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Hungry for news? Welcome to our Friday Feed, where we run through all the local food and restaurant news this week—and maybe help you figure out where to eat this weekend.
Stateside’s pork ribs crusted with a blend of cumin and Hunan chilies.
On Leases Lost
This week, Seattle Met 2015 restaurant of the year Stateside announced it (and sibling bar Foreign National) had closed after 11 years on Capitol Hill. Eric Johnson’s culinary ode to the flavors of Vietnam earned national accolades for its upscale offerings like crispy duck rolls, but also the coffee creamsicle and fried chicken. The sudden closure took many by surprise, but the reason cited, per The Seattle Times, shouldn’t.
A lease ending, with or without extensive negotiation leading up to it, is the same thing to which Ravenna Varsity attributed its closing last week, and the Whale Wins before that. Restaurant leases generally run somewhere from five to 10 years, which means we have reached a moment in time where many that were negotiated in the booming era of 2014 to 2020 are due for a re-up—and coinciding with a moment of epically high food and labor costs and a lull in people eating out. Not exactly the kind of conditions that incentivize restaurateurs to sign on for another decade—especially if the landlord is hoping for a rent increase.
The fresh, minimalist room at Stateside worked well with the food.
The absolute number one shared factor I noticed among independent restaurants that survived the depths of the pandemic was a flexible landlord, someone who prioritized having a good local business remain in the space over maximizing rent. As leases signed in 2015 and 2018 come up for renewal, I suspect we’ll be looking at something similar.
Underground Restaurant Scene
Two big-name tenants are coming to a new downtown food hall slated to open next year in the belowground concourse that connects Union Square and Rainier Square, reports Puget Sound Business Journal. Dubbed Skinner Hall, it will feature a new concept from Tomo founder, former Canlis chef, and James Beard Award winner Brady Williams, and a second location of the TikTok-loved Pioneer Square Saigon Drip Café. Tenants for the remaining four restaurant spaces are yet to be announced.
Buongiorno Belli
Writing a novel and owning a restaurant are two of the easiest things to fail at, but Tim McDonald impressively forges ahead at both. The once-former restaurateur behind Brunello left the restaurant world behind in 2023 to pen a novel called Occhi Belli, but returns with a small plates wine bar of the same name in Wallingford, opening later this month.
Mint Condition
Seattle Met favorite Mojito made its long-awaited move from the small triangle nearly hanging over I-5 near Lake City Way to bigger digs on Roosevelt Way about half mile north of the original.
Bye, Ballard
Bickersons Brewhouse announced that its Ballard location will shutter at the end of this month, due to unfortunate circumstances: Co-owner Shaunn Siekawitch has been diagnosed with advanced stage cancer. The Renton location will continue to operate.
Oh, BTW, here’s what you missed last week.
