Construction underway this summer at the Heath Printers building on Capitol Hill (Image: CHS)

Sometimes it’s a secret. Sometimes nobody knows. And sometimes you just haven’t asked the right person.

While the pace of new food and drink openings has understandably slowed, two Capitol Hill and Central District “mystery restaurant” projects continue to take shape. As the industry continues its work at recovery, the projects represent bright — and intriguing — lights on the horizon.

On Capitol Hill, work has been underway for months in a full transformation of the interior of Boylston Ave’s Heath Printers building with a planned change of use to “eating & drinking establishment” and construction of “substantial alterations for tenant improvements of restaurant and office spaces throughout existing commercial structure,” according to plans filed with the city. The property just around the corner off E Pine is part of the near block snapped up by developer Asana Partners and was the home to Capitol Hill-born coworking company Office Nomads before that venture went fully virtual during the pandemic.

Asana has brought on Capitol Hill-based Graham Baba Architects, the prolific firm behind many of the neighborhood and city’s most ambitious recent food and drink construction projects, to design the space.

The overhaul of the 1921-built building includes two stories of office plus a 5,000-square-foot basement food and drink space. It’s part of Asan’s transformation of the corner where CHS reported earlier this year that zero package grocery concept the Naked Grocer is lined up to move in and replace pawn shop Capitol Loans which is planning to move across the street to a new home of its own.

The area around Boylston and Pine is busy despite the pandemic. Earlier this year, CHS reported Hill-based digital marketing firm Add3 was under contract to purchase the 1917-built Bothell Motors garage building formerly home to R Place with plans for a new headquarters and overhauled space for a new club. The spirit of R Place, meanwhile, appears set to move to SoDo where longtime manager Floyd Lovelady will open new LGBTQ nightclub The Comeback.

Graham Baba, meanwhile, is also busy with design work for another mystery project taking shape in the Central District on E Cherry. Purchased by a group of real estate investors for $700,000 in 2019, the new project is transforming a former garage into a new 1000-square-foot food and drink venue for an unnamed tenant.

Meanwhile, on E Cherry… (Image: King County)

The mystery around the E Cherry effort could be ending. According to liquor license applications with the state, the project is being sized up as a new microbrewery from Metier Brewing. The company already is part of the area with its Metier Seattle bike shop and cafe on E Union just off Pike/Pine. Metier Brewing has grown into a respected maker of craft beer and made headlines as the state’s only Black-owned brewery under Rodney Hines. Hines is planning the new Central District microbrewery with Todd Herriott, founder of the Metier bike venues.

Metier said they will have more to say about the possible project in coming weeks.

UPDATE: Metier’s quiet on the project might have something to do with focusing on this, first — huge news for the brewer on a new project with the Mariners:

“The Seattle Mariners and MBC (Metiér Brewing Company) just announced Steelhead’s Alley,” said a statement from Metiér Brewing on social media. “MBC will be the resident brewery on site for the brewery/taproom, formerly the beer production area of the Pyramid Brewing in Seattle. Opening August 2022, Steelhead’s Alley will honor the Seattle Steelheads, the Negro League team of 1946.”

The addition in the 700 2600 block of E Cherry could be the first ripple as major changes play out up and down the street in coming years. One project will come from Capitol Hill developer Liz Dunn with plans for a four-story, 38-unit, mixed-use building to rise on E Cherry replacing the 1920s-era spaces home to the Twilight Exit and Tana Market. Another is planned at 23rd and Cherry where the Acer House project is moving forward with an Afrofuturist design and 120 new apartment homes with 30% reserved for lower-income residents. The Garfield Super Block project, meanwhile, is hoped to reshape the public space around Garfield High School and the adjacent Garfield Community Center.

If its application and plans for the building work out, Metier will also be joining a healthy craft beer scene in the neighborhood where Standard Brewing is now marking eight years of beer at 25th and Jackson.

What’s the plan on Boylston? Asana has not responded to CHS’s inquiries about the project. Possibilities range from a new restaurant player in the Capitol Hill scene, to a move for an established venue, to, maybe, more beer in the neighborhood.

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