Tag Archives: food

Capitol Hill food+drink | Pie Bar ready to serve — Also, Bus Stop, Vostok Dumpling House updates

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Get baked at Pie Bar (Image: Pie Bar)

Get baked at Pie Bar (Image: Pie Bar)

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Pie, it’s time for you to grow up. Bar, it’s time for you to make room for pie.

“My pies are definitely grandma’s pie,” Lyss Lewis says. “But I’m modernizing pie. Bringing it forward.”

Pie Bar, a bar serving pie, will debut Wednesday night on Capitol Hill. It will serve pie. In a bar.

Pie, it seems, has turned 21.

“It’s a hybrid — it’s a restaurant but it’s a lounge,” Lewis said of the new venture she and her twin sister Natalie Delucchi are launching on E Olive Way in the former home of Saley Crepes.

Continue reading →

Bakery Nouveau Capitol Hill opens where challenge became opportunity at 15th & John

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Chef Leaman inside the new Bakery Nouveau Capitol Hill (Image: CHS)

Chef Leaman inside the new Bakery Nouveau Capitol Hill (Image: CHS)

Highly anticipated since CHS first broke the news last November about its plans, Bakery Nouveau Capitol Hill is ready to serve its first batches of flaky, buttery croissant at 15th and John.

“We’re preparing like it’s a regular day in West Seattle,” William Leaman said Sunday as he and his crew put the finishing touches on the space and got to work baking and making in anticipation of the Monday morning opening. You can be there at 8 AM to try to be first. But there’s no rush. Bakery Nouveau’s pastries, chocolates, sandwiches and treats untold are here to stay. Continue reading →

Capitol Hill food+drink | ‘Experimental’-natured Cafe ABoDegas comes to 15th Ave E, Liberty confirms E Olive Way

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Feeling "experimental"? Try the ABoDegas beet cookies (Image: Cafe ABoDegas)

Feeling “experimental”? Try the ABoDegas beet cookies (Image: Cafe ABoDegas)

Got a tip? You know what to do. Email CHS or give us a txt/call at (206) 399-5959.

CHS ain’t usually down with the whole UPcase/dOWNCASE play in business names. But we’ll make an exception for Cafe ABoDegas — if, for no other reason, than for how hard Jazmine Knaggs and crew have been working to overhaul their new 15th Ave E home since taking it over last week in preparation for a hoped-for opening on Wednesday.

Neighbors noticed the window paint last week -- something new is coming (Image: CHS)

Neighbors noticed the window paint last week — something new is coming (Image: CHS)

And, hey, it has meaning.

  • Abode — to evoke the feelings of home and shout out to the homeys in Sandpoint, Idaho where Knaggs and ABoDegas partner Uriah DuPerault hail from
  • Bodega — to evoke a sense of the corner market
  • Degas — to evoke the French impressionist

See? It’s evocative, gets the people going. And the 6th Ave original, Knaggs says, is also stuffed with art. That’ll come, too, to 15th Ave. But first Knaggs and the DuPerault (again with the case thing!) need to finish remaking the former Insomniax cafe in their own vision.

“I want people to go to the downtown shop in their businesses suit whatever and come here after work,” Knaggs tells CHS. Continue reading →

¿Como se dice ‘Autopro’? Mezcaleria Oaxaca Capitol Hill

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Mezcaleria Oaxaca, originally uploaded by luckyfish.

How’s this for a bit of a return to normalcy — another restaurant coming to Capitol Hill. Solving our long-running “Autopro mystery,” the people behind well-loved Queen Anne Mexican restaurant Mezcaleria Oaxaca say they’re bringing their “authentic Oaxacan food” and “most diverse nationally noted selections of mezcales in the city” to Capitol Hill.

“The new restaurant, which has been in the works for well over a year, is scheduled to open in late summer of 2013,” the restaurant’s announcement cheekily reads.

OK. We’re probably imagining the cheek.

But CHS has, indeed, been on the case to figure out what was going on with the Autopro project since late last summer. We got very close to the answer this fall but guessed wrong. Turns out, we were looking at the wrong Jon Alberts project for what was coming next. But credit? We told you about the Graham Baba part.

(Image: CHS)

(Image: CHS)

You might give CHS a break, however, for being unable to conceived of yet another Mexican restaurant coming to Capitol Hill. With these two, we counted 17 projects open or in the works — one of those newbies will be La Cocina de Oaxaca at Melrose and Pine. Try not to confuse it with Broadway’s La Cocina or the new Mezcaleria Oaxaca project. That 17 didn’t include Latin-inspired cafe Cintli — make it 18.

[mappress mapid=”36″]Or, 17. Broadway’s Taco del Mar is muerte as of last week or so — we haven’t tracked down any clues on what’s next. Meanwhile, the long-shuttered La Puerta in the Broadway Market can’t be revived as a restaurant — we’re told Gold’s Gym is expanding into the space.

Back on E Pine, the well-guarded secret of Mezcaleria Oaxaca adds another 2013 Capitol Hill food+drink project to look forward to with its planned “late summer” opening. That should be just in time to enjoy the “rooftop area for alfresco dining” being added to the former auto garage. By then, CHS will likely get over not being able to properly break the news on the mezcaleria. Nothing a good margarita above a sunny E Pine can’t fix.

