West Seattle, Washington
18 Thursday
So says e-mail we just received from Lessie. Won’t be able to confirm in person for a while, so if you’re anywhere near The Junction, more reports welcome.
WSB contributing photographer Christopher Boffoli spotted the last piece of the Shadowland sign now in place — the moon. As for when they’re opening – still waiting to hear.
Drawing a lot of gawkers in The Junction today: The menu and wine list for Shadowland are now posted in its front window (NE corner of California/Oregon). Sample from the “small plates” lineup: Cassie, $6, ingredients listed as “white cheddar, macaroni, love.”
We signed ourselves up to be notified when Amazon‘s new grocery-delivery service came to our zip code – haven’t gotten a note that way yet, but the official WSB inbox just yielded this:
My name is Vincent and I’m a PM on the Amazon Fresh team. We’re part of the Amazon.com family, and we’re the Seattle area’s newest online grocery. We recently launched in July, only delivering to Mercer Island, but we’ve been expanding our coverage areas and now we just began delivery to West Seattle! I was wondering if your readers would be interested in the following news:
Beginning today, residents living in zip codes 98136, 98126, and 98116 can enjoy our pre-dawn delivery service: Place an order online as late as midnight, and we can deliver next morning as early as 6AM  free.*(minimum $25 order) This even includes Thanksgiving Day!
All you have to do is to browse to AmazonFresh.com and enter the address where you’d like to have your deliveries. Visit us and browse our selection of over 20,000 specialty and everyday itemsâ€â€get your milk, fresh fruit, and much more.
Much as we personally prefer to shop in our local West Seattle grocery stores and will continue to do so, we may place a test order just to report back on what happens. 8:45 PM UPDATE: Well, we tried. But then we hit the explanation of “pre-dawn delivery” – sometime before 6 am, the order is left by your door. Just not comfortable with that; not that we don’t trust our neighbors, but there’s a lot of wildlife around here. They would have had a field day with the turkey. Some interesting pricing in there, though, especially for produce and fresh herbs.
Since work on Shadowland started to pick up speed, we’ve received questions about the restaurant project across the street and a bit north — the ex-In Bloom space, first heralded one year ago as Spring Hill (not to be confused with the Spring Hill mixed-use building plan that recently emerged south of The Junction), to be opened by a local chef named Mark Fuller. This morning, we found a sign of life on that project, first one in months: A 30-day “get started” permit just issued by the city. Before now, the last major update on the Spring Hill restaurant came in June, when its design emerged on its architects’ website. Another link we found at the time (which doesn’t work any more) described Spring Hill as seeking to “redefine the French bistro in Seattle.” Guess we’ll see soon!
The latest touch on the much-watched sign for Shadowland in The Junction is neon — as photographed today by WSB contributing photographer Christopher Boffoli. He went by shortly after we sent a note to Shadowland co-proprietor Joe to ask a question we’ve heard from a couple people — what’s going in the circular space in the middle of the sign? Joe says, “A moon. The face is being painted now. Still a mystery on how we will get it up there but we have a team of engineers working on it :) …” Joe says they’re expecting to open the week of the 25th, depending on how city inspections go next week. No detailed menu scoop yet but we’ve had hints here and here. (Joe added in a later note that it’s exciting to finally get so close to opening after all this time – and the birth of a business can take a long time indeed — we looked back into the WSB archives and found our first mention of this project was more than a year and a half ago.)
Exactly 4 months after its opening, the Junction pie shop is featured in The Stranger today. We haven’t been there in a while. You?
There are several important things happening in, and pertaining to, West Seattle tomorrow. You can find them right now on the WSB Events page; we were going to put together a preview post for tonight, but we think we have a better way to conclude the “holiday” night — asking you to help a fellow WSB reader with this recommendation request:
The people we normally spend Thanksgiving with are not having a gathering this year, so we’re on our own and are looking for a restaurant. Does anyone have any recommendation for a nice place for a couple to have Thanksgiving dinner that doesn’t cost a small fortune? Our favorite restaurant is closed on Thanksgiving. I checked with Salty’s online and their buffet is almost $50 a person – I’m thinking I’d like to spend a little less than that for dinner. It doesn’t have to be a buffet, and not even necessarily “typical” Thanksgiving food. Doesn’t have to be in West Seattle, but within half an hour or so would be fine. Any thoughts?
Post your recommendation(s) in the comments; previous WSB Reader Recommendation Requests and responses are archived here.
Veteran West Seattle photojournalist Matt Durham, from MattDurhamPhotography.com, has agreed to contribute photos and reporting to WSB from time to time, and we couldn’t be more pleased – his excellent work fits so well with our mission of bringing you West Seattle news, information, and discussion 24/7/365. Here are three of Matt’s photos from today, with his captions below each:
Japhy Witte (with Sign Savant, a West Seattle business) puts the finishing touches on the marquee that will welcome patrons to the new tapas restaurant Shadowland, slated to open around the week of Thanksgiving. Shadowland will offer tapas, small plates, and entrees in a variety of cuisine types, according to owner Ben Jenkins.
With a steady gaze, a loyal lab waits for its owner to exit Capers Sunday afternoon.
The cold, blustery Sunday weather did not deter shoppers from purchasing their fresh produce and organic groceries from West Seattle’ Farmers’ Market.
We look forward to more from Matt in the future. (Prints of these photos and his other work, by the way, are available through his site, MattDurhamPhotography.com.)
