although the space relocated to Capitol Hill in 2010 on E Union. Continue reading