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.
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
Empty again
Alki-based Metroblogging Seattle contributor C Ro posts today that the Casa Feliz Mexican restaurant at the beach appears to have folded. That space has had so much turnover, we can barely remember what was there before — wasn’t there a Cuban restaurant in the space for a while, or was that upstairs?
Glad to hear it
Back before Thanksgiving, we mentioned the pie fundraiser that West Seattle bakery Sugar was having, to raise money for cancer treatment to heal baker Stephanie‘s husband John. Now, there’s good news on their site — says they’re taking some time off because John’s in remission.
Monday night miscellaneous mentions
-Last power update for the night: The pocket just west of Westwood Village is back on. The pocket near Home Depot (Delridge & Orchard) is not (at least, as of our drive thru the area a few hours ago). Meantime, the sinkhole saga on the hill over Lincoln Park seems to be even worse, at least for one homeowner featured again in tomorrow’s P-I.
-While checking out the Delridge/Orchard outage, we took an unintended turn and wound up on Puget Ridge. More than a decade in WS, and we’ve never been in the South Seattle Community College area before, believe it or not … hard to tell at night, but seems like some people up there must have a heck of a view.
-Non-outage related business notes: First, Bakery Nouveau. Ducked in on its second day of ops today to have a look (unfortunately we’d just had lunch so no room for a taste). Several of the items in the case at the time looked incredibly scrumptious, such as a chevre/garlic/pine nuts galette-type thing (sorry, our culinary vocabulary fails us), slices of dark chocolate cake, and brown sugar pecan brioche (gotta stop by tomorrow morning and see if they’ve got any more of those for breakfast). Also in business notes, the former Jan-Michael salon (and long-ago “frozen custard stand”) just north of Thriftway in Morgan Junction has finally revealed its new identity … a mortgage company moving from its prior spot a few blocks south on Cali.
Opening one week from tonight
The PR people for Beato Food & Wine, at the ex-O2-post-Ovio site, tell us opening night is set for Dec. 19, one week from tonight, with hours set for 5-11 pm Tuesdays-Sundays. They also mention a special New Year’s Eve dinner in the works, which dovetails with a site visitor’s suggestion today that we collect info on WS New Year’s Eve doings and add it to the Holiday Stuff page — great idea, will start looking, and everyone’s welcome to e-mail us now with news of any special local events that night.
If you enjoy a good salad …
… go to the Farmers’ Market today and get a bag of the spectacular salad mix from Willie’s (usually near the northwest corner of the lot). Last chance; they told us last week that this week would be their last visit for the season. (Last week they were also displaying photographs of how the recent flooding affected their farmland in Monroe.)
The underdogs try new treats
123 stores for Tully’s, versus four-billion-kajillion for S(BIG)BUX. Yeah, I’d call that an underdog. So Tully’s is trying something new — according to the end of this story, it’s getting new treats from Alki Bakery. By the way, if you didn’t already know, two of those 123 stores are here in WS — the one on Alki (used to be a Taco Time), and the one at Morgan Junction (which once was a Cafe Starbucks).
A good deed that tastes good
An eagle-eyed reader alerts us to news about what she/he aptly describes as “a West Seattle Farmers’ Market fave” — the bakery Sugar (no relation to “Coffee to a Tea with …”) is raising money to help owner Stephanie’s husband fight cancer. $20 per pie, pumpkin or apple streudel, order online by Sunday night, pick up your pie the day before Thanksgiving, right here in West Seattle.
Pushing for prints
Fingerprint payment usage must be lagging at the West Seattle (Morgan Junction) Thriftway. With signs, banners, and even a winnable car on display, it’s pushing people to sign up for Pay By Touch. Four and a half years after the store made national news as the first grocery store anywhere to sign up for the system, we have yet to personally witness a single person using it. However, the store owner is quoted in a variety of articles as saying they’ve processed tons of, shall we say, digit-al transactions. (Not us; we still are not ready to have our fingers, retinas, or any other body parts scanned and linked to our $.) Checking the Pay By Touch website, it appears the WS Thriftway folks remain “early adopters”; according to its “store locator” engine, this store remains the only store in Seattle deploying PBT (possibly even in the region; we tried Everett & Tacoma zip codes, and nothing came up).
O2 no more
Thanks to a WSB reader for writing to inquire why the number for O2, the Cali Ave restaurant launched by Ovio, was disconnected. Reminded us that we had seen a liquor-license ap several weeks ago for the same address under the name “Beato Food and Wine”; went by O2 back then, saw no signs of change, forgot about it till now. But today, there it is in the window — a sign saying O2 is closed but Beato will open soon. (The sign also touts a website that as is usually the case with these things, isn’t up yet. Argh.)
Mystery no more
Chalk another one up for West Seattle Blog Spouse, who bet me that the ex-Remo Borracchini spot in The Junction would become a “fancy bakery with something French in its name.”
Sometime in the past 24 hours, a sign went up, as follows: “Coming soon (to delightfully spoil West Seattle with bread, pastry, cakes, chocolates and coffee)/Bakery Nouveau/home of world baking champion 2005/USA top 10 chocolatier 2004/William Leaman.”
According to a variety of online references, Leaman’s been at Essential Baking Company in North Seattle for a while and does indeed have quite an impressive resume, dating back into his teens. West Seattle’s got a fair amount of good bakeries — so could this mean we’re in for something great?
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