West Seattle, Washington
18 Monday
We appreciate Robert Jamieson’s P-I columns sometimes, but clearly he doesn’t know the paradigm is that us blogger types are supposed to run around commenting on the paper, not the other way around. Searching for a column idea in a slow news week, he lands today on our Pagliacci delivery-limits discussion. (Nice the company responded to him but not to us.) Anyway, the same guy who defended Mars Hill’s misogynist main man just a wink of time ago is now defending Pagliacci. Sorry, the “seven-minute rule” doesn’t wash (seven minutes to get from The Junction to any place south of Cali & Morgan? in a horse-drawn cart?). We personally don’t think we’re aced out for economics (our own humble shack is a lone island of affordability among a slew of expensive view homes), just non-business sense (what’s the BS about a “cold, soggy pie,” when other outlets further north can get a hot one to us just fine?) — Mr. Columnist implies that the classism claim is the only complaint here and chides us for it, yet this was included in only TWO comments out of more than 50 on the two posts where we’ve had this discussion (#1 here, #2 here). But at least Pagliacci, in his column, has removed any hope they’ll be delivering to us south WS’ers. Welcome, Garlic Jim’s!
The Huling/Gee sightings below aren’t the only notable sign activity under way. In The Junction, Jak’s Grill seems to be in transition between awnings; if you look really close at where the awning used to be, you’ll see the old KRESS AND CO. name in the masonry (city historic link here). And a bit further north, the Garlic Jim’s sign is up:
Along with updates on menu items and special events, the latest e-mail newsletter from West 5 features a warning about being careful where you park behind that block of Junction businesses (excerpted in full after the jump):Read More
According to a construction permit just issued for the former Bobby’s Hobbies (across from Pagliacci/Clementine), a bakery is taking over the site. The permit lists only a fancy architect as “applicant.” Seems like The Junction is already bakery-laden enough that perhaps a flour wholesaler should be moving in next.
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.)
… 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.)
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.)
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.”)
… 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.
-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!)
–
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
Reader “The House” tells us the Design Review Board meeting for the project (described as a “one-story retail building”) proposed at the Charlestown Cafe site is coming up next week. The applications with the city say this architecture firm is involved. If you’ll recall, the P-I hinted this maybe possibly might be the mystery Trader Joe’s site, but we haven’t seen anything public about what’s planned for the project — should find out at this “early design guidance” meeting, if not sooner. (As for the Charlestown operators, one site visitor mentioned an unverified report they might have been seen checking out the Alki space next to Cactus; anybody got more on that?)
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?
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.
Happened onto this delectable description of a meal at Taqueria Guaymas in The Junction. Only omission, the jalapeno carrot slices at the otherwise-well-described salsa bar. Spectacular. (WS trivia, did you know that TG actually started in WS?)
-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.
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.
We can’t resist noting you read about Bakery Nouveau (in the ex-Borracchini space) and Beato (in the ex-O2 space) here first … BUT … props to the P-I for dishing up new details on both in tomorrow’s paper.
… 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.)
We know you’ll be slugging your way thru the supermarket aisles sometime this weekend, looking ahead to the cookingest holiday of them all. One more pitch for turkey donations to local food banks … the White Center Food Bank still needs ’em; a reasonably sized frozen turkey won’t set you back much scratch, and you can drop it off Monday 8:30-5. (Don’t know about the WS Food Bank; tried calling, nobody answered.) By the way, for your shopping convenience, here are links to nearby grocery stores’ latest ad flyers: Morgan Junction Thriftway … Westwood Village QFC … Metropolitan Market … Safeway … Burien Fred Meyer.
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).
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.
| 29 COMMENTS