The Seattle Mariners have never been to a World Series and they’re not going in 2025. The Roanoke’s Big Dumper-inspired call above 10th Ave E to “WIN THE WHOLE FKN THI∩G” will have to wait for next year. Continue reading
(Image: Club 29)
By Domenic Strazzabosco
On the third Wednesday of every month, in the back section of E Pike’s Elysian Capitol Hill Brewery, queer cribbage group Club 29 meets to play the centuries-old game. With roughly two dozen attendees, the players gather for a few hours in a round robin-style, many also enjoying a bite to eat or a draft beer from the local brewery.
Tim Maass founded the club almost three years ago after he noticed a friend from a gay dodgeball group posting about the table game on Instagram. He recalled thinking to himself, “Wait, other gay millennials play cribbage?” Maass then posted on social media, asking if others he knew played, and instantly got enough comments to coordinate a meetup. A friend offered space at their restaurant, Otter Bar & Burger in Eastlake, where the group originally formed.
Last fall, a TikTok featuring the group’s custom rainbow board quickly accumulated over 40 thousand views and culminated in another monthly Seattle meetup, as well as one in Tacoma and another in Everett. The Seattle locations now include Elysian Brewing and Baja Bistro in Beacon Hill on the first Tuesday.
Going on three years since his first Facebook post, Maass has only missed one meetup, and now considers the unofficial title “That Gay Cribbage Guy” to be the best he’s ever had. Continue reading
Custer and Dimas
19th Ave E has come alive with the sounds of cheering fans and clinking glasses at Pitch the Baby, the new Capitol Hill sports bar that is rewriting the playbook on gameday culture.
The bar has been open in a kind of preseason mode as the new operations ramps up and prepares for this Friday’s grand opening. CHS huddled with owners Ani Custer and Monica Dimas to learn about their unconventional approach that’s already drawing crowds.
Let’s start with the name which comes from an idea that may seem as far from sportsball as you can get.
“It is a Cocteau Twins song about childbirth from an album that Monica just loves,” Custer says. The owners leaned into the quirky vibe, noting it “kind of sounded to us like cutesy, kind of sportsy, like a little bit of League of Their Own.” Dimas added with a laugh, “It shouldn’t be that deep.”
While the newly installed big screens show plenty of sports action, the owners designed Pitch the Baby to stand out from typical sports bars. “The goal was to make a sports bar with offerings that you would want, even if you’re not there to watch a game,” Custer told CHS. Continue reading
(Image: Pitch the Baby)
The Seattle Storm tip off at 7 PM. The Women’s Euro will fill Saturday and Sunday. It is a good weekend to hang out at Pitch the Baby, Capitol Hill’s new “inclusive, women-centered sports bar where everyone is welcome and women’s sports are always on tap.”
“Our bar is a space built for belonging, care, joy, and resistance,” the Capitol Hill food and drink all-stars behind the project say.
Its grand opening on 19th Ave E is planned for Friday, July 11th. Continue reading
$5 A MONTH TO HELP KEEP CHS PAYWALL-FREE
Subscribe to CHS to help us hire writers and photographers to cover the neighborhood. CHS is a pay what you can community news site with no required sign-in or paywall. To stay that way, we need you. Become a subscriber to help us cover the neighborhood for $5 a month -- or choose your level of support 🖤
By Matt Dowell
“Some fat ass cats show up here,” said Ronnie on a recent Wednesday night at the Summit Public House. He’s a regular at the pool table there and he’s been shooting pool on Capitol Hill since the ’90s.
Summit’s free-to-play table attracts good players on any night of the week. But for the last few years, a weekly Wednesday night tournament has become a center of the scene.
Show up around 7 PM on a Wednesday and you will see players warming up. A stack of cylindrical cue cases abuts the long bench at one end of the table. Competitors chalk up with focus, break racks with a whip crack heard around the bar. As Katy, the organizer, takes $10 buy-ins, she adds names to the bracket on a nearby TV screen.
It might look serious to an outsider, especially one who doesn’t play pool. But chat up a few people gathered around and you’ll quickly see there’s more to it than the game.
“They’re fat, but friendly cats,” Ronnie revised. “I like the competitiveness here, and the chill. Everybody’s friendly. Everybody polices themselves. You can come out here [to the patio between games] and smoke your cig, your doobie, your spliff.”
“It’s a good way to spend some time on a Wednesday night.”
The pedestrian and bicycling-only curves of E Interlaken Blvd will be filled with thousands of runners, rollers, joggers, and don’t give up you can do it walkers as the Seattle Marathon passes across the north slope of Capitol Hill Sunday morning.
The Seattle Department of Transportation says there will be trail and street closures across the route including SR-99, the Burke-Gilman, and I-5 Express lanes. Streets should reopen by 2:30 PM. Be prepared for delays along 24th Ave E where the route crosses the artery.
The full marathon’s official start time is 7 AM. Many participants won’t arrive in Interlaken until noon.
