Tag Archives: central agency

New Capitol Hill Heritage Distilling tasting room will add to flow of Pike/Pine small batch booze

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Capitol Hill's new Heritage Distilling tasting room won't be on the scale of the Gig Harbor HQ but it will still produce a steady flow of small batch spirits (Image: Heritage Distilling)

Capitol Hill’s new Heritage Distilling tasting room won’t be on the scale of the Gig Harbor HQ but it will still produce a steady flow of small batch spirits (Image: Heritage Distilling)

In August, CHS reported on the plans for Gig Harbor’s Heritage Distilling to open a new Pike/Pine tasting room. The neighborhood’s hooch manufacturing sector, it turns out, will also get a boost.

Heritage owner and master distiller Justin Stiefel tells CHS the project moving into the Central Agency building on the backside of Pike/Pine will be “doing everything you would expect distillery to do – distillation in site, barrel aging, blending. Flavoring and bottling.” Continue reading →

Capitol Hill food+drink | Big in B.C., Meat and Bread closing on Capitol Hill

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There is more cold, hard news for daytime food and drink business on the edges of Pike/Pine. British Columbian sandwich shop Meat and Bread is pulling out of Capitol Hill.

Business owners and people familiar with the situation have told CHS that the shop is canceling orders and preparing to shut down. We have questions out to the Abbotsford-headquartered chain’s management about the closure but have not yet heard back. UPDATE: M&B’s Dave Neil tells CHS the last day for the Capitol Hill location is Saturday.

“We anticipated having a busier daytime rush there,” Neil said of the decision to close. He also said the company did consider trying later hours but decided it didn’t fit the model of being in place with a busy lunchtime rush to build off of. “The construction in the area really hurt us, also,” Neil said. “We’re sticking with what we’re good at.” Continue reading →

Capitol Hill’s newest lunch spot Meat & Bread opens inside the Central Agency building

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IMG_7106The name pretty much says it all when it comes to Capitol Hill’s latest lunch counter. Vancouver-based Meat & Bread opened for business Monday inside the Central Agency building on 10th Ave between E Union and E Seneca.

Owners Cord Jarvie and Frankie Harrington hopped the border to oversee the soft opening of their fourth popular sandwich shop on Friday, where CHS got a sneak peek of the operation. Harrington told CHS he frequently came to Capitol Hill as a teenager growing up outside Vancouver and was ecstatic to make his mark in the neighborhood.

In Seattle, Jarive and Harrington are replicating their working recipe that keeps things simple with a menu pared down to four daily offerings. Opting for roasts and slow-cooked meats over the deli sliced variety, daily sandwiches include porchetta (roast pork), meatball, and grilled cheese with one rotating option. Most sandwiches go for around $10.

The menu does include a few non meat and bread items, including a rotating side soup and salad, two desserts, and $1.50 Rainier tallboys.

Continue reading →

Lark nestles into its ‘grown-up’ Central Agency home

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Lark’s new roost in the old and overhauled Central Agency Building (Images: CHS)

Lark's ownership trio -- Sundstrom, J.M. Enos, and Kelly Ronan

Lark’s ownership trio — Sundstrom, J.M. Enos, and Kelly Ronan

In August 2013, when layers of metal sheeting were first getting peeled off the old File Box warehouse, CHS predicted that the area around 10th and Seneca would be completely transformed in 20 years. You can probably shave a few years off of that prediction.

After more than a year of preservation work on the 1917-built Central Agency Building, the cavernous food and drink complex is buzzing with activity. Central Agency’s anchor tenant, Lark, opened the doors to its new home December 4th after closing up shop at 12th and E Spring earlier this year. So far, chef/owner John Sundstrom said the reaction from his 12th Ave regulars has been overwhelmingly positive.IMG_3411

“We love the space,” he said. “It’s a little bit more of a grown-up experience.” Continue reading →

Capitol Hill food+drink | Central Agency project rounds out its offerings with Canadian Meat & Bread

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M&B's Gastown location (Image: Meat & Bread)

M&B’s Gastown location (Image: Meat & Bread)

The tennants of what will likely be the center of a southern expansion and leap across Union for the Pike/Pine food and drink scene have rounded into shape with the addition of a neighbor from the north.

Vancouver’s Meat & Bread is slated to join the Central Agency building “to hold down the opposite end of the building from Lark,” we’re told.

“M&B is in the Gas Light district, are very passionate about food and are a great compliment to Lark and the neighborhood in many ways including the fact that they are a daytime business,” a rep for the Central Agency project tells us.

Describing itself as “a man made sandwich shop,” Meat & Bread founders Cord Jarvie and Frankie Harrington created a working recipe that keeps things simple with a menu pared down to four daily offerings. Bon Appetit, doing the BC tourist thing, called the offerings “lavish.” Today’s offerings are porchetta with “salsa verde,” a “Middle Eastern Spiced Lamb, Caper Tomato Sauce, Roasted Garlic Aioli, Romaine” special, a “Grana Padano, Sambal, Gremolata” meatball variant, and the grilled cheese is “Aged White Cheddar & Shaved Onion.” They’ll run you between $7 and $9… Canadian. Continue reading →