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Closed since a driver smashed into its entrance, Capitol Hill’s Coastal Kitchen ready to debut ‘fish house and oyster bar’ makeover

(Image: Coastal Kitchen)

Closed since a driver crashed his car and totaled the entrance, Capitol Hill’s overhauled and reinvented Coastal Kitchen is ready to reopen on 15th Ave E.

Coastal says its planned grand opening will be Tuesday, December 6th — seven months after the scary crash that luckily caused no serious injuries but started the nearly 30-year-old restaurant on a new path.

CHS reported in September on the decision to leave Coastal Kitchen’s diner days behind and reshape the popular eatery with elevated Pacific Northwest dinner and weekend brunch. Lunch and weekday breakfast are off the menu. The rotating themed menus are long gone.

It now reopens as a “fish house and oyster bar,” “a neighborhood restaurant and drinkery, an ode to the Pacific coast, and a nice place to be.” The refined menu will be smaller and there will be a renewed emphasis on elements like the cocktail program.

Coastal also announced it has hired a tag team of young chefs to transform the restaurant’s fare. The new menu from Felipe Prieto and Tanner Smith will be “an ode to the Pacific Coast while paying homage to Felipe’s Colombian roots and the duos’ French training.” Re-launch entrees will include Wild Alaskan Salmon with black trumpet mushrooms, Halibut Ceviche, and Braised Beef Tagilatelle.

The new chapter comes six years since Jonathan Tweten’s company of Puget Sound area neighborhood restaurants purchased the business. The past three have been a major challenge of pandemic closures and the May crash that shut down the restaurant.

Coastal was born in the early ’90s as part of a partnership that eventually broke up in the late 2000s. In 2012, CHS wrote on then-owner Jeremy Hardy’s overhaul of Coastal Kitchen with a new shell bar and a more open kitchen to keep up with changes on 15th Ave E.

“Besides the name and location, not much of the old Coastal Kitchen remains,” the restaurant’s press release on its reopening reads. It also notes that “a handful of employees” have been on retention pay since the May crash.

Ten years later, Coastal is again setting out in a new direction as dining trends and its neighborhood change. 15th Ave E is about to add a major construction site as work finally begins to replace the old Hilltop Service Station with a five-story, nearly 70-unit mixed-use apartment building. Meanwhile, the QFC across the street remains shuttered and fenced off.

The long term trend for 15th has been slow growth. Coastal has now been through three decades of it. Its building, meanwhile, celebrate its centennial in 2024.

Coastal Kitchen is located at 429 15th Ave E. Learn more at coastalkitchenseattle.com.

 

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jayzee
jayzee
1 year ago

They lost me at $22 clam chowder.