A family’s more than 20 year vegan and vegetarian connection to the neighborhood is ending and one of Capitol Hill’s few Black food and drink owners is leaving to focus on a new venture in the south of the city. Plum Bistro is now permanently closed.
“We will look back on these past 20 years with great gratitude for your patronage,” chef and extra busy Seattle food and drink entrepreneur Makini Howell said in the announcement. “It’s been such a pleasure to share the joy of vegan food with you.”
The closure will leave a hole in 12th Ave’s dining scene where Plum has neighbored Osteria la Spiga since 2009 in the Piston Ring building. The 12th Ave facing Piston Ring’s connection with the block’s 11th Ave-facing Chophouse Row development has stayed busy with food and drink options through changes big and small over the years. Plum’s exit could make way for one of Chophouse’s existing tenants to move up to the street level — or it could make a place for a new venture to move in. Plum’s small Plum Chopped lunch and salad sibling which opened next door in 2017 is also part of the closure.
With Plum Chopped, Howell had said she was looking to establish a more nimble business to accompany Plum with lower prices — and lower costs. Eight years later, the chef and owner is exiting the Seattle restaurant business completely. In her announcement, Howell said she is now focused on growing her Makini’s line of tofu produced at her Georgetown soybean pressing factory that fired up for business last year.
Howell’s exit announcement for Plum did not address issues around the end of the city’s tip credit on the minimum wage for small businesses.
Small business advocates say the end of the credit and the $3 jump to a $20.76 minimum wage will lead to a ripple of shutdowns — especially for restaurants and bars. On Capitol Hill, the year is beginning with closures including Bellevue Ave lounge The Jilted Siren and self-pour wine bar Rapport. Both provide fuel for every possible side of the tip credit debate.
As for Plum, Howell has not responded to CHS’s inquiry for more information about the decision and timing of the closure.
Howell has been celebrated for dishes so good, kids will even eat cauliflower (Image: Plum)
Black ownership in the food and nightlife business around Pike/Pine, meanwhile, will lose one of its most visible representatives. There is good news, however, for another Black-owned neighborhood venue. Construction permits indicate Patric Gabre-Kidan’s currently “temporarily closed” Rhino Room is gearing up for an overhaul and reopening.
The exit of Plum follows more than 20 years of vegan connection with the neighborhood for Howell and her family.
In 2019, her last connections to 15th Ave E were severed with the shutdown of the short-lived Sugar Plum vegan desert and soft-serve cafe. The Plum family of businesses had grown up on the street where her family’s Hillside Quickie began making a vegan name for itself with sandwiches and salads in 2005 along with a sibling in Tacoma. Her annual 4th of July BBQ parties were the stuff of 15th Ave E vegan legends.
Capitol Hill’s loss is now Georgetown’s gain. Howell has forged a career as a local celebrity with frequent TV appearances as well as keeping busy during a stint as a touring chef for Plum fan Stevie Wonder. Now she is moving forward in the tofu industry with more cookbooks — and TV appearances — to come.
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I pray they aren’t closing due to needing to pay a pretty-low-still minimum wage.
It’s up 20%+ including the removal of the tip credit and the new PTO regulations. You might think it’s still a low wage but it’s either raise prices or find a new business / business model for a lot of people.
You mean the one that is the highest in the country and doesn’t include a tip credit?
Yep, and it’s GOOD. Had years to plan for it. No excuses. Stop trying to short change workers.
If someone told you that in a few years you’d need to come up with an extra $5k a month to pay for expenses, you probably wouldn’t find a solution either—not to mention the unforeseen pandemic changing everything in between that time.
I’m sure the business owners appreciate your glazing
If the math behind the minimum wage includes all necessary elements of a safety net and determines that the base wage should be $20.76/hr, the second highest in the nation (by a smidge), how is it short changing workers to ask for a tip credit? This mechanism would simply acknowledge that if an employee makes that money in tips, they wouldn’t need to be paid it in wage. The vast majority of people working for tips make far more than this, and getting rid of the tip credit is passing the buck to small business owners. How is this “short-changing”?
Allow the tip credit for all workers then. No need to allow some businesses to pay their workers less.
Seems fair to me.
