A Pike/Pine business family is growing as one of the neighborhood’s iconic food and drink entrepreneurs continues to unwind her Capitol Hill connections.

Thursday, the Burgess Hall Group announced it is acquiring Oddfellows Cafe, a key venue in the 2010s-shaped growth of Pike/Pine and one of the last remaining Linda Derschang joints on the Hill. The food and drink and nightlife veteran now counts only legendary Linda’s Tavern as one holdover from her former Capitol Hill empire.

A new empire is growing. The Burgess Hall acquisition comes only a few summer weeks after its takeover of the neighboring Elliott Bay Book Company.

Joey Burgess and Murf Hall now preside over a multifaceted, Pike/Pine-centered family of venues including the much loved bookstore, Queer/Bar, and The Cuff.

“I worked for Linda more than a decade ago and to now have the good fortune to carry on her amazing work is a humbling moment for me,” Burgess said in the announcement of the deal.

The deal now combines a solid chunk of Pike/Pine geography and economic power into one business entity with all the efficiencies — and risk — that kind of combination entails. It further shapes the Burgess Hall family as another major Pike/Pine player along with the intertwined connections behind Neumos, Lost Lake, and the Comet, and the affiliated axis of Poquitos, Caffe Vita, and Rhein Haus.

As part of the deal, the new owners will also take over Little Oddfellows which reopened inside Elliott Bay Book Company in May after a long pandemic closure.

For Deschang, meanwhile, the sale is part of a long unwinding of her interests in the neighborhood.

Born in the wake of Obama’s victory when patriotism was fashionable and in a Pike/Pine neighborhood where the idea of a daytime-focused business was still a major gamble, Derschang’s “cafe and bar” debuted in December 2008 in the historic Odd Fellows building at 10th and E Pine and has endured in a changing neighborhood.

“When Joey and Murf recently purchased the iconic bookstore next door, it felt like the right time to close this chapter and have them guide each establishment through the natural changes happening in the Pike/Pine neighborhood and into a new era of café-dwellers,” Derschang said in the announcement of the sale.”

In 2016, Derschang sold her “Northwest nautical”-themed Bait Shop to longtime Derschang Group admirals Mike Leifur and Jonah Bergman. She also moved off the Hill for a smaller, simpler condo downtown. In 2019, the downsizing continued as Derschang spun off Smith. In between came perhaps the ultimate sign of moving on. Derschang sold off her 19th Ave E cafe in 2018 — Tallulah’s had been named for her daughter.

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