West Seattle, Washington
11 Monday
Two Three (adding one since original post) questions arrived in the e-mailbox today. We have some thoughts on the first two but not a clue on the second third, so we’re throwing them out to the wonderful WSB readership to answer via comments on this post:
#1 — A new WS arrival wants to plant a vegetable garden and is looking for advice on “good times to plant, and good vegetables that thrive here.” (We had success with cabbage, lettuce, and spinach some years back. Planting time would be now, though, since those are mostly cool-season veggies. What else?)
#2 (added 10:16 pm) — A local family is moving from one WS location to another and plans to handle it themselves. Recommendations for who to use for trucks/etc. for self-moving? (We had a good experience with the 35th/Morgan U-Haul, but that was loooong ago.)
#3 — Someone else reports a woodpecker “attacking” their house. For now, they put a rock in the resulting hole (photo below), but they’re wondering what else they can do to discourage it from further attacks.
The day we reported Bikes & Brew’s impending demise, we got a note saying Backstage Thrift also is closing. Couldn’t verify it ourselves at the time but now we’ve received another report and photographic proof. Reader “Luckie,” who sent these photos, says the shopkeeper told her they’re closing their Capitol Hill location too and will continue the 50% off “going out of business” sale through month’s end:
From the “triangle” where Delridge cuts between 16th/17th before Roxbury, a former auto shop is transforming into what city records describe as “West Seattle Bible Church”:
Further north on Delridge, the neon sign for the sister shop to Bubbles is up and running (our camera disc decided not to capture it, sorry); not far away, in the 5600 block of Delridge, a former roofing business also appears to be morphing into a “coffee shop”:
Flyers on the window at Bikes & Brew, west of Easy Street in The Junction, are advertising its liquidation sale, saying that B & B is going out of business. SUNDAY UPDATE: Bikes & Brew replied to the e-mail we sent seeking further details; here’s what they wrote:
We will be open for the next several Saturdays from 10 am to 2 pm selling everything in the shop. Lots of people showed up yesterday so it looks like the last Saturday that we are open will probably be in early May. Please tell your readership that we thank them for their support over the past few years.
-One person who now declares herself an ex-Admiral Safeway customer because of the parking crackdown says the parking patrollers are marking tires. So, she wonders, what if you happen to spend an extra-long time in the store?
-Another reader wrote to ask the nearby Sanctuary At Admiral what they’re doing about parking, and got back a note from its owner, saying its guests have permission to park in the Safeway back lot. OK, so, now we have exceptions for them, Lafayette Elementary, and the senior citizen field trips. Who else?
Looks like Admiral Safeway has budged a little from its hard line against non-shoppers using its parking lots. We were just forwarded this snippet from a bulletin sent to Lafayette Elementary families by the principal:
I have spoken to Steve Rood, the Manager of Safeway. He assured me
that Lafayette parents can continue to use back (south) parking lot for up
to 2 hours for drop-off and pick-up. Also, if we have an evening event,
with prior notice, we can continue to use the Safeway parking lot.ÂÂ
-Another one of our looming megaprojects gets its Design Review Board closeup this Thursday: 4729 42nd SW, aka Soon-To-Be-Ex-Parking-Lot Behind Soon-To-Be-Ex-Petco, aka Ex-Monorail Land.
-Make sure your calendar’s marked for the big meeting a week from Wednesday at Charlestown Cafe, which folks are trying to save from the fate of becoming future home to Soon-To-Be-Ex-Petco.
-Jumping back down to The Junction, we heard concerns a while back from the neighbors of 4515 41st SW, more “mixed use” creeping into a residential neighborhood. Its next Design Review Board spotlight comes up April 12.
-Now hopscotching back up toward Admiral, we got a note recently from a neighbor who wonders if anyone else cares about the phenomenon of creeping commercialism spilling further inland from Cali. This neighbor lives near the beauty salon across from the far corner of PCC’s lot, west of McDonald’s, and contends zoning only allows a home-based business, not a business-focused house with big signs. The neighbor says a zoning inspector ruled the signs could stay because they don’t have text — they’re considered “art.” They’re campaigning to get the businessperson to tone down the signs.
-Finally, another reader points out that the ex-Christian Science church north of the Hiawatha playground, east of Safeway Parking Smackdown Ground Zero, has relatively recently transitioned into something called Sanctuary At Admiral, giving The Hall At Fauntleroy (among other venues) a run for its money.
First we saw a warning posted on one Admiral Junction store’s door this morning; then we got e-mail from another shop … so this is new and could get ugly. 
