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When Burke Shethar, a real estate appraiser by profession, opened the Madrona Easter & Ale House (1138 34th Ave.) 20 years ago, he was on the leading edge of a transformation in Seattle neighborhoods — from clusters of tiny, service-oriented businesses (dry cleaner, convenience-store grocery, barber shop, gas pump), to broader commercial uses (cafes and diners, clinics, dress shops).
In the intervening years, the neighborhood alehouse, well-lighted and family-friendly, found its place in the Seattle landscape. Here, kids could sit in front of a fireplace, while dad ordered a fish-and-chips and a Manny’s, and mom waited for a chicken-pesto flatbread and a glass of chardonnay. Shethar’s Ale House prospered, as did the businesses around it.
In Madrona today, a block away, the venerable Hi-Spot Café (1410 34th Ave.) continues to serve robust breakfasts. Across the street, celebrity chef Ethan Stowell has turned a difficult space (three owners in five years) into a mid-price steakhouse, Red Cow (1423 34th Ave.). A street-level winery, Wilridge (1416 34th Ave.), is surmounted by a wine-tasting bar that has just renewed its lease (and finally, truth be told, applied for its own liquor license). A much-loved dinner house, St. Clouds (1131 34th Ave.), is humming right along just across the street.
But then it came time to renew the Ale House lease, and the circumstances of a private contract between landlord and tenant became very public, indeed. It’s a drama that went right down to the wire, the outcome in doubt until the very last weekend.
As I reported last month, the question was whether the Madrona Ale House would survive. The absentee landlord had given Shethar notice that the lease would not be renewed, but Shethar interpreted this as the opening gambit in a negotiating strategy, rather than an ultimatum. The threat, he perceived, came from the owners of a wine bar called Bottlehouse (1416 34th Ave.), a block down the street, who needed a new lease (and, even more urgently, a new liquor license).
Much was made, in a neighborhood publication, of a smaller space in the same building occupied by a hairdresser’s salon, who had successfully fought eviction. The landlord, according to Shethar, was interested in leasing the entire building to a single tenant, but Shethar pointed out that expanding his pub, after 20 years, would require an expensive, new sprinkler system, along with other upgrades — more energy than he wanted to expend, in other words. So why not just call it quits and walk away?
Well, it turns out, after much gnashing of teeth, there will, indeed, be new owners for the Madrona Ale House. They will be Peter and Adrianna Johnson, who not only live in Madrona but just happen to own three pubs already: McGilvra’s (4234 E. Madison St.), an Irish pub and restaurant in Madison Park; Finn MacCool’s (4217 University Way N.E.), an Irish “public house” in the University District; and The Chieftain (908 12th Ave.), which calls itself “the best Irish pub in town,” across from Seattle University.
Shethar scheduled farewell parties at the end of July and an auction a couple of days later to sell off the fixtures (including the coolers and the valuable kitchen hood). He vacated the property as of Aug. 1.
Ever the good boss, Shethar lined up jobs for his staff with a bar group in Ballard.
“The reality is sinking in that this 20-year run is coming to an end,” he told me, recognizing that he now has to find a job for himself as well.
The turning tide
Despite this last-minute development, a cynical observation: These neighborhood alehouses are not universally popular. Youngsters don’t always see their fire pits and play areas as quiet zones, don’t always play well together or use their inside voices. The burgers are not always what you’d call “gourmet.”
Yet, these unsung local favorites are often welcome alternatives to break-the-bank, trendy dinner houses — no baby sitter required.
Look what’s surviving: Hilltop Ale House on Queen Anne; the Canterbury in Capitol Hill; Coopers in Lake City; the Traveler in Montlake (launched as the Montlake Ale House by none other than Shethar). The next restaurant from celebrity chef John Howie is an alehouse in Bothell, of all places.
Perhaps the neighborhood alehouse will someday be seen as a transitional institution, in the way that early motel chains displaced fleabag motor hotels, or the first craft breweries challenged Budweiser — a good thing, a cultural inevitability, but with a limited lifespan, not unlike the fern bars of decades past.
In the 20 years of the Madrona Ale House’s existence, many of Seattle’s sleazy dive bars and beer-soaked taverns — relics of the days when this was a blue-collar town — have been self-consciously transformed into tarted-up, retro-chic lounges: Shorty’s, the Comet, Blue Moon. The fishermen’s hangouts in Ballard, the saloons in Georgetown — gone, replaced by craft-cocktail watering holes.
And now, perhaps, the tide has turned again.
The frontline of gentrification, as in most revolutions, is often the most dangerous spot. After a while, the avant-garde is no longer the target of those who (for whatever reason) resist change but becomes a tarnished has-been, and like all has-beens, they have to go.
For the moment, Madrona is spared, but the hammering of recent construction still echoes at 34th Avenue and East Union Street. Vendemmia (1126 34th Ave.) has opened in one of the new condo buildings half a block away.
“Remember when we used to walk to the alehouse, before they tore it down?” Well, they didn’t tear it down after all. It’s saved, for now, before the entire corner becomes condos and sushi.
RONALD HOLDEN is a restaurant writer and consultant who blogs at Cornichon.org and Crosscut.com. To comment on this column, write to MPTimes@nwlink.com.