BREAKING: SEATTLE PICKLEBALL STUDY IN CRUCIAL FINAL PHASE

Miller’s courts have been busy (Image: Seattle Parks)

(Image: Seattle Parks)

The way this pandemic is going, we’re going to need a hell of a lot more than pickleball to get us through the days. But the pastime sport has helped people keep moving and has made the city’s netted sports courts busy centers of outdoor activity.

To cap off a $50,000, three-year study of the pastime sport — reallySeattle Parks is conducting a survey to find out more about how people want to use its outdoor courts and is looking for feedback from “tennis and pickleball players on how we can best support the growth of pickleball, a fast-growing sport in Seattle and the U.S” — emphasis theirs! Continue reading

‘So much of what I love about Capitol Hill and Seattle still exists’ — Macklemore’s Bogey Boys and Goose Magees Vintage Mall now open

It’s not quite the vision of a people-oriented superblock some champion for the heart of Pike/Pine, but with the opening of Macklemore’s golf apparel shop Bogey Boys and its underground Goose Magees Vintage Mall, 10th Ave right now is, well… something else.

“With so many new buildings and people moving into town, I think it’s really important to still create that space where artists and creatives and people that make Seattle culture what it is have a place that’s theirs,” the Capitol Hill-born, raised, and resident rapper said opening the new store Saturday in the space next door to Elliott Bay Book Co. left empty by the pandemic closure of a high-end luxury fashion shop.

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Macklemore’s Bogey Boys golf fashion popping up on Capitol Hill with Pike/Pine pro shop — UPDATE

(Image: Bogey Boys)

Bogey Boys, the new golf fashion line from Macklemore, will bring its old school game to the rapper’s home turf with a Pike/Pine retail pop-up. The new 10th Ave shop is just a block over from where Capitol Hill’s old Value Village was preserved and redeveloped as a home for a new WeWork and, yes, a virtual golf bar slated to open in the building by the end of the year.

“From the cardigans to the polos to the hoodies, men and women can wear this collection,” hip hop artist Ben Haggerty told the Seattle Times about his new passion for golf as the hype for Bogey Boys was building earlier this year. “It has been a passion project, and also a way that when I say shake up the game of golf, that’s not just clothing. That’s one aspect of it. I think we need to shake up the entire narrative and make it accessible for everyone.” Continue reading

Now open below Broadway and Pike: Ox Billiards, Capitol Hill’s new underground pool hall

Michael Dominguez

After years as a — literally — underground boxing gym, there’s a new obsession forming below Broadway and Pike. Ox Billiards is now open.

CHS reported earlier this summer on Michael Dominguez’s plans for the snooker-focused pool hall taking over the space long home to Seattle Boxing Gym, formerly the tiny Seattle Boxing Studio, which outgrew its longtime Capitol Hill home and, in late 2019, moved to Interbay.

The new all-ages pool hall is reached by the same door the gym used on Broadway leading down to a club with 5,500 square feet of space housing four full-size snooker tables of mahogany and Chinese Gold, plus eight more nine-foot pool tables, black-finished and felted in blue by Rasson Billiards.

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Attention Seattle fisherfolk: There are no fish in the Volunteer Park Reservoir

(Image: Volunteer Park Trust)

Bogus reports from Fishbrain

Don’t believe everything you read on the Internet. That is probably not news. And the idea that people have fun by posting bogus information on the web and fake reviews? Also not new.

Finding a couple of confused fishermen carrying fishing poles and a box of new lures in search of reported smallmouth bass in the middle of Capitol Hill? That’s a CHS blog post.

You might not be surprised that jokers are using online fishing community Fishbrain to have a few laughs posting trip reports for Capitol Hill bodies of water including the 22 million gallons in the Volunteer Park Reservoir.

But CHS was surprised — and felt sorry to be the bearer of bad news — for two would-be fishermen wandering around the road below the barbed wire fences of the Volunteer Park reservoir looking for an entrance after seeing a catch report from user mindy.a showing a smallmouth bass reportedly caught in the off-limits Seattle Public Utilities facility. Continue reading

Five Iron Golf and WeWork Capitol Hill twosome confirm 11th Ave details: 12,000 square feet of virtual golf, restaurant, and bar

The company is promising its “signature” look for the Capitol Hill location (Image: Five Iron Golf)

Virtual golf bar Five Iron Golf has confirmed it is swinging into Seattle with a 12,000 square-foot venue set to open by the end of the year on Capitol Hill.

CHS broke the news on the project in May thanks to City of Seattle construction permits that revealed details of the new project in the Pike/Pine preservation-boosted Kelly Springfield building on 11th Ave neighboring the soon to reopen Rhino Room.

The new 11th Ave virtual golf facility, restaurant, and bar will occupy the ground floor of WeWork Capitol Hill the Five Iron Golf company announced Wednesday and “will be home to twelve custom-built golf simulators featuring multiple high-speed cameras to capture every angle of the golf swing.” Continue reading

Ox Billiards bringing snooker and pool to Broadway and Pike

The former boxing gym below the surface of Broadway will become Ox Billiards (Image: CHS)

A new club is set to join the Pike/Pine scene. It will be underground, modern, and maybe a little posh. But Ox Billiards will emphasize a quality you might not find on the dance floors of Capitol Hill: planning, strategy, and self control.

“Snooker is a points game — not every ball can be made. There is a very large defensive component,” Michael Dominguez tells CHS. “It’s all in how you can control the cue ball.”

The new snooker and billiards hall is set to open later this year below ground in the basement of the 1912-built Broadway and Pike building where it will transform a former boxing gym into a new venue filled with four full size snooker tables of mahogany and Chinese Gold and eight more nine-foot pool tables, black-finished and felted in Pro Blue. Continue reading

Metro’s bus route connecting Capitol Hill to Mt. Si is back

(Image: CHS)

The hike from Capitol Hill to the Cascade Range gets easier starting Saturday, June 5th as the Metro’s Trailhead Direct service returns after a yearlong hiatus.

The Broadway start point will again offer weekend and holiday service every 20 minutes connecting Capitol Hill Station to Mount Si, Little Si, and Mount Teneriffe.

You can also hop on or off at stops on First Hill, the Eastgate Freeway Station, and at the North Bend park-and-ride. Continue reading

Fore! Five Iron virtual golf bar teeing up plans for Capitol Hill

The Chicago Five Iron (Image: Five Iron Golf)

Capitol Hill is getting a new “golf simulator” hangout in the heart of Pike/Pine from a fast growing chain bringing a “high-tech, inclusive urban golf experience for golfers and non-golfers alike” to the nation’s major party and nightlife districts.

Plans for Five Iron Golf call for a new Seattle expansion to take over the northern berth of the street level commercial space in the Pike/Pine preservation-boosted Kelly Springfield building on 11th Ave neighboring the Rhino Room. Continue reading

In first for Washington, state finally approves beer sales at Capitol Hill axe tossing joint Blade and Timber

(Image: Blade and Timber)

Capitol Hill’s axe throwing bar will finally be a bar. The state liquor board has finally approved Blade and Timber’s application ending years of back and forth between the venue and officials over allowing participants to purchase alcohol at the Broadway venue.

It’s a historic moment, the company says, for beer and axes.

“This victory marks the first time in Washington state’s history to grant a designated axe throwing venue approval to serve alcohol while patrons throw axes,” a release on the approval reads.

Blade and Timber is calling the approval a “pilot” and says sales under its new snack bar liquor license can begin Friday: Continue reading