WEST SEATTLE BIZNOTES: Parliament Tavern update; new menus for Bird & Joe’s; 2 closures

Fridays just lend themselves to roundups. Notes from and about local businesses:

(Photo courtesy Parliament Tavern)

PARLIAMENT TAVERN OFFICIALLY OPEN: After a few weeks in “soft open” mode, the new establishment at 4210 SW Admiral Way is now officially open, proprietor Tom Langen tells WSB. 21+, full bar with 17 beers on draft that “will lean heavily on the great stuff brewed locally,” plus “a smallish menu featuring fancy grilled cheese sandwiches that will hopefully knock socks off!” Live music “from time to time” (first show October 10th), DJs some nights (tonight: “WS legend Kingblind”), and Tuesday quiz nights starting October 13th. By the way, if you didn’t know (we must confess we didn’t), the name has nothing to do with government … but rather, their mascots (above). Tom explains, “A group of owls is called a parliament, like a gaggle of geese, murder of crows, etc.. The idea for this spot is a neighborhood evening hangout, for night owls if you will. The one great thing about this old, old space is the high ceilings and the dark-stained fir panels on the upper half of the walls that give it a woodsy feel. Tried to bring that out with paint and light, and threw in a bunch of owls hanging around to give it a ‘thing’. They are most certainly fascinating creatures, beautiful, mysterious, and everyone has a reaction to them in some way. Almost always positive!” Hours: 4 pm to 2a m weekdays, 12 pm to 2 am weekends.

ADMIRAL BIRD’S NEW MENU: Steps from the Parliament, Admiral Bird at California & Admiral has just launched a new menu “focusing on waffles,” per the announcement: “We have three varieties: Belgian, gluten-free Sweet Potato, and a vegan GF Cornbread batter. We are now a Waffle Bar, keeping all of our popular breakfast sandwiches and taking our weekend waffles to a daily availability.” See the menu for more details.

ENDOLYNE JOE’S NEW MENU: Last weekend for the Cuban “festival menu” at Endolyne Joe’s, which will debut the “Little Italy/Providence, RI” menu on Wednesday. These special menus are in addition to their year-round specialties. (9261 45th SW; WSB sponsor)

CURVES CLOSED: Noticed while driving by that the Curves West Seattle storefront at 3280 California SW is closed. We’d heard from its owner some weeks back that it was for sale. No signage indicating what’s next.

MONEYTREE CLOSING: The short-term-loan business’s branch at 4000 SW Alaska in The Junction is closing. We found out through this this commercial real-estate listing, saying Moneytree was closing the location “due to regulatory changes.” Checking the company website, the West Seattle location’s page says it’s “moving” on October 10th – to Burien. “Only 20 minutes away!” says the flyer.

HelperMonkey October 2, 2015 (6:30 pm)

Parliament- get Tin Dog brewing on tap and we are there!

KD October 2, 2015 (8:02 pm)

… a congress of baboons (the best one!)

JanS October 2, 2015 (8:21 pm)

^^^^hehehehe

Parliament…just down the street from me…

Hammy October 2, 2015 (9:52 pm)

The sweet potato waffles at Admiral Bird are the BEST! So, so, so good :)

Celeste17 October 3, 2015 (1:17 am)

Curves is permanently closed. The owner moved to Olympia a while ago and couldn’t find a buyer. The curves in white center is still opened.

Eric October 3, 2015 (5:18 am)

Money Tree, predatory lending at its finest.

Titus Andronicus October 3, 2015 (6:02 am)

I always thought it was a stare of owls…I have been schooled. Thanks. Can’t wait to visit.

M October 3, 2015 (1:14 pm)

Glad to see the Money Tree finally leaving the neighborhood

DarkHawke October 3, 2015 (5:36 pm)

“Predatory lending?!” So, what, do they go out and kidnap people walking by, put a gun to their heads and make them take out a loan? Never could sort out the sense, if there is any, in that particular phrase. Try not buying things you can’t afford instead of getting loans that you can’t pay back. Betcha that’ll work out better for you!

Eric October 4, 2015 (5:49 am)

Dark Hawke,

If this is some way directed at me for my statement, FYI, I have a lot of money in the bank, no credit card debt (I use it for miles and pay it off every month) and the only debt my wife and I have is our mortgage.

I only became aware of money tree’s practices because someone told me that they do cheap money orders (something I needed for a transaction that I did not feel comfortable using my credit card). When I went in to get my money order, while waiting, I noticed that the annual APR was 893%. I was stunned, but if you want to lecture people, then I guess lecture many of the armed forces in this area, as the news did an expose on Money Tree and found many of the customers caught in this vicious circle of borrowing-paying-borrowing to pay, were people in the armed forces.

If you can’t understand the term predatory lending, then I guess you can’t understand the term loan shark or cannibal capitalism either.

It is simple. It is when an entity takes advantage of a person or persons, because of desperation and sets up a system that the entity knows is a set up for failure for the person or persons, in which the entity can take full advantage of.

An example on a macro level is a poorer country borrowing money from the USA. The USA then sets an interest rate in which invested parties know the country probably won’t be able to meet. In fact, they’re banking on it. Country does not meet the pay back requirements, the USA says OK, what we’ll do instead is wipe away most of your debt on the condition you let some of our companies come in and set up shop for next to nothing. Or the USA promises the country to help out with infrastructure in which the original loan was intended, when it mostly just benefits the company coming in and not the country. Betchel and the Bolivian water riots is an example of this kind of predatory lending.