As part of the Alki Homestead / Fir Lodge restoration and remodeling, the former restaurant’s neon sign has finally been taken down, to await its part of the facelift. The sign had been vandalized before the operation to bring it down. The video was published late last night by Clay Eals of the Southwest Seattle Historical Society, who included this information in the extended caption:

On Monday morning, July 18, 2016, Alki Homestead owner Dennis Schilling, his son Matt and five-member crew removed the building’s iconic neon sign so that it can be restored as part of the landmark building’s overall renovation and restoration. The removal took just shy of two hours.

The sign restoration will cost $25,000 to $30,000, and the Southwest Seattle Historical Society, which secured city landmark status for the building 20 years ago, helped Schilling in 2015 to obtain a $15,000 grant from 4Culture for the project. … The neon sign is being stored temporarily inside the Alki Homestead. (The restoration work will cover up the graffiti with which vandals defaced the lower portion of the sign in late June 2016.)

The rest of the restoration work has been proceeding through the city system; a construction permit was granted in May, after the city Landmarks Board OK’d the “rehabilitation” plan for the 112-year-old building – heavily damaged by a 2009 fire that closed its restaurant operation.