A view out to the soon to be removed Barrio streatery Some of the dining habits and street seating setups of the pandemic may never go away but times have changed enough for one Capitol Hill restaurant to move on from its COVID-era “streatery” and restore an increasingly rare feature along 12th Ave — street parking. “We are selling our Streatery!,” Barrio Mexican Kitchen and Agave Bar announced this week. “Thank you to our guests, team, and neighbors for making covid a bit more bearable by enjoying this streatery with us, but the time has come to move on.” Get your offers in now for the 60-f ..read more

The Capitol Hill “new American” restaurant that replaced ye olde Canterbury Ale House is struggling with the oldest of business challenges: taxes and rent. Meliora, which has been “temporarily closed” since February while the ownership said it was undertaking a restart of the concept, is behind on three months’ rent and owes more than $30,000, according to a notice posted last week by the building’s landlord. Meanwhile, a King County Superior Court filing shows the business owed the state more than $40,000 in unpaid taxes. Meliora’s Sukhdaljeet Singh declined to comment on the circumstances ..read more

(Image: The Woods) Capitol Hill’s Christmas Dive Bar isn’t going year round but pop-up bar experiences are, indeed, the new way of doing business at 11th Ave’s The Woods. The club’s owners say they are jumping into pop-ups full time with the opening of The Mystic Motel, a new Wes Anderson-worthy temporary theme for the space riffing on the grown-up spring breaks of Palm Springs and adventures in the desert. “This latest pop-up is another export of something we love – the deserts surrounding Palm Springs, which we try to visit as often as we can,” Joey Burgess said in the announcement of the ..read more

Not every culinary success story begins at age 7, but for Roan Hartzog, his story does. Hartzog has been “bread adjacent” for most of his life. Mt. Bagel, surprisingly located amid the homes of Madison Valley on 26th Ave E, is the current iteration of Hartzog’s baking. In 2019, Roan took a trip to the “bagel homeland” of New York City. Wanting to start his own project, but unsure of what that was, he let his travel be his inspiration. After returning home, he worked his bread bakery job and on his off time, experimented with bagels. It took a year of playing with dough to get the recipe ..read more

As tales of massive markdowns spread across social media from closures across the country, any bargains were long gone at the Capitol Hill Amazon Fresh by the time CHS showed up Sunday to check things out. The store was closed up for good — a day earlier than reported. CHS reported here on the abrupt closure as the tech and retail giant said it was pulling back on smaller format stores in favor of larger groceries and its Whole Foods holdings — including the store a few blocks away at Broadway and Madison. On E Pike, the closure of the near-8,000-square-foot grocery on the ground floor of the ..read more

(Image: Koko’s) By Juan Jocom The folks at Koko’s know what they are doing. They built the original restaurant into a widely respected dining destination despite its far-flung location in the planned Olympic Peninsula community of Seabrook. Gibran Moreno and Alexi Torres also know their way around Capitol Hill, hoping to grow their new Koko’s Restaurant and Tequila Bar into the LGBTQ-owned food, drink, and good times community of the neighborhood. But the long waits and slow processes of doing business in a booming again Seattle have been a challenge even for the experience Koko’s ..read more

From Jonah Bergman’s Margaritaville Paradise Island Bait Shop Capitol Hill is changing and so are we. Bait Shop is refreshing its neighborhood bar concept in partnership with financial group Parrothead Capital and Florida-based developer Lost Saltshaker Ventures, LLC. April 1, 2024 will mark the grand opening of Jonah Bergman’s Margaritaville Paradise Island Bait Shop. Our bar will be THE place for Seattle newcomers to relax and ‘waste away’ in a ‘paradise’ of cheeseburgers, margaritas, and more margaritas. Plus, patrons will learn about incredible timeshare opportunities, and delight in a car ..read more

  PLEASE HELP KEEP CHS PAYWALL-FREE! 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.     There is a new look for an old coffee friend on 15th Ave E. One of Capitol Hill’s favorite hangouts has given its interior an overhaul with new seating and benches and a new layout. Part of the neighborhood for 24 years, the original Victrola Coffee cafe is rolling out the upgrades as it als ..read more

(Image: Uber Eats) A Seattle City Council committee will begin new debate Thursday on Seattle’s minimum wage for app-based delivery workers just months after it was implemented. The council’s economic development committee chaired by Council President Sara Nelson will hear reports on the impact of the minimum wage requirements approved by the council in 2022 but put into effect this year. According to an analysis completed for Nelson, network companies like Uber “raised delivery fees and service fees, and some added a Seattle-specific fee,” and “fewer customer orders and longer wait times fo ..read more

(Image: Massive) One of Capitol Hill’s biggest new nightclub investments is adding an interesting food and drink expansion to its mix. City permits show plans in the work for a new banh mi sandwich shop to join the ground floor complex of the new club Massive in the former R Place building at Pine and Boylston. The project is being readied to carve out the tiny new E Pine Vietnamese sandwich joint from the existing kitchen and separate the new venue from the club’s first-floor bar area. The new component creates a new opportunity for restaurant entrepreneur Tam Nguyen of the Tamarind Tree R ..read more