West Seattle Blog…

Wish we knew

Several people e-mailed us to ask if anyone knew why a chopper buzzed part of this side of WS (M-Junction, H-Point, etc.) for a good long while last night. We can’t find any info (though this is jumpstarting us to find a way to get more police scoop); King County is the only local police agency with a chopper, and it does assist others including Seattle PD, Port of Seattle PD, etc., when necessary. (Live Seattle police scanner here, if you have WMV.) Toward the water, if you hear chopper action, it could be the Coast Guard.

Do mugs and mutts mix?

A tv news report tonight (video link here) revealed that Beveridge Place Pub lets people bring in their dogs. Certainly they’re not alone; we were startled when we dropped into C & P Coffee for the first time, back during our Post-Windstorm Wi-Fi Fest, and discovered dogs wandering around from patron to patron. Now, we love all God’s creatures and all that, but not enough to have them sniffing our toes (or worse) while we’re out just trying to enjoy a beverage. (People in the tv story were quoted as saying, “Well, it’s better than leaving the dogs out in the cold.” To which we say, “Why not leave them back in your warm cozy home, then? They’re not like kids — they don’t require a babysitter in order for you to go out without them.”) What do you think?

Pagliacci progress?

Maybe it’s the prospect of Garlic Jim’s breathing (aromatically) down their necks. Seems Pagliacci might reconsider the issue of expanding its ridiculously small West Seattle delivery area. The lively discussion in comments on this post led at least one WSB reader to e-mail Pagliacci, and they replied by telling her they’re “getting together” to discuss it. (We e-mailed them about the same thing months ago and got a noncommittal e-mail with no followup. Hmph.) So she suggests anybody and everybody who would like to see Pagliacci deliver to more of WS, post comments to that effect. Where are you? Do you, like us, get other pizza instead because Pagliacci won’t deliver to your place? Leave a comment on this post. (No worries, you can be entirely anonymous.)

Biggest news in this week’s Herald

… is in the Letters to the Editor section: The Charlestown Cafe folks say they may be staying months longer than they thought. (Their letter includes a reminder of tomorrow night’s Design Review Board meeting on the site’s future project, reportedly the relocated Petco.)

Onward and upward

A brief item at BoingBoing tipped us to the fact that West Seattle author/radio guy John Moe (who snagged the national spotlight last fall with his book “Conservatize Me”) is moving from KUOW to National Public Radio. (The move is confirmed on John’s blog, which is one of the growing list of links on our Other Blogs in WS page.)

Another freebie

According to the site for Endolyne Joe’s, tomorrow is “Sing for Your Supper Night” — you stand up and start singing, the staff decides if your performance is worth comping part of your tab. (Their big chance to play Paula/Simon/Randy, we s’pose.)

Let the music play

A WSB reader at the Seattle Symphony wants everyone to know that not only is the orchestra appearing for free at West Seattle HS Thursday night (as we’ve been mentioning on our WS Events page), you can also catch a free concert tonight in South Park (not that far east of WS). Here’s the scoop on both.

Drivers beware

Some kind of accident had Fauntleroy blocked off most of the way between Cali and Alaska when we headed out a bit earlier this morning. Not sure if it’s cleared yet, but wanted to pass this along just in case.

Smart move

Huling Brothers’ ex-owner is making up for the stolen cash, too.

Buy a piece of history

Yet another historic West Seattle house is on the market — a side note on this article reveals that this is your big chance to buy the “Hainsworth House” (our WS History page has a link to its backstory). And as far as we can tell, nobody’s ponied up yet for Beach Drive’s historic Satterlee House or its acreage-riffic front yard — but there’s been a price cut; the SH listing is now down to $995K, from $1.2m, where it had been since splitting off from the no-price-cut-yet front yard (originally last summer the two were bundled for $3m).

Starbucks stalker

Here’s an alarming tale that reportedly unfolded at “a” Starbucks (who knows which one, considering there are three) at Westwood Village. As of right this moment, the King County jail roster lookup shows the guy’s still in jail.

Two two-vote elections in two months

Before we get to the 2-part (more like 4-option) viaduct vote in March, don’t forget the 2-part school vote next month, with a big West Seattle project on the ballot, as the Times reminds us again today. (Then if you’re still trying to sort out the viaduct conundrum, check out this excellent Slog breakdown, with reader comments that inspired us to suggest the slogan No/No, The Way to Go.)

Beato site finally up

A month after Beato Food & Wine opened in the ex-O2 space on Cali between the Admiral and Alaska Junctions, its website is finally up, including links to its food and wine menus. (And the home page tells you twice how to pronounce Beato. Hint — it’s not “beet-oh.”)

