FullTilt
Wow. There is so much going on here. First of all, we need to thank all of you for your interest and support. This first weekend has been wonderful, and the best part is absolutely meeting all these people that are our neighbors!
Justin and I moved to White Center about 4 years ago and fell in love with the neighborhood immediately. We have lived in Belltown, Capitol Hill, Pioneer Square, West Seattle and Vashon. The crime in White Center exists, but it is not nearly as bad or in your face as some other areas. Yet no one hesitates to go out in downtown Seattle…so why is White Center so scary?
We eat and shop here (ask us for food recommendations when you come in-the deli next door to us is soooo good!), we are part of the White Center Arts Alliance, we attend monthly community meetings, Justin has been involved in bringing bands to the area, and I teach at a local high school. With all this, and now Full Tilt, we have met so many people that make up the White Center community. All of them -whether they run a school or retaurant or porn shop- that are active in the community do so because we want similar things. We want our community to be supportive, inspiring, and encouraging. We want our kids to have wonderful experiences and opportunities. Please don’t make assumptions about the people of this community before you get the chance to meet them.
I am familiar with the Deno’s situation on Madison, and I know that the key problem there was that the owners of the business allowed criminal activity to happen in front of their doors. Stan’s doesn’t do that-in fact there is absolutely no one loitering outside his shop (okay, today a kid on a fancy long skateboard was lingering…). No one hangs out in front of the pawn shops (and by the way if you do get robbed the pawn shops will keep an eye out for your stuff to help get it back). Every Saturday night there are several off-duty cops and some on duty cops hanging out in front of the dance club because the owner works with the police to make sure things are under control. The negative activity those nights is at Shucks-people leave the club to drink in the parking lot. The club owners have tried to place security at the lot, but they cannot control everyone in the area-UW certainly does not take responsibility for every drunk leaving a football game.
Anyway, please look into these situations and help be part of the solution if they concern you. The next S. Delridge/White Center community safety meeting is at St. James church this Thurs, 6-8 (9421 18th Ave SW. 206 767-0760). There is always yummy food and fantastic people. Unfortunately I can’t make this one because my mother is flying into town that night.
And as for customer service, well, we want to work hard to make great ice cream and have a fun place to hang out. We want to encourage creativity and community, and a big part of that is responding to feedback and collaboration. But we will never make everyone happy, and we can’t change every business in the neighborhood. We don’t want to. We love White Center, and hope that you will find it as remarkable as we do. We hope that Full Tilt will help encourage people to be out and about-the presence of people doing legal things is the best way to displace crime. If someone perceives that as a problem, well, I know this great ice cream place in West Seattle…