“Stop trying to short change workers,” says the guy typing on his computer made by exploited workers. Funny how you guys don’t allow business owners to have valid reasons they can’t afford to run a business and pay their workers $20 and hour, but I’m sure you’ve come up with a billion reasons to justify your use of your IPhone.
Stupid policies that are detached from reality have made Seattle more expensive for dining out than NYC. NYC has a $15/hr minimum wage with a tip credit. Seattle is one of the most expense places for going out in the world and it is only going to get worse.
With the expiration of the $2.72 tip credit and the annual cost of living increase new minimum wage increase is $3.51.
So if a business closes because they can’t afford to make any money while paying the new minimum wage, they’re somehow in the wrong? The recurring dialogue behind all of this is so bizarre sometimes.
If you cannot pay workers, do not open a business. It’s much like if you cannot pay rent, etc.
Really? That is kind of ironic considering all the calls here for commercial rent control, policies requiring landlords to lower rents rather than maintain them and endure a vacancy, and other action by the city to punish landlords and empower commercial renters. It seems it is ok to demand more money from businesses when you work for them, but really not ok to do so when you rent space to them. Fact. The money to pay those expenses all comes from the same pockets, and it seems some of those pockets are empty. In this case, and in the case of Catfish Corner, those pockets belong to black owners who are a pretty rare breed in this city and more susceptible to death by increasing expenses, labor included.
The ease with which you say something so catastrophic betrays your utter lack of experience in these topics. Do you not realize that people often start a small business by putting every last drop of their resources into it? Do you not know that most of the time it involves working every waking hour to get it off the ground, sometimes enveloping 5 or 10 years of your productive years just to keep something going? That it is often as much a personal expression as another person’s art? That most small business owners actually care deeply about their employees’ well being, and that these policies are based on angry, well-meaning ignorance putting pressure on politicians, not economic science? These policies are erasing culture and diminishing opportunity, despite their moral starting point.
If the business can’t pay its workers a living wage, I’d say it’s a failure.
What’s a living wage? Last I checked, we decided it was $20.76 an hour. By reinstating the tip credit, you acknowledge that a tipped employee is making MORE THAN THIS (and likely much more). The wage does have something to do with it, as it was stated in his original press release.
They’re relocating to South Seattle. The wage has nothing to do with it.
They are not reopening. Rather, they are opening a new business manufacturing tofu in Georgetown.
Stop imagining a world with no consequences.
It’s not “low,” at least for those workers who are tipped. For them, the hourly wage can be on the order of $40/hr.
Can we be honest that the food wasn’t that great? Also “Chopped” was rarely open when people wanted/needed that quick more affordable version. They needed more lunch focus, which in turn would’ve driven dinner business. The problem continuously is these entrepreneurs being out of touch with their customers and not diversifying. Business hours that cater to them instead of their customer. Not wanting to participate in the labor part of their own business, and thus forgetting the importance of that part. They wanna be CEO’s, but don’t care to stay connected to the the “production” part of what produces money.
Plum Chopped was open every weekday 11-5, which definitely sounds lunch-focused to me. I’m not sure who to listen to, the business owner who successfully kept Plum (and multiple expansions) around for 20 years or internet commenter Triple D saying it’s all the owner’s fault for being greedy and not knowing how to run a business. Hmmm…
Agreed-I ate there a handful of times over the years and everything I tried was overpowered by too much garlic and salt.
So confused by the above. They were literally a lunch place, open during lunch.
Prices were relatively high, but so was the quality.
I think the OP maybe noticed same things I did over the years of being a Plum Fan – posted hours were not really usually the real hours. Also in my experience Plum’s cafes were almost always out of the one or more thing I wanted (that banana nut shake) then the menu wouldn’t be updated to reflect it. Like there’s so many times I wanted to spend money there but then I’d show up and couldn’t. Not blaming anyone because I’ve worked in restaurants and know it’s hard. Service and food there were great! Just wanted OP to be heard because I definitely had similar experiences as a Plum fan.
I think they did just fine without your business… She was often in the truck serving at her 4th of July event and you saw her at the store or her other ventures regularly. I happened to be in the hardware store nextdoor yesterday after they closed and saw her saying goodbye and hugging all of the other business owners.
