As everyone knows, Seattle only has two seasons, wet and dry. Many Seattleites enjoy dry days—sunny weather perfect for hiking, and mountains that come back on the horizon like old friends. But wet days have their pleasures too. It’s time to hunker down, don your hoodies, and zip up your quarter-zip fleeces all the way. IPA weather, soup weather, a cup of soup or warm coffee in your hand. These humid days, which will be upon us before we know it, are the comfortable days.
This is a preview of a cozy little fall restaurant. The cafés, restaurants, and bakeries on this list are more familiar than pioneering models. It expands, revives and in one case a pop-up finds a well-deserved permanent home. This probably reflects the fact that the restaurant industry is difficult for new entrants to break into at the moment. But it’s not as if these places are safe either. They have ambitions to be community centres, to introduce the city to new flavours, and to be places that come from the wet and are welcomed.
Atoma
This is a new restaurant from Sarah and Johnny Courtney, former executive chef at… Canlis; It will occupy the converted house in Wallingford that was home to innovative organic restaurant Tilth. But we’re not here to read Attoma’s autobiography. Our excitement about this comes from tasting Courtney’s food at his pop-ups this year. His dishes highlight seasonal ingredients, but in new ways—we’re still thinking about the delicious rose cake with cheese, garlic powder, and scallions we ate in May. Unlike pop-ups, brick-and-mortar will have an a la carte menu. (For the indecisive, there will be a tasting menu option as well.) The first wave of reservations will be released on October 20 at noon, and will likely go quickly based on how popular these pop-ups are.
Title: 1411 N. 45th Street in Wallingford
Expected opening date: November 2
Lady Jay Café and Bakery
This bakery has a unique origin story: Charlie Garrison, one of the owners of Lady Jay’s BBQ in West Seattle, started out baking cookies and other sweets for the West Seattle Farmers Market. Chocoban cupcakes, amazing coconut cupcakes, Rice Krispy treats made with Raffles flakes – it’s all It attracted such a fan base Garrison is now transitioning the operation into its own independent space.
Title: 309 Cloverdale Street (in the Cloverdale Business Park) in South Park
Expected opening date: By September 18th
Xóm
Cuong Nguyen moves quickly. The 27-year-old restaurateur came to Seattle from Vietnam in 2005 with his parents, and after working at their pho restaurant as a teenager, he struck out on his own, opening Ong Lam Bistro in Roosevelt earlier this year. now, Capitol Hill Seattle Blog reports, he’s launching Xóm in the Chophouse Row space recently vacated by Bruce Naftali’s Marmite company. The new restaurant will feature “dishes you can’t find anywhere else” and will seek to attract Vietnamese immigrants as well as non-Vietnamese, Nguyen told CHS. He’s planning a grand opening, complete with a lion dance and perhaps fireworks, by mid-October.
Title: 1424 11th Avenue in Capitol Hill
Expected opening date: Mid-October
Lioness
After some delays, Renee Erickson’s Sea Creatures is set to open its new restaurant this fall in the Shared Roof building that’s also home to Ben’s Bread, Doe Bay Wine Company and Holy Mountain Brewing’s taproom. It will be an Italian wine bar serving small plates and shared meats (and oysters, of course). The small plates at other Erickson restaurants like Walrus, Carpenter and Willmott’s Ghost are worth a repeat visit, and we’re sure the same is true at Lioness.
Title: 7009 Greenwood Avenue in Phinney Ridge
Expected opening date: Late October or early November
Kilic
The new restaurant from Musang’s Melissa Miranda, one of Seattle’s true culinary stars, doesn’t fool around. It will specialize in bulalo, a soup made from beef braised and boned until the marrow dissolves into the broth, and pancit, a dish of noodles and vegetables. Kilig — named after a Tagalog word meaning a feeling of euphoria brought about by a transcendent or romantic experience — will be more casual than Musang, and is scheduled to open soon.
Title: 710 South 8th Avenue in Chinatown-International District
Expected opening date: To be determined later
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Black coffee northwest
It’s been an unfortunately eventful few months for Black Coffee Northwest, which was a premium black-owned coffee shop in Shoreline. After a dispute with its owner (the details of which are still a bit hazy), the café closed abruptly on June 17. That was just weeks after the owners, Darneisha and Erwin Weary, announced they were taking over the place in Jackson. The 23rd, which used to be a Starbucks. BCNW has since opened a location on the North Seattle College campus, but this new café in the heart of the historically black Central District will begin a new chapter for the business, which serves coffee but also offers youth programs and other nonprofit work.
Title: Corner of Jackson Street and 23rd Street South in the Central District
Expected opening date: To be determined later
Marjorie
After closing her legendary Capitol Hill restaurant in March, Donna Moodie was supposed to open a new place called Boujie Bar in the Midtown Square area. But she changed her mind, and Announce In fact this restaurant will be “Marjorie 3.0” (Marjorie 1.0 was originally in Belltown). So, the Central District is hosting another reopening – expect some delicious chicken and the best banana chips in town.
Title: Corner of 23rd Street and Al-Ittihad Street in the Central District
Expected opening date: To be determined later
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