A “food-driven” bar with a two-block target market radius replacing a photo gallery? Next to a “hand-forged” doughnut shop? That’s *so* Capitol Hill.

But that ain’t just any doughnut shop neighbor. That’s the original Top Pot. And longtime Capitol Hill-based photographer Spike Mafford is part of the team putting the newly opened Single Shot together on Summit Ave.

The overhauled gallery debuted quietly over the weekend and is open for service daily from 5 PM to 2 AM.

The “kitchen & saloon” is the latest project from Seattle food and drink entrepreneur Rory McCormick and chef James Sherrill, the team that turned out a similar recipe with Re:public in South Lake Union.

McCormick said the out-of-the-way location and the original masonry building drew him to Summit Ave.

“I’m very aware as to what’s happening to Seattle as a whole,” McCormick told us earlier this year about the city’s relentless pace of development. “You don’t find a lot of single-story brick buildings built in the 20s.”

Fream at work (Images: CHS)

Another thing McCormick likes about the 100-year-old building is its Summit Ave-area neighbors. At around 40 seats, he said he believes Single Shot is a modest enough venture to thrive on its walkable customer base alone.

Single Shot feature cocktails, beer and wine and categorical approach to food thanks to Sherrill who has also worked at Restaurant Zoe and Crush. The former gallery now seats around 40 for bar director Adam Fream’s cocktails and a dining menu with a focus “on the produce” but with dishes “spiked with ingredients like bottarga, caviar and offal.” A stone oven capable of reaching temperatures of 800 degrees for flatbreads was also part of the plan. 

(Images: CHS)

The space was designed by Greg Quist. You’ll see a few more finishings as the final touches are added.

Single Shot joins Sun Liquor (the original) and the Summit Public House (surely the original) in a two-block pub Summit Ave cluster that, if you needed to, you truly could crawl. We don’t recommend stooping to that level, however. 

Single Shot is located at 611 Summit Ave E. You can learn more at singleshotseattle.com.

Capitol Hill food+drink notes

• Single Shot’s opening marks the eighth debut from our mid-summer “27 bars, restaurants and cafes still to come” list.
• There are also the non-list surprises to keep us guessing — like Kanak Indian Cuisine soon to open on 15th Ave E.
• Off the Hill, downtown, we’re still not sure where to file this one. Everybody at this point has heard about the change at Jason Stratton’s 1st Ave and Union Aragona. Kicking the concept around from Spanish to Italian and launching the new venture as Vespolina seems like a simple, smart move given the success of Stratton’s Spinasse and Artusi pairing on 14th Ave. More interesting is the still to be explained liquor license application that popped up at one point this summer for Aragona’s downtown address. Listing a “business name” of Seven Percent, the “restaurant/lounge” included some surprising applicants including Getty Images founder Jonathan Klein and Mikal Thomsen of investment firm Trilogy Equity Partners. The application was pulled prior to the Vespolina announcement. Stratton’s camp had no comment on whatever Seven Percent was or wasn’t and the folks at Getty and Trilogy never bothered to respond to our inquiry on the matter. Klein, Thomsen, if you have any interest in the neighborhood blog business, call us.
• Maxime Bilet, the semi-celebrity modernist chef dinged for DUI and hit and run in a July collision at Madison and Summit, is in trouble again for allegedly driving while intoxicated. The E Roy resident is on home monitoring after being nailed by police in an October 7th, 7 PM stop in the 1400 block of Bellevue and, according to Seattle Municipal Court records, has been charged with DUI. He pleaded not guilty to all charges and the legal process continues in both cases.
• Speaking of intoxication, East Precinct commander Capt. Pierre Davis can’t believe what he’s seeing around the streets of Pike/Pine. Davis said he was “alarmed” and “appalled” at the level of over-intoxication he saw while walking through Pike/Pine on a recent weekend.
• Jason Lajeunesse and David Meinert and Lost Lake and Comet manager Joey Burgess have teamed up to take over Grim’s with owner Laura Olson in a financial pinch after the shuttering of E Olive Way nightclub The Social. Alternative weekly The Stranger says “gay bar.”
  

  .@olsonlaura selling @grimseattle to the devil @davidmeinert who can now spread his anti @googleglass discrimination http://t.co/HIQ9tTF5ZU

  — Nick Starr (@NickStarr) October 12, 2014

• Speaking of Lost Lake, Dave Chappelle is down with it.
  

  (Image: Lost Lake via Facebook)

• Some home-state love for Unicorn’s Adam Heimstadt.
• PR: In celebration of oyster season, Eric and Sophie Banh have added $1 oysters to the happy hour menus at the Monsoon outposts in both Seattle and Bellevue!  “We’re lucky to have such a vast selection of top-notch oysters here in the Pacific Northwest,” says Eric Banh. “We’re happy to pass along all this goodness to our guests.” 
• Pie Pine:

Pie is all you need! On pine. pic.twitter.com/IcpV3vMRqd

— Merlin Rainwater (@merlinrain) October 12, 2014