I’m not going to pretend that this decision isn’t tied to the new minimum wage laws in some way, but I’m also really excited for her to be able to go all in on her new vision for a commercial kitchen.
Also, one of the longtime Plum employees opened a barbershop across the street called The Golden Shark, so there’s still a familiar Plum face close by 😀
“They wanna be CEO’s, but don’t care to stay connected to the the “production” part of what produces money.”
I disagree with pretty much everything in your post, but this made me laugh. Being disconnected from production is the most CEO thing a person could do!
Anyway, RIP Plum. I loved their food, and Chopped was extremely convenient for me during WFH days.
There could be a blog in Seattle just for all the business closures.
that’s called Eater
Maybe we could call it the Puget Sound Business Journal or Seattle Eats for food focused.
Plum was probably the best vegan restaurant in Seattle and felt like a staple of the hill. Sad to see it go. Plum, chopped, barrio, and KAN flowers all closing recently has this block feeling pretty dull. Hopefully there are more fried chicken chains and dentist offices we can find to fill these spaces! I’d also joke about boba tea, but there’s already another one going in on 12th and pike.
An intersection can support more than one boba place.
Fair, kan and chopped should both become boba tea shops and barrio can be the dentist office. Plum bistro is perfect for the fried chicken spot.
Who knows how true the statement is that it has nothing to do with the minimum wage. I’ve spoken to two restaurant owners in the last 6 months who have since closed who told me they didn’t feel comfortable publicly admitting this was the reason, because there has been such blindly hateful and disproportionately loud responses to people expressing concern about it.
And rightfully so. Workers deserve good pay.
What do you consider to be “good”? Do the math. Tell us here where the absolute bottom pay should land. I’m curious.
Because they had years to prepare for it.
Meanwhile, during those years, rent has grown to astronomical heights that has put far more financial pressure on companies than paying the people that make their company run a more fair wage.
The article states: “Howell’s exit announcement for Plum did not address issues around the end of the city’s tip credit on the minimum wage for small businesses.”
Her silence on the issue speaks volumes. There is no doubt that the significant increase in the minimum wage is a major factor in the steady drumbeat of business closures recently. It’s probably going to continue, and the City is going to regret the legislation which expires the tip credit.
So now someone NOT blaming something is evidence that it’s what truly is to blame? Hmm.
The cheerleading of business closures on the Seattle reddit is sickening. People saying they had 10 years to plan have no idea what they are talking about. It’s not just the tip credit expiring it’s all the other costs. This is just the tip of the iceberg.
meanwhile another big empty storefront on the Hill. It will be tagged and otherwise defiled within two weeks.
Barrio is across the street & has been pretty clean & fine since it closed a couple of months ago, so maybe not. Businesses that are part of otherwise active buildings tend to fare better than standalone ones.
REALLY wish that extended vacancies were enough for landlords to lower commercial real estate rental prices, but unfortunately…hasn’t happened yet.
they need to do a cooking show! And it needs to air on PBS! Keep them creating all the vegan options. Their pastrami saved me… I thought I would never know the joy of that sandwich again. So I guess, I’ll be the boom stick operator, I can also prep. Anything to help yall make it to the top.
You do know she has a cooking show, right?
https://plumbistro.com/kitchen/
That’s not pbs tho! I said pbs!
so, “no”, then? lol
Well, when actual person who has talked with more people about not needlessly harming the animals went to the vegan community and tried to share with them the Truth that is the cure and prevention of all needless and preventable suffering and death…. They then did not share the cure, as is required of anyone shared it who can share it to then be doing the correct thing. So, this guy that never shuts up, then exorcised veganism in the name of the Lord. So, here we are a few years later with the control freak vegan cult being recognized as the fraud it is in that veganism has absolutely nothing at all to do with why loving the animals and not needlessly harming them is actually correct, never has, and never will.
Has anyone here seen the crazy rants that Toulouse Petit’s owner keeps posting on their FB? Can’t explain it completely but this comment has the same (nearly unreadable) energy…
For years she had a 20% “service fee” that explicitly didn’t go to workers. So basically her menu prices were a lie.