- Ni Sandwiches now open on Broadway – offering 10 banh mis for $3.50
- After a weekend of friends and family testing, Marjorie opens its doors Tuesday night on E. Union
- Panera Bakery-Cafe will come to the Broadway Building in August 2010
- Starting Monday May 17, CHS Sponsor Poco Wine Room begins a late night Happy Hour. “New Happy Hour times are daily from 5 to 6:30 and Sunday-Thursday 10 till midnight. We will be eliminating our all day Sunday happy hour. We will have a house red and house white for late night, plus a drink special here and there! But, it’s not quite Happy Hour without food so the Poco menu will have some tasty treats available during both the early and late night times. So come try the roasted garlic hummus or one of Vanessa’s yummy tartines, a sausage and bell pepper saute, just to name a few.”
- Baguette now trying out Saturday hours from 11 am to 2 pm (call ahead to make sure)
- If you’ve been wondering why your favorite Elysian beers have been unavailable, some brewing facilities are currently offline
- Sitka & Spruce sets 5/25 as tentative opening date in the Melrose Project
- Bluebird Ice Cream gets the nod for best ice cream from the Garfield Messenger
- (Rocky?) Road trip. Molly Moon tweeting her drive back from Ohio with her just-completed ice cream truck.
- Elliott Bay Book Co.’s cafe is nearly open for business. Most work is done. If permits come through, they’ll be serving this weekend.
We’ve all wanted one for a long time…and we end up with a national chain…atleast some of those storefronts are starting to fill-in. (Might still buy my bread from the SCCC bakery though).
Agreed that the SCCC bakery rocks :)
Haha, I was just about to make the same comment. The McDonald’s of bakeries? No thanks.
OK, I don’t use Facebook (yes, I’m still resisting), but if people can get Betty White on a national television program, maybe we can get Essential Baking Company to revisit the idea of a Broadway location?
Background: EBC was set to open a location in the building where Bway and 10th intersect (by the Deluxe and Poppy), but pulled out after concerns about cost, etc. This would’ve been a perfect anchor for that end of the street (rather than another stealth Starbucks), but no idea if they’re even considering a third location.
A true bakery is missing on the Hill!
I love Panera and I’m so happy to see one coming to the neighborhood. I don’t care about the bread so much as I like their soups and salads, and their combos are a great deal. I don’t care that it’s a chain, it’s good stuff!
Not to be too much of a pain in the ass, but it’s spelled banh mi, not bahn. Vietnamese, not German. Though a road sandwich sounds fairly interesting.
fixed — a regularly occurring CHS typo!
Anyone have news on the restaurant space in the Packard Building yet? I live across the street and saw a few guys in there doing what looked like plotting/making deals yesterday. Perhaps something is finally in the works.
Where is there a stealth Starbucks? I know there is Roy Street Coffee on that end of Broadway.
What is the minimum number of locations a business can have that will make you start to call them a chain and dislike them?
Roy Street Coffee is the stealth Starbucks.
Roy Street Cafe, and 15th Ave Coffee and Tea ARE Starbucks. It’s their new shot at being “less corporate” looking. I have no problem with it, I just call it a Stealth Starbucks and think Broadway would be better served with a true bakery instead of another coffee shop.
And not to be a jerk, but MikeH—the POINT OF A BAKERY IS FRESH BREAD AND BAKED GOODS—soups and sandwiches…well, that’s just a cafe or restaurant. A good bakery that provides both is fine, but get us some decent bread on the Hill that doesn’t come from a supermarket. Just my two cents.
OH, and just so no one thinks I forgot…North Hill Bakery is awesome! They’re just not that big and don’t have really long hours, so something like Essential Baking Company would be great. And MikeH could still get tasty soups and sandwiches.
Sadly, EBC’s Northern location is right next to the transfer station—but the food is yummy and the bread is divine. Yes, I know I can pick this up at QFC, but I’d much rather make a trip to the bakery.
You would have to be incredibly stupid to think that is “stealth.”
So you really just want a small-sized chain bakery that has longer hours…
You want big but not that big. North Hill isn’t “chainy” enough for you.
Panera has 1,388 franchises nationally. So the minimum number of locations to not like an out-of-state chain is somewhere between 10 and 1,388.
I’m sure with so many other good, local options within a few blocks, this Panera Bread will go the way of Quizno’s, KFC, Jack-in-the-Box, and Taco Bell in 6-12 months.
