Author Archives: jseattle

About jseattle

Justin is publisher of CHS. You can reach him at [email protected] or call/txt (206) 399-5959. Follow @jseattle on Twitter or be best pals on Facebook.

Private equity firm behind Rudy’s Barbershop has deal to cut off bankruptcy threat

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The E Pine original (Image: Rudy’s Barbershop)

The company now behind Capitol HIll-born beauty brand Rudy’s Barbershop and a handful of PNW standards collected by the private equity firm during the pandemic has reached a deal hoped to help the company from being forced into bankruptcy.

Sortis Brands reached the agreement and averted a key hearing last week with a group of creditors engaged in a federal court battle that could have forced the company into bankruptcy over a disputed $8 million in debt.

Details of the arrangement still need to be approved by Oregon’s U.S. Bankruptcy Court but The Oregonian reports the proposed settlement has tentatively staved off liquidation for the company. Continue reading →

911 | Police: ‘Extraordinary’ Tesla crash on First Hill, ‘vacant’ house fire, and E Jefferson gunfire

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See something others should know about? Email CHS or call/txt/Signal (206) 399-5959. You can view recent CHS 911 coverage here. Hear sirens and wondering what’s going on? Check out reports from @jseattle or join and check in with neighbors in the CHS Facebook Group.

(Image: SPD)

  • ‘Extraordinary’ First Hill crash: A woman walked away from her wrecked Tesla in a spectacular high-speed crash Sunday night on First Hill. The Seattle Police Department reported details of the strange incident that ended with the 37-year-old driver smashing into a building in the 1100-block of University Sunday around 6 PM:

    Police determined that the motorist was traveling eastbound on University Street when she attempted to make a U-turn near the intersection at University and Boren Avenue. The driver accelerated back through the intersection before the light turned red. While making the U-turn she hit a parked vehicle then continued onto the sidewalk through a railing, and onto a ramp attached to an apartment building.

    Continue reading →

Capitol Hill’s Rocket Taco launches plan for big move — across the street

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The old Kingfish will soon need a new tenant

(Image: Rocket Taco)

Rocket Taco is making an important adjustment to its Capitol Hill orbit.

Seven years after touching down on 19th Ave E, the Seattle sibling to the Whidbey Island original is making a big switch from the more than 100-year-old restaurant space where Kingfish Cafe once ruled and leaping ahead 105 years to the empty restaurant in the 2014-built 19th & Mercer “luxury apartments” building across the street.

Owner Steve Rosen confirmed the planned move to the intersection’s southeast corner and said Rocket Taco could not pass up the opportunity to operate in a newer space with a modern kitchen and expansive patio.

Rocket Taco’s new restaurant home was first designed for Linda Derschang and her Tallulah’s venture. Continue reading →

14 homicides in 2024: Remembering Capitol Hill and the Central District’s victims

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A memorial to Corey Bellett grew outside Harry’s Fine Foods (Image: CHS)

Three weeks in and of the nation’s 25 largest cities, Seattle is the only without a murder so far in 2025. A look back at those who were killed across Capitol Hill and the Central District in the Seattle Police Department’s East Precinct reminds that the most heinous of crimes does not keep a calendar.

Altogether in 2024, CHS recorded 14 homicides across the neighborhoods of the East Precinct. That is twice as many as CHS recorded the year before in an oscillating pattern going back to 2020’s first pandemic-fueled surge. Fourteen in 2024. Seven in 2023. Eleven in 2022. Five in 2021. A dozen in 2020. The patterns of violence at the local level ebb and flow.

2023’s seven lost to homicidal violence here added to a record year in the city with more than 70 reported murders in Seattle. The East Precinct represented about 13% of the total. For 2024, that number will jump above 20% by the time the city’s statistics are officially compiled.

Assessing trends around the relatively rare crime at the neighborhood level is complicated. Does murder know the line between Capitol Hill and the Central District? What about Montlake and Madison Park where there has been one recorded homicide in the past decade?

Several of the killings in the East Precinct fit a familiar, tragic pattern — young Black people cut down by gun violence.

Taylor

Soloman Taylor was 15. The teen was gunned down on an October Monday night. Police say multiple 911 callers reported gunfire and a person down in the street near 27th and Spring around 7:45 PM. Officers began CPR as Seattle Fire was dispatched to respond. Taylor died at the scene. Police were looking for a vehicle reported fleeing the area. No arrests were announced. His family and loved ones said the St. Joseph’s and Garfield High student was known as “Solo.”

A week earlier, 25-year-old Breanna Simmons was killed in an unsolved shooting on 11th Ave amid Pike/Pine nightlife crowds. Police say a memorial for the victim early Sunday morning the next day was targeted in another shooting that sent a man and a woman to the hospital.Public records showed the 25-year-old resided in Renton. Continue reading →

Seattle City Council to choose finalists for D2 seat from among South Seattle second chances, city employees, and community leaders

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Solomon made an unsuccessful run for the seat six years ago

The Seattle City Council will spend Friday afternoon picking finalists to fill the open District 2 seat from a field of 20 candidates.

For many on the list, their most obvious qualification is living in South Seattle. Others are seeking to take the next step in careers that have been filled with public service and city employment.

The Friday 2 PM session will include current council members nominating potential finalists from the field and making a case for including them in the final decision which will come next week after a public forum featuring the selected candidates.

