Capitol Hill recently lost no fewer than five hangouts in one proverbial fell swoop. The entire half-block on the north side of East Pine Street between Belmont and Summit avenues was shuttered at the end of November. Soon it will all be razed for yet another of those mixed-use megaprojects with market-rate (read: costly) housing and street-level retail (but, the developer insists, NO BARS).
As I wrote in this space a little more than one year ago, when the project was first announced, that block hadn't been a pub-crawling nexus forever.
In the mid-1980s, there was just Glynn's Cove, a dark and dingy dive (even by the standards of pre-microbrew Seattle). I once lived two buildings north from Glynn's Cove, on Belmont, and knew to keep a wide berth from the panhandlers and street drunks who hung out outside the place.
That joint became Squid Row, originally intended as an intimate jazz club. It soon switched allegiances to rock, becoming a vital showplace for the likes of Soundgarden and Mudhoney. You may be old enough this year to visit the space's most recent occupant, Kincora. Except now you can't, because there's no more Kincora.
There's no more Cha Cha there now, either. That place was the anchor of the Belmont bar strip, at least to the musicians and Stranger staffers who'd adopted it as their chief no-cover-charge watering hole.
It first opened in 1998 as an expansion of Bimbo's Bitchen Burrito Kitchen next door. (The Cha Cha space itself had housed a used-clothing boutique, Righteous Rags. Its owner discovered that there was more money to be made in refried beans, and then that there was much more money to be made in highballs.)
In 1999, in between those buildings, a print-shop space that had become the Puss Puss Cafe became Manray, a gay bar all decked out in shiny, off-white, retro-futurism, nostalgia for how the 21st century was envisioned in the early 1960s. Other neo-modern-looking joints would pop up in greater downtown later, but none with Manray's particular blend of formality and homeyness.
In more recent years, a former dry-cleaner's storefront became the Bus Stop, whose dim lights and folksy atmosphere contrasted with Manray's brightness.
The latecomer of the block was a cozy gay bar called Pony. It was only open briefly, after the block's fate was announced. Its own brief life as a business represents another side to development.
Storefronts with limited or uncertain futures are often rented, at cheap month-to-month rates, to entrepreneurs who are still establishing themselves. That's how Greg Lundgren ran his old Vital 5 Gallery; he now co-runs the Hideout art bar on Boren Avenue.
The city's been handing out upzones and incentives to developers to stick multi-story, multi-unit buildings on just about every parcel in the city that's not reserved for single-family homes. The latter constitute, by far, the bulk of Seattle's 96-odd square miles. All over town, blocks that had been zoned commercial are now mixed-use.
But as I wrote in '06, drinks and residences CAN coexist. Particularly in new developments, which (if the developers bother) can be built with enough soundproofing and ventilation.
As Seattle's red-hot real estate market finally shows signs of slowing down, so might these developments. Some of our commercial blocks might remain strictly commercial in the years to come.
In the meantime, there's no lack of places on the Hill at which to publicly display one's contempt for one's liver. Among them are the relocated Bimbo's Cantina on Pike (essentially the old Bimbo's and Cha Cha mushed into one 21-and-over room) and the (finally opened) relocated Elite on Olive Way.
Postscript: One beloved fixture of the old Cha Cha is missing from the new Bimbo's Cantina. It's Kim Warnick, the veteran Fastbacks and Visqueen rock musician and a Cha Cha bartender for several years. She hasn't been able to work in recent months, after undergoing what friends simply call "several surgeries."
Currently, there's a fundraising drive going on to help pay Warnick's medical bills. Pearl Jam singer Eddie Vedder has donated a Telecaster electric guitar to be auctioned off on Warnick's behalf. You can bid on it through Jan. 21 at www.charitybuzz.com.
Clark Humphrey's column appears in the first issue of each month. His long-running Web site on popular culture is www.miscmedia.com. Reach him at editor@capitolhilltimes.com.
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