(Image: Remedium Island Grill)

An opportunity for expansion in a big, new space only blocks away on Capitol Hill will be a welcome change for Nagle Place cocktail and charcuterie bar Cure after a year of tear gas around Cal Anderson Park and business survival amid ongoing COVID-19 restrictions on bars.

Now at 15th and Pine, the brothers behind Cure have opened Remedium Island Grill, a Hawaiian and Filipino BBQ taking over the space formerly home to upscale Japanese joint Naka Adana. Cure will put the upper bar space into motion as a new home as it likely says goodbye to Nagle and Cal Anderson Park.

“Since March 15th and Inslee’s bar closure mandate – to the scattered phases, tear gas at Cal Anderson, the creation of CHOP and more, we’ve been pulling through as a family and small business as best we can,” owners Sean and Joe Sheffer say in their announcement.

Adana, from chef/owner Shota Nakajima, closed in March as the early waves of the pandemic slowdown hit the food and drink industry.

The Sheffers tell CHS it’s not a done deal that Cure will leave Nagle and the backside of the Hunters Capital-owned Broadway Building but with the lease ending early next year, the current plan is for the cocktail bar to live on permanently inside Remedium.

The brothers took over Cure in 2017 after six years of business on the alley-like street that runs along the west edge of Cal Anderson.

Developers have long hoped for the stretch to transition to a more lively, bustling commercial area on the edge of the park. Cure’s closure comes as massive developments are set to soon open at the site of the old Bonney Watson mortuary that will add 200 apartments and 16,000 square feet of commercial space to the area, and above Capitol Hill Station where hundreds of new affordable and market rate apartments, a new community plaza, and thousands of square feet of retail space — including a new 16,000-square-foot H Mart — will open in coming months.

For now, the Sheffers aren’t looking back. Remedium and Cure are now open for delivery and pick-up business plus in-person dining where you’ll “get a whole section of the restaurant to yourself.”

Having access to a full kitchen is a big change for the business. But the move and expansion were also driven by a realization that the pandemic had permanently changed the food and drink business and that now was the time to act.

“Covid-19 has affected all our friends and family in the hospitality industry. In March, right when we adjusted to to-go cocktails and take-out, we got news from our family in Las Vegas. Our parents were laid off as casinos shut down. Even worse, employers in Vegas used this opportunity to layoff senior staff and only re-hire new employees at lower wages,” the owners write in their announcement. “Like many of you we were at a crossroads – bar and restaurant closures, takeout models, social distancing, rising cases – no end in sight. But we knew two things – that the Cap Hill community would take care of its own, and that we could make a damn good cocktails and charcuterie/cheese boards.”

Cure and Remedium are now open at 1449 E Pine. You can learn more and order online at remediumislandgrill.com and curecocktail.shop.

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