The Kouign Amann (Image: Crumble & Flake)
A new home in Issaquah (Image: Crumble & Flake)
Wednesday, Crumble & Flake Pâtisserie will wake up after its sleepy days off to start a new round of morning baking. It will be the start of its last week on Capitol Hill and city living.
Part of E Olive Way for more than a decade, Crumble & Flake is moving to Issaquah where it can stretch out in a charming Gilman Village house where the bakery will take on new life as a cafe with offerings far beyond French pastries.
Crumble and Flake’s final day on E Olive Way will be Sunday.
“I will absolutely miss Capitol Hill,” owner Toby Matasar tells CHS. “I go all the way back to 1991 when I first lived in Capitol Hill. I’ve always loved it here and it’s been hard to watch the changes the neighborhood has gone through over these last twelve years.”
Matasar says her husband and Crumble partner Geoff Ogle grew up in the area “so we’ve both watched the many transitions this neighborhood and especially this block has seen.”
Crumble & Flake opened at the corner of E Olive Way and E Howell in 2012 under Seattle pastry artist Neil Robertson. The former Canlis and Mistral Kitchen pastry chef sold Crumble to Matasar in 2017. A pastry chef trained in New York and Paris who moved to Seattle in 2000, Matasar gained a loyal following running Eats Market Café in West Seattle for a decade. Following the cafe’s 2015 closure, Matasar started a new venture and balanced out the other side of the “gluten divide” with her Niche Gluten Free Café and Bakery on 12th Ave across from Seattle University.
Niche shuttered in 2019 as Crumble & Flake continued to thrive but Matasar says the spirit of her cafe experience is part of the inspiration for the Issaquah move. The new Crumble & Flake will add “exceptional comfort food” to the menu including “the legendary Reuben sandwich and corned beef hash.”
Crumble & Flake’s exit will leave the E Olive Way corner space empty for the first time in more than a decade.
(Image: Crumble & Flake)
So far, there are no clues as to what might come next. The block has seen some recent changes in its food and drink mix with The Jilted Siren neighborhood lounge taking over the former home of Kedai Makan. Across Howell, the South Lake Union-displaced Gold Bar has settled into the former home of the Dacha Diner.
As for French pastries, the freshest addition to the Hill is a long walk from E Olive Way — but the buttery flakes will make up for it. The French Guys opened their first brick and mortar shop on E Roy earlier this year.
In the meantime, work is underway transforming the Issaquah space formerly home to The Boarding House cafe to prepare the house for its new life as Crumble & Flake. Matasar said the hope is for the new cafe to open in December at 317 NW Gilman Blvd.
Crumble & Flake’s planned final day of service at 1500 E Olive Way is Sunday, November 12th. Learn more at crumbleandflake.com.
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Too bad! I had no idea they existed. Guess I missed my chance.
Reading between the lines, this is another great local small business that is exhausted by trying to run a business in the degraded environment of Seattle and Capitol Hill. I hope voters take note tonight and elect Joy Hollingsworth who knows a thing or two about running a business not just handwaving and virtue signaling while the problems continue to grow worse by the year.
Exactly! The owner says: “…it’s been hard to watch the changes the neighborhood has gone through over these last twelve years.”
Tolerance of all the street disorder and dysfunction (graffiti, trash, homeless) in our neighborhood has consequences, and this bakery exit is one of them.
Bummer! C&F is the best bakery in the hill, even giving Nouveau a run for its money. But it’s takeout only and extremely limited hours mean it’s inconvenient for the entire neighborhood save it’s immediate neighbors. I’ll try and stop by and say goodbye this weekend.
Facts. They were never open. The space was too small with no seating. Also the area is more vibrant now than in the past. The sidewalks are packed and there are no empty store fronts, except theirs.
Their hours were terrible. What bakery opens at 8 or 9am? But the area is NOT vibrant. The building one block up that had a tattoo parlor, smoke shop and noodle shop is abandoned and getting worse. The Starbucks on Olive closed because of of the homeless in the area.
$$$eattle$$