You can learn more at mezcaleriaoaxaca.com.

Capitol Hill food+drink | After eight-year ride, Bus Stop seeks new driver

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Opening night 2008 at the Bus Stop

Opening night 2008 at the Bus Stop

Over the weekend, the Capitol Hill social network reported that a neighborhood favorite was about to close. The Bus Stop — as we know and love it — will shut down at the end of the month. But it’s probably not going away.

“Within 12 hours, we talked to an interested buyer. If I had my druthers, I’d prefer to sell to a friend or somebody in the industry who I respect what they do,” co-owner Gary Zinter tells CHS.

He says he’s already heard from five or six seriously interested parties about taking the Bus Stop over. Selling out, however, was not why Capitol Hill resident Zinter and his husband — and Bus Stop manager Rodney Shrader have decided to step aside after an eight year run. Continue reading →

Capitol Hill drink spot the Bus Stop to close at end of month

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Bus Stop Bar, originally uploaded by evil robot 6.

The grogginess lies a little heavier on the heads and hearts of fans of Capitol Hill bar the Bus Stop this Sunday. After eight years and a neighborhood odyssey that saw the bar make a move from a doomed — and now legendary — strip of E Pine nightlife to helping establish new outposts of Capitol Hill drink on E Olive Way, the Bus Stop’s Gary Zinter and Rodney Shrader have announced the bar will close by the end of April.

In the meantime, enjoy the party:

After eight amazing years, Gary and I have made the difficult decision that it’s time to move on.

Being part of your lives and this neighborhood has been one of the best experiences of my life. You are my friends and my family. Continue reading →

Liberty II? Capitol Hill bartending suzerain has plans for E Olive Way

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Friedman at work (Image: Liberty)

Friedman at work (Image: Libertybars.com)

One of the biggest success stories of the Capitol Hill cocktail economy is planning a major expansion. Liberty, Andrew Friedman’s seven-year-old coffee, cocktail and, yes, sushi venture on 15th Ave E is acquiring new E Olive Way territory.

CHS has learned that Friedman will be taking over the space currently occupied by The Online Cafe and building a new venture in this growing area of Capitol Hill nightlife.

Both Friedman and the cafe’s owner Nick Woell declined to comment on the deal but CHS has confirmed details with people familiar with both businesses and CHS has verified that staff at both Liberty and Online are aware of the changes.

The Online Cafe began the month of April shuttered with a sign saying the coffee shop was closed for renovations. Continue reading →

Capitol Hill food+drink | Montreal-inspired Resto debuts, Li’l Molly Moon’s does Ballard

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8613604613_1b3d33ff4d_bGot a tip? Undergoing renovation? Let us know.

When last we spoke with the couple behind Montreal-inspired cafe project Resto, the duo  was hard at work overhauling the former home of the Thomas Street Bistro into a new, more open but still tiny restaurant space. On Monday, Johanna Robinson and Jang Cho opened the rebuilt space for its first day of business.

“Our doors are open,” Robinson said Tuesday as she and Cho enjoyed the midday halftime currently built into Resto’s limited opening schedule. And, to be accurate, the space is still so small it only has one door.

“It feels nice and open so it’s kind of a dinner theater situation,” Robinson said of the new set-up inside the tiny cafe. Continue reading →

Chico Madrid, Capitol Hill’s neighborhood Spanish cafe, now open ‘neath a 60-foot cedar on Bellevue Ave

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(Images: CHS)

(Images: CHS)

The newest tenant of the Belroy Apartments will be open for business on Bellevue Ave this weekend. Just look for the giant cedar. And some pretty solid Spanish-style sandwiches. UPDATE: It’s open and ready for business as of Thursday morning. Enjoy!

Chico Madrid, created by partners Jacob Daley and Franz Gilbertson of Ballard’s Honore Bakery and espresso-powered by Capitol Hill caffeine and pie slinger Dani Cone, has plans to open — *probably* Friday morning — in its 800 and change square-foot retail space in the newly re-opened Belroy Apartments at, yes, Bellevue and Roy.

The Mallet contractors-built Jacob Daley-built(!) cafe is highlighted by its tile-covered horseshoe counter  behind which a whirl of espresso pulling, wine pouring, bocadillo and bikini building and charcuterie slicing will take place. You’ll also find a ready to pour sangria dispenser. Continue reading →

Capitol Hill food+drink | Vostok Dumpling House to bring the comforts of Soviet Russia to Capitol Hill

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Tokar strikes a proletariat pose outside the future home of Vostok Dumpling House (Image: CHS)

The worker — Tokar strikes a proletariat pose outside the future home of Vostok Dumpling House (Image: CHS)

“For me, the idea is ‘Soviet’ — not communist but 1970s and when I was growing up. New ventures and new type of foods might as well start with a place that is very open minded.”

Welcome to Capitol Hill, comrade.

First-time restauranteur Andrey Tokar has chosen a retail corner above Broadway at Pike to create Vostok Dumpling House, a cafe-style Russian eatery that will specialize in Eastern European-styled dumplings — both savory and sweet — and beer from the homeland.

“I grew up in the last few years of the Soviet Union, so for me, it is nostalgia,” Tokar said of the venture partnering him with South Seattle Community College culinary program product Anna Motso. Continue reading →