Around 15,000 participants are expected across the day’s events including the half and full marathon. In 2023, there were more than 1.700 runners and walkers who finished. Times ranged up to 18 minutes per mile for the slowest having the most fun-est runners.
In 2019, marathon organizers re-routed the course away from Interlaken as part of moves needed to avoid light rail construction on the I-90 bridge and flatten the course. After the pandemic forced the cancellation of the 2020 race, organizers finally restored the Interlaken portion of the run for the race’s 2022 edition.
Crowds gather on the northern fringes of Capitol Hill to mark mile 22.5 of the race with an annual final boost of cheering and enthusiasm.
More information on the race is at seattlemarathon.org.
$5 A MONTH TO HELP KEEP CHS PAYWALL-FREE
Subscribe to CHS to help us hire writers and photographers to cover the neighborhood. CHS is a pay what you can community news site with no required sign-in or paywall. To stay that way, we need you. Become a subscriber to help us cover the neighborhood for $5 a month -- or choose your level of support 🖤
Wright
The closest Seattle public golf course to Capitol Hill has a new name. Seattle Parks officials announced that Jefferson Park Golf Course will now be known as the Bill Wright Golf Complex.
“Mr. Wright was inducted into the Pacific Northwest Golf Association Hall of Fame in 2013,” the parks department announcement reads. “He was an original junior member and fixture of Fir State Golf Club and Jefferson Golf Course. He broke the color barrier of American Golf and will be appropriately honored at his home course, Bill Wright Golf Complex.”
The 52-acre Beacon Hill golf facility includes an 18-hole course, a 9-hole 3-par course, and a popular driving range and clubhouse. It is part of four public courses in the city including West Seattle, Interbay, and Jackson Park. The courses are currently operated by Premier Golf Centers under a long-term contract that has been up for renewal.
The renaming comes amid renewed pressures on the city-owned properties including Jackson Park Golf Course where neighbors are organizing to call for more community access to the facility. Continue reading
Capitol Hill community runs will need a new pacesetter. Longtime running gear and shoe retailer Fleet Feet is leaving E Pine after 20 years of business and weekly “fun runs” across the neighborhood.
Sergey Voronkin who is now overseeing Fleet Feet in the Seattle market with operating partner and ultra runner Brian Morrison stepping aside, announced the closure of the Capitol Hill store he had been managing saying the decision “stemmed from Fleet Feet’s larger business strategy to provide an improved customer experience to the Seattle community.”
The Seattle stores part of the nationwide Fleet Feet franchise include a Ballard location which will remain open.
“Moving forward, we invite our Capitol Hill community to join us at our Ballard store, where you will continue to receive the same great personalized service, shop from a similar product assortment and be able to participate in community programs, runs and events,” Voronkin’s message to customers announcing the closure read.
Fleet Feet has been part of the Odd Fellows building along E Pine across from Cal Anderson Park since 2004 where it started as the Seattle Running Company. Continue reading
By Paige Stanley/UW News Lab
Ready. Set. Go. Every Thursday night, Capitol Hill runners of all paces take off through Cal Anderson Park for a weekly group run featuring a 5k loop through Volunteer Park and a social hour at a neighborhood beer stop to follow.
This is not a race.
“When you know there’s a group of people who are going to meet regardless of the weather, it gives you an extra bonus to know … I am not going to run on my own,” Sergey Voronkin of the E Pine running shoe store Fleet Feet says. “When you have already been multiple times you’ve made a connection and friends, so this adds extra accountability and extra motivation.”
Voronkin, who works as the Inventory Manager at the Capitol Hill store, hosts the weekly runs. When he started leading the Fleet Feet runs in September, around a dozen runners would attend the pub runs. Now a pack of 50 to 60 runners rumble across the streets of Capitol Hill for the weekly run.
Fleet Feet is a national chain for runners with 260 stores across the country that has been part of Capitol Hill for years. In addition to selling running gear, Fleet Feet has training programs and running groups. A second Seattle Fleet Feet store is located in Ballard.
The Thursday Pub Run through the Capitol Hill neighborhood is one of the three weekly runs organized by the Capitol Hill store. While the Tuesday evening and Saturday morning runs are longer and generally ran at a faster pace, the Pub Runs follow a more casual “party pace.” Continue reading
The many colored lines of the Washington Park field (Image: City of Seattle)
Several sports fields across Seattle are closed and in need of repairs after a sustained bout of freezing temperatures has caused damage to the synthetic turf. Seattle Parks says at least nine of the fields at its facilities have been reported damaged and the Seattle Public Schools system has closed all of its turf fields to “assess the severity and scope of the damage on their fields.”
“Unfortunately, this weekend with the extreme freezing weather, a number of SPR (Seattle Parks) and SPS (Seattle Public Schools) synthetic turf fields experienced buckling and damage underneath the turf, resulting in lumps, divots and craters in areas of the field that make them unplayable,” the statement from the city parks department read. Continue reading