Looks like we have a name for the store coming to the last remaining space in the ex-Alki Market (next to All the Best Pet Care, two doors down from Cactus): According to a construction permit just granted by the city, it will be “Alki Urban Market.” A little further east, the windows at the former Coyotes on Alki (former Chez Million, former Lighthouse, former Point Grill, that’s as far back as we go) are now brown-papered (photo below) — no construction permit for this site so far, and no revelations are to be had for a peek through the window — though it’s been widely speculated that might be where Pegasus Pizza could/would move when the construction project on their site begins. (Or maybe this mystery restaurant?)
Someone e-mailed us a few weeks ago saying they had heard Thai on Alki (1325 Harbor Ave, next to Alki Tavern) was going out. So we’d been keeping an eye on it; drove by last night and, for the first time, noticed the interior looked fairly empty except for people doing some work; went by this morning to try to find out more — the signage is gone (as shown at left), the place looks cleaned out. No permit applications for anything at the site, no note on the door; the phone is answered with an announcement that sounds like business as usual, but it didn’t allow message-leaving. Looking up the corporate registration for the company that holds the business license, we found the name is the same as someone who had a Craigslist ad up a few weeks ago (pointed out to us at the time by a reader) selling restaurant items (the ad’s not cached in Google but one line of text from it that is, includes the Thai on Alki number). Another tidbit noted during research: The parcel has been owned since 2004 by “Salty’s Properties.”
The P-I says glowing shrimp have surfaced in Seattle, including one purchase reported from the Morgan Junction Thriftway.
The “Top 10 New Restaurants” featured in Seattle Metropolitan Magazine‘s November issue include 2 from West Seattle: Beato and Bakery Nouveau. So says (206) Life, as linked from Citizen Rain.
The team putting together The Bohemian in the space that used to be Leslie’s Country Store (3405 California, next to Spiro’s) is finally ready to reveal more about their plans. They answered our e-mail by writing up a cheery blurb that we decided to share in its entirety:Read More
Driving or walking through The Junction, you can’t miss the distinctive exterior touches that continue on the former Neilsen Florist location that’s becoming Shadowland. We e-mailed its proprietors last week to ask how their timeline is looking; they are currently hoping to open in the first half of next month, if all goes well with finishing touches and required inspections. (For those wondering what Shadowland will serve, we had some info in a September update, second part of this post.)
If you went to The Junction’s newest restaurant tonight (in the ex-Ovio location), please let us all know what you thought. We did receive a review of last night’s “preview night” in e-mail today:Read More
This comment just in from Garybert on the original “opening this Friday, preview Thursday” post:
Stopped by Ama-Ama around 3:30 to see if we were on their list. Very full for Thurs, but having “Soft Opening†TONITE! Just returned from a great meal with less glitches than a normal experience. Seafood chowder is a great buy.
Mixed Green Salad and Salad with Shrimp are very good. Black cod was cooked perfectly and Monk fish was “interestingâ€Â. No wine yet, but they did have beer. Might be worth checking into to see if there is still more room tonite.
Fish & chips fans, rejoice — The Sunfish shutdown, though a few days longer than first projected, is over.
The restaurant taking over the ex-Ovio space in The Junction has finally pulled the wraps off its website (menu info here, explanation of its name here) — and it’s opening for business this Friday, after a shakedown cruise Thursday, announced in this e-mail sent out early today and forwarded by a WSB reader (thank you!):
Well, we are finally ready to open! We know it’s very last minute, but we wanted to thank you for your interest and offer you a chance to come in, say hello, and sample our fare before we officially open our doors this Friday. So if you are in the neighborhood and in an “adventurous†mood, we would love to have you RSVP and come in for our Pre-Opening Dinner on Thursday, October 18th.
Why “adventurous?†Well, because Thursday will be our first night serving a full menu and our last night of staff training, so there are bound to be a few glitches and surprises. For example, we are still waiting on our liquor license, so we may not be able to offer full bar service, but we are going to try to get our license by then. But if you are just a little bit patient and understanding, you will get a sneak peek at our totally remodeled interior and be one of the first to taste our new menu offerings.
And we will give you 50% off your food for being adventurous. Seating is limited, available only to those who have previously registered with us at www.Ama-AmaSeattle.com. And only those with reservations will be allowed in the restaurant this Thursday. So please RSVP today!
We hope to see you Thursday – or sometime soon.
We are extremely excited to meet all of you!
Rob and Paige
Took a little longer than the family that runs the restaurant expected, but the fire repairs and remodeling are complete and tonight, the sign in the window of the Beach Drive bistro reads “OPEN,” and La Rustica is serving customers once more.
Sunfish on Alki was posted as “closed Sept. 11 to Oct. 11.” It’s the 11th, and the sign’s gone, but they’re not open. Maybe that just meant “through” Oct. 11. We’ll check back tomorrow. Also, La Rustica hasn’t reopened yet, though as we reported earlier this week, the family says they’re determined to be open again in time for a big group that’s got a reservation for Saturday.
So sorry to disappoint the folks who have been e-mailing us asking if the remodel at the 35th/Avalon KFC is going to add a franchise from KFC’s sister brands, such as Taco Bell or A&W. We just checked with the regional offices of Harman Management, the owner/franchisee. Regional director John Margo was out but a spokesperson for him told us there are NO plans to make that location more than a KFC. They say the remodel (here’s all the specifics, from the city permit files, on exactly what it involves) is moving along well, though they are not sure how much longer it will take.
A member of the family that runs the well-regarded Beach Drive Italian restaurant La Rustica had told us they hoped to reopen last night, after adding some remodeling work to the repairs following last month’s small fire. However, the work’s not quite done yet, so LR was still closed last night; our family contact says they are “working hard to open ASAP,” adding “the kitchen remodel is looking great!” and noting they have a big reservation for Saturday night & “intend to keep that reservation.”
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