Bestseller’s West Seattle connection

We wondered for a few weeks why our site logs showed a couple people every day finding WSB while searching for “Rolf Neslund.” We knew the name — in case you don’t, he’s the ship pilot you can thank for the West Seattle high bridge; he helped smash a freighter into the old WS bridge in 1978, accelerating the process of getting a new one (which sounds like it was as tangled a process, till then, as the current viaduct mess). Then Neslund gained double infamy as a murder victim whose body was never found. We eventually learned he’s back in the news, so to speak, because his tale is at the heart of Ann Rule’s latest true-crime book, which was on the bestseller lists till a few weeks back. (The author lives not all that far south of West Seattle, we understand; also we discovered she keeps a lively blog.)

More on Mars Hill

Didn’t get around to spotlighting this sooner, but shortly after we noted that one of the recent Mars Hill-West Seattle blog updates on the Doxa remodeling listed a mid-February target date, a reader pointed out that’s been changed to “spring ’07.” If you’re tracking this project (anyone heard yet what they’re going to do about parking near the ex-Doxa? just drive by Chief Sealth some Sunday morning and you’ll see how much they use), here’s the latest post.

What lies beneath

You’ve seen the divers just off Seacrest a million times. But unless you too have gone into the water — way into the water — you probably haven’t seen what they’ve seen. One is kindly sharing a recent Seacrest six-gill shark sighting with the world via this webpost, featuring video (note that besides the embedded player, there’s a link at the very bottom to a high-res version).

More on Huling Bros. scandal

This morning’s Seattle Times article has many more details, including the contention from Huling’s new owners that they weren’t really briefed by the old owners that this was about to come slamming into them like a tsunami.

Beer bash

Reminder that tonight’s the night for the new microbrewers in town, Schooner Exact, to debut their brew with a party (7 pm) @ Beveridge Place Pub in Morgan Junction.

Props to the Garlic Jim’s guy …

… who, if you haven’t been following the thread, has been posting answers to questions in the comment section of our post about his impending opening date. The comments on this here blog are often more interesting than our posts, the way we see it, and this is an absolute first, for a new businessperson to “come in” and not just say hi, but also respond pleasantly to others’ comments and questions. Even if they don’t wind up delivering this far south, we’re definitely giving them a try. By the way, don’t forget that Westwood Village is allegedly bringing in some new pizza joint this year as well — though we still can’t find any info anywhere on who or what a “Gionnoni’s Pizza” (as it’s listed on the WV site) is.

1 plus 1 equals 4

The council’s Viaduct Vote Verdict is in. Instead of voting between tunnel and replacement-a-duct, we get a two-part vote: Yes or no on a tunnel, yes or no on replacement-a-duct. So that means this is actually a four-ply vote, with these possible combinations:
-Yes on both
-No on both
-Yes on tunnel, no on replacement
-Yes on replacement, no on tunnel

How are they even going to interpret the results?

Scandal at the car lot

Shocking story just hit the news about an alleged ripoff involving some Huling Brothers employees and an incapacitated older man. UPDATE: The city site has a press release about this up now.

Friday morning headlines

-A gushy Seattle Times writeup on the “pay by touch” technology that’s in its fifth year at Morgan Junction Thriftway confirms our November suspicions that it remains the only store in Seattle using PBT. Nothing personal against the Thriftway, which we adore, but we still don’t get why anyone would link their finances to their fingerprints. If you use it, we’d love to hear from you; we still have never seen, or heard from, anyone who has.

-The whole viaduct-vote thing still has our heads a-spinning. OK, so never mind what the Gov said the other day, now we’re going to have a vote? All just complicated political positioning, we suppose. So how ’bout they throw The Third Option and even The Retrofit on the ballot too, while everyone’s changing their minds every five minutes? Or are we supposed to be happy and relieved now that at least we get some kind of vote?

-Thanks to the reader who tipped us to the effervescent Elliott Bay Brewery feature on the Seattle Weekly site. (We’re not much for beer but we like their burgers too!)
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Garlic Jim’s sets Junction opening date

Just got a comment way down inside our site from the people opening Garlic Jim’s Pizza in the Junction, and they mention the opening date they’re shooting for, so we’re moving up the comment to post it verbatim here:

It is great to hear some positive comments about
our new Garlic Jim's coming in March (March 20th)
to be exact. My wife Candice and I are excited
to open this location...it has been a lot of hard
work. We will be open 11am-11pm (maybe later if
there is demand for it)7 days a week. Candice
and I have lived in West Seattle for a few years
now and love it here. Hopefully we will see
some of you soon. Thanks, Ryan