(Image: Kaladi Brothers)

Thanks to a CHS reader for the picture

There is finally a date for the end of one of the last of the Capitol Hill coffee houses as E Pike’s Kaladi Brothers is preparing customers for the change.

The only lower-48 location of the Alaska coffee chain will close at the end of July. A sign has gone up at the cafe with the planned final day of service listed as July 27th 29th along with contact information for customers who might want to send a last tip to their favorite baristas.

There is no plan to move or reopen, manager Erika “EZ” Zumwalt tells CHS.

The planned closure comes after years of limbo for the block since CHS first broke the news in August of 2020 on a planned redevelopment of the auto row-era buildings along this stretch of E Pike. Zumwalt said one timeline originally had the cafe moving out last summer but Kaladi decided to take the offer of another year in the space from developer Hunters Capital.

But the summer of 2023 will bring the end for Kaladi in Seattle after 16 years of coffee — and a few different homes on this E Pike block. In late 2018, Kaladi reopened in its transformed space that it had inhabited when it first arrived on Capitol Hill in 2007.

(Image: CHS)

With its two-level layout and open seating, the cafe has been one of the last relatively large coffee hangouts to remain on Capitol Hill and a space for LGBTQIA+ community groups to meet and gather.

Neighboring community organization Gay City has already moved out, moving to its new E Pine offices last summer.

Kaladi carries on in Soldotna (Image: CHS)

The 517 E Pike building has been owned by the Ragen family, owners of the Ragen and Associates landscaping business that has called the top floor of the building home.

CHS talked with owner Chip Ragen in 2012 about the building’s odd history. The 1910-built, two-story commercial structure was very nearly the tallest building on Pike before the neighborhood’s booming auto row claimed it from residential development more than 100 years ago.

Developer Hunters Capital and architects Meng Strazza have plans to maintain the existing façade along Pike and Boylston. Above will rise a 9-story, preservation bonus-boosted building with 92 residential units atop 7,500 square feet of commercial space. The building will have 53 parking spaces for cars and 89 for bikes. There will also be 750 square feet of office space.

The new building will eventually rise adjacent to Hunters Capital’s Dunn Motor Building, which opened in 2016, after engaging in a similar façade preservation.

Hunters Capital is also moving forward with the early steps of redevelopment of the 15th Ave E QFC block on top of the Hill while construction of its mixed-use redevelopment of the old Hilltop Service Station property broke ground last year.

A representative for Hunters said there is no schedule for the start of construction on E Pike and that plans for the redevelopment are currently paused. In the meantime, it’s possible that the coffee shop could make a temporary home for a new business.

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