The bar at Agua Verde (Image: Pike Street Restaurant Group)

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(Image: Mercado Luna)

The food and drink business family behind E Pike rum bar Rumba, its post-Tiki sibling Inside Passage and the revival of Capitol Hill sandwich bar favorite HoneyHole is working on plans to make a new investment in the neighborhood.

Early paperwork reveals plans for a new Cantina Del Sol to open in the sprawling multi-level E Pine complex where Mezcaleria Oaxaca shuttered last September.

The project would be the latest on Capitol Hill and in the city for the Pike Street Hospitality Group, the family of food and drink businesses shaped by Travis Rosenthal whose 2006 purchase of classic Capitol Hill date spot Tango with his wife Carrie Rosenthal was the start of building a small empire in Seattle food and drink.

Tango is long gone but other Rosenthal venues have grown to become key players in the city’s food and drink scene. CHS reported in 2022 on Rumba’s decade of business on E Pike. In 2021, Rumba expanded into the depths below Pike with the opening of its over the top, post-tiki sibling, Inside Passage.

In 2024, the group swung into action to rescue HoneyHole from a challenged run under inexperienced ownership and carry the E Pike sandwich bar forward in its 25-year legacy on Capitol Hill.

The takeover of the former Mezcaleria Oaxaca space this year will also be ambitious but the planned Cantina Del Sol will have a solid sibling in the family.

The group also owns Seattle “paddle club” favorite Agua Verde.

The former Mezcaleria Oaxaca space at E Pine and Summit was once a Capitol Hill auto garage and is so large the previous ownership tried its best to grow by launching multiple concepts in the space. The Mercado Luna family of businesses included the restaurant, a taco window walk-up, and Choncho’s Churros. Above it all, sat rooftop bar Patio Cielo.

We’ll have to wait to see how Cantina Del Sol moves forward but one of the major open spaces in Capitol Hill’s food and drink scene is now on its way to being filled. There is also progress on another on 12th Ave where Barrio shuttered last summer and a new Mint and Martini Indian-flavored project is taking shape.

Cantina Del Sol is being planned for 422 E Pine. Visit pikestreethg.com for updates.

$5 A MONTH TO HELP KEEP CHS PAYWALL-FREE THIS SPRING
 
Subscribe to CHS to help us hire writers and photographers to cover the neighborhood. CHS is a pay what you can community news site with no required sign-in or paywall. To stay that way, we need you.

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