The Cantinetta original (Image: Cantinetta)

The Cantinetta Famiglia is back in the neighborhood. The centerpiece corner commercial space in the newly opened Hilltop Apartments building on 15th Ave E will be home to a new Italian joint from Cantinetta.

Permits show planning underway for the new 1,925-square-foot Cantinetta Hilltop project at the corner of 15th and Mercer. The building from Capitol Hill developer Hunters Capital opened this summer and the development firm had been on the hunt for a significant food and drink player to anchor its commercial tenants.

The building will also be home to Rudy’s and the Wax On waxing salon which are both moving up the street to join the mix below the 70 apartments units above the new building has added to the street.

It has been a busy few weeks for 15th Ave E food and drink. CHS reported here on the new $2.1 million property deal for 100-year-old former Coastal Kitchen building where food truck-born Fire Tacos & Cantina is planning to expand from its Alki original.

(Image: Cantinetta)

Cantinetta and owner Trevor Greenwood knows the Central Seattle food and drink scene well. Bar Cantinetta closed last year after a decade serving Madison Valley.

Greenwood and Cantinetta’s Wade Moller operated Chavez on 12th Ave for five years before splitting up their business holdings. The location in a 12th Ave microhousing development from original Melrose Market developer Scott Shapiro rose above the burial grounds for the old Capitol Hill Market and was transitioned to the upscale and well regarded Violet helmed by Moller and chef William Belickis.

Greenwood has carried on with the Wallingford original plus a Cantinetta in Bellevue, plus family additions Como and El Encanto in Kirkland.

On 15th Ave E, the Tuscan-flavored Cantinetta’s arrival will mark competition for Seattle restaurant great Ethan Stowell. Up the street, his restaurant group runs a complex home to a Rubinstein’s Bagels and a Capitol Hill location of his Rione XIII brand that debuted in the converted former gift and home wares store Tilden in 2012. Rione XIII’s promises a Roman take on the cuisine bringing a small civil Italian food and drink war to the neighborhood.

The street, meanwhile, has another major food and drink slot in need of a fill as a project possibly involving Stowell to open a Mexican restaurant in the former Canterbury Alehouse space is apparently not happening. That space remains empty after the closure of short-lived Meliora which lasted under a year on 15th Ave E.

More change is coming over the next year. In September, the design review board signed off on the Hunters Capital plan for a new six-story, 172-unit mixed-use development on the street’s old QFC block.

Cantinetta will open soon at 555 15th Ave E. Learn more at cantinetta.com.

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