See the sign at left? At least a dozen are now planted all around the parking lots on three sides of Admiral Safeway. And the fine print, “monitored by employees of Diamond Parking 24 hours a day,” is no idle threat. As neighboring businesses are warning their customers, those DP employees are writing tickets. The photo below shows one in action on the south side of Safeway (bad news for families from Lafayette Elementary across the street). The parking situation in Admiral has been tough for a while; right or wrong, this won’t make it any easier.
Or so it appears, at the only motel in West Seattle, where the Travelodge sign is now tarped over. Tried calling; no answer. Checked the Travelodge website; it says only “dates for this property are not available on our system at this time.” Hmm. (On a somewhat-related note, why IS that the only motel or hotel in WS? We kinda get the Alki angst over the lodging proposal there, but surely there is room somewhere within our borders for a nice non-B&B place to stay … you’d think. We had one a century ago!)
Some facade fine-tuning in The Junction: Bakery Nouveau
has finally erased the last traces of the previous occupant from its awning (left); Divina‘s front sign (right) is temporarily missing while some roof work is under way.
A reader e-mailed us with word that Retroactive Kids is leaving its space north of Morgan Junction and moving to Columbia City; the store’s site and blog (with construction pix from the new space) confirm it. Perhaps no surprise, since the three-business building it’s in has been for sale for a while.
The WS Farmers’ Market is on hiatus till April, but there’s still somewhere to load up on great produce for cheap — we just noticed Tony’s is back from its winter break! Sample of today’s prices — 69 cents per huge head of garlic, less than a buck for a head of lettuce (half the current grocery store price).
You might have noticed this sign that just went up in The Junction, over Matador. Seems to be a personal-training franchise, according to this press release (the company’s own site isn’t working at the moment.)
Maybe this is how all car salesperson “help wanted” ads read. But the “no experience” part could probably be subtitled, “especially not if you have HB on your resume.”
Quiet night, weather’s turned miserable again, nothing in WS seems to be making news right about now. So how about a little discussion? Tell us about your favorite shop (non-food/beverage, please, we’ve talked about all THAT enough for a while) in The Junction. We’ll start — Pegasus Book Exchange. You can take in books to sell, and you get credit applicable to part of the price of anything there you want to buy, same day or even years into the future. So what’s your fave? Leave a comment!
Yes, we know new owners have taken over Huling. But the fallout from the recent scandal continues, in little ways as well as big, such as this blogger deciding to finally write, in furious detail, about a previous experience at the dealership.
-As a couple people wrote to tell us, a “retirement sale” is now under way at Leslie’s, just south of Spiro’s.
-The construction site at Westwood Village now has a banner up promising GIANNONI’S PIZZA (different from the website spelling but we still can’t figure out who’s behind it), COMING SOON, PIZZA BY THE SLICE.
-Lots of signs of progress as Garlic Jim’s Pizza in The Junction gets ready to open next month, including a NOW HIRING sign.
-Just up the block from there, facade work is under way at the ex-Bobby’s Hobbies, future (apparently) bakery.
-Today’s supposed to be the last day for Hollywood Video at 41st & Alaska (mixed-use megaproject coming soon).
Yet more details in a long investigative Times article today, suggesting criminal and unethical activity among employees at Huling went far beyond the infamous case that broke wide open last month. (Last part of the story says the new owners “will not try to undo the sale” but are accelerating the sign-changing process, though we haven’t seen anything new since what we posted two weeks ago.)
Not the owner of a business that’s moved out, if you are interested in its old space, apparently. Got e-mail from Emerald City Locksmith, which (as we mentioned last week) has left its JuNo — sorry, we mean, north-of-Junction-location. The e-mailer claims to be getting besieged by calls and respectfully asks everyone to please stop, so (he?) can finish working on the move to a new Harbor Ave location. If you’re interested in the space, the e-mail goes on to say, Landlord Management Inc. is who to call, NOT ECL.
Construction appears to be starting at the Gionnoni’s Pizza (STILL don’t know who they are)/Taco Del Mar site at Westwood Village. Noticed tonight that a fence is up (where a tree lot stood weeks ago), with a construction trailer and Honey Bucket on hand too.
If we can have NoMo and SOA, why not JuNo — north of The Junction? Anyway, an e-mail tip alerted us to empty storefronts we hadn’t previously noted. Emerald City Locksmith is gone, but window postings promise they’ll unlock a new location on Harbor Ave in March; Fringe salon is just plain gone, with FOR LEASE signs outside the space (which has had other names), as well as a land-use alert (townhouses, of course) dating back to last August.
The folks behind the Four Aims Center, at the site of the ex-Cat’s Eye Cafe just north of Lincoln Park, just sent word their grand-opening party is now set for Feb. 11.
The car lots’ new owners seem to have accelerated their signage program in the past few days … first the electronic signboard at Alaska/Fauntleroy, now these banners:
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