Hello suburban living. Maybe we should just rename Capitol Hill to Bellevue. Quick let’s tear down a few blocks of historic buildings and put in a cheesy open air shopping mall while we are at it.
What does local mean then? Is there a certain radius around where you live that qualifies as local? If there were a company based in Seattle with 1387 locations it would be ok?
You already live in the suburbs if that is your definition. Top Pot, Boom, Barrio, Ladro, and our grocery stores are have locations in the suburbs. I’m sure I am forgetting a lot of other places.
I don’t have a problem with Panera, but I do remember the developer of that building saying his vision was for no national chains in it. I guess once the bank starts knocking on your door you start second guessing those kinds of things.
(re: local/Seattle-based) Clearly not, since most folks here despise Starbucks with an unholy fervor…
I’m glad I’m not the only one who thinks this. :) And I’m willing to bet it’ll get a lot of business in that location.
While I know Panera IS a national chain, I don’t view in the same vein as a McDonalds or Taco Bell. There’s an unnammed (and not particularly obviously-known looking) pizza joint going in too, which I doubt will be a national chain. It also appears to be the farthest along as far as construction goes, so I would imagine it’ll open before this Panera. Emerald City Smoothie is a local chain, and Genki Sushi is a more regional chain on the west coast/hawaii.
I personally am quite excited to have a Panera coming to the Hill. They have good food, free wifi and a pretty relaxed place to go. To my knowledge the only other one around here is up in Northgate (and out in Bellevue) so I think it’ll do pretty well, especially in that area with the school across the street.
People will always find something to bitch about though. Not every single inch of retail/restaurant space has to be occupied by a struggling owner that will probably close up in a few months when they realize they got in over their head. I’d say there’s a good balance of chain/non-chain restaurants in the south end of Broadway and if you hate it so much, go out to Madrona.
Where’s MikewithCurls to weigh in on this? At least his “i-hate-” arguments usually come with some logic and reasoning aside from “my hipster handbook says I should hate national chains…”
I am REALLY bummed to learn that I nearly had an EBC within walking distance. It would’ve been perfect for that area.
I love to indulge every now and then, but the full Chipotle Chicken on Artisan French bread has 1070 calories and 55 grams of fat. I might as well head down to the Cheesecake Factory.
The thing about these type of billion dollar chains is increased garbage, less healthy foods, outside influence on a local neighborhood, and the homogenization of culture. It removes local flavor. Would you rather have a Baskin-Robbins or Dairy Queen to compete with Molly Moon, BlueBird, and Old School Custard?
I admit i hit up Panera when I am in airports, suburban sprawl, other places that are not Seattle…I suppose if one went in down in Pioneer Square everyone would be pissy that it competes with Grand Central. To see one land in arguably the most unique neighborhood in Seattle is disappointing. That’s why outposts like Columbia City, Greenwood, Georgetown are different–to say “go out to Madrona” is disingenuous at the least..its surprising that all of original little strip is there is for those of us not wanting to take a 7 minute bus ride to Broadway to get dinner, a $5 pint w/attitude and bombarded with who knows what.
Even though the 15+ local joints in madrona keep it tight with limited hours and slightly higher prices they are doing it right–each space is unique and has its own flavor, and that’s getting harder find in a city that has practically undergone a metamorphisis in the last 18 years that i’ve been here.
(FYI-Panera will also be limiting its wifi access to 30-45 minutes at the new location.)
Can a girl dream?
Really? Being a chain means increased garbage? Where is the logic in that?
How can you know that Panera will have more garbage than some one-off sandwich joint on the hill?
Panera Bread Company will probably do great there. People will love it, and they won’t care (or notice) that it’s essentially a big vending machine owned and controlled by some huge business thousands of miles away. Some will like the fact that when they walk in, it feels just like when they walked into a Panera anywhere else.
Yuck. There’s a Panera just around the corner from my parents’ suburban, Midwestern, home. There are tons of restaurants and retail stores there, and almost every one of them is a part of a national chain. If you live there, it’s like you go out of your house and find yourself in a giant mall.
I don’t want to live in a mall, even if the mall bakery sells hot, fresh, bread. I think about where my money goes, and I’d prefer to business with my neighbors than with some faceless corporation. It’s sad that an independent bakery whose profits go to one of our neighbors without a big cut for Paneraco, Inc., isn’t going in there.
Many of our “independent” businesses have profits that leave the neighborhood.