Applicants include Chukundi Salisbury who talked with CHS in 2023 about the Black Legacy Homeowners group organizing to protect and grow their presence in the Central District and across the Seattle-Tacoma region, former Capitol Hill Community Council leader Hong Chhuor, Randy Engstrom, former director of Seattle’s Office of Arts and Culture, and Seattle Police Department community crime prevention coordinator Mark Solomon who was a finalist in last year’s appointment process to fill a citywide seat on the council. The Seattle Times endorsed Solomon in his unsuccessful 2019 run for the D2 seat. Continue reading →

DESC Capitol Hill ‘supportive housing’ project part of $108M in city affordable development funding

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(Image: DESC)

Money from $108 million in Seattle Housing Levy funds will go to support affordable housing across the city and new developments across Capitol Hill and the Central District including a new “supportive housing” facility from the Downtown Emergency Service Center planned for Belmont Ave.

Mayor Bruce Harrell announced the funding this week, marking the first full allocation of funds from Seattle’s newly approved 2023 Housing Levy.

“This funding, awarded through the 2024 Notice of Funding Availability (NOFA), will support the construction of 655 new affordable homes, an important step in increasing Seattle’s housing stock to meet growing demand and ensure long-term affordability,” the announcement reads. Continue reading →

Capitol Hill’s Nook & Cranny Books has lost its lease — You can help it find a new home

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(Image: Nook & Cranny Books)

Capitol Hill’s Nook & Cranny Books has lost its lease and is raising funds to help it find a new home.

“Nook & Cranny needs your help getting over this hurdle,” owner Maren Comendant writes. “We are pursuing small business loans for the long-term, but your support will help cover the upfront costs of a significant move: deposit and increased rent, additional shelving and furniture, and rebuilding inventory.” Continue reading →

A Capitol Hill closure to add: Ian’s Pizza on the Hill leaves Broadway

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(Image: CHS)

We have an addition to the roster of 2024 Capitol Hill food and drink subtractions to make.

The Broadway closure of Ian’s Pizza is permanent.

A person familiar with details of the shuttering tells CHS the closure comes at the end of the shop’s 10-year lease as the small chain has chosen to focus on its Fremont location.

CHS reported here in 2015 as Ian’s moved onto the Hill after building its pie business slowly with origins in Wisconsin and Colorado. The Mac n’ Cheese pizza was a fun introduction for a pizza joint some argued served the Hill’s best slices. The exit leaves a hole in the tenant mix in the Broadway Building neighboring Blick Art, FOB Poke Bar, and its new sibling Old Street Malatang.

Some will add Ian’s to the flurry of closures to start 2025 as the city’s tip credit for its smallest businesses expired. Its arrival ten years ago in Seattle also came amid minimum wage tensions. Ian’s replaced a location of the Zpizza chain that shuttered after its ownership blamed the new wage laws. “It feels more like the right thing to do to respect service workers and what they do,” Ian’s owner told CHS about the new minimum wage at the time.

 

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Coming soon to 12th Ave: Kemi Dessert Bar set to create its own identity in Capitol Hill’s cookie, cake, and pastry community

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Black sesame hazelnut thumbprints (Image: Kemi Dessert Bar)

The business has grown with pop-ups and holiday events (Image: Kemi Dessert Bar)

The success of Kelly Miao’s black sesame hazelnut thumbprints, matcha kumquat cakes, and dense slices of Hong Kong milk tea basque cheesecake is so close, you can taste it.

“It’s in the palm of my hand right now. I just need to make it happen,” Miao tells CHS as she prepares for her planned opening next month of Kemi Dessert Bar, a working dessert kitchen and cookie, cake, and pastry walk-up counter planned to open soon on 12th Ave.

Miao comes to Capitol Hill having cut her sweet tooth in New York City’s “Instagram Bakery Scene” — yes, they have one of those — and honing her craft in pastry arts at a prestigious roster of NYC bakeries, bars, and restaurants, including a joint with a Michelin star.

There are no Michelin stars on 12th Ave but Miao arrived in Seattle with the dream of opening her own place here and started to get to work with the locals. Miao joined up with the crew giving Coping Cookies a go on 12th Ave where they combined chocolate chips with support for social causes. Coping Cookies also built out a lovely bakery for the venture.

Soon, the cookie business wasn’t working out and Miao decided it was time to step up. “I’m trying to get my roots in Seattle — I figure I’d shoot my shot and see if I could take over their space.”

Now Kemi Dessert Bar is about to happen. Continue reading →

Trial begins in murder of Elijah Lewis as scooter rider claims self defense in Capitol Hill road rage shooting

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Family and loved ones of Elijah Lewis are worried that court proceedings are stacked against justice as the trial of the man who shot and killed the 23-year-old community leader and activist and injured Lewis’s young nephew in a road rage confrontation on Capitol Hill begins.

Defendant Patrick Cooney pleaded not guilty in the April 1, 2023 killing and has remained jailed on $2 million bail since. Lawyers for the 37-year-old are set to argue Cooney shot Lewis in fear he would be run over as he rode a rental Lime scooter up E Pine. Lewis was in the neighborhood to pick up his nephew from his nearby apartment home and take him to a monster truck rally at Lumen Field to celebrate the child’s birthday. Much of the confrontation was captured on security video.

Cooney’s defense team has successfully argued to limit some evidence from being presented to the jury when proceedings begin including that police reported the shooter was also armed with a knife and his firearm lacked a serial number.

Judge Sean P. O’Donnell also ruled to limit the presentation of police records showing Cooney has been investigated for firearm incidents multiple times while riding Lime scooters around Capitol Hill prior to the shooting. Continue reading →