It’s late in June and yet it’s cold and pouring rain all day long. This is more like February weather than what a lot of the country thinks of as mid Summer. But here in Seattle the saying is, “Summer doesn’t start until after the 4th of July. But then that’s just a week away and there’s no sign of endless warm days in sight.

Maybe that’s why the cafe culture has taken hold so strongly in Seattle. I am here on Capitol Hill at Top Pot Doughnuts, and in here it is warm and dry, there is fabulous coffee, music, and some of the best doughnuts around. This is a truly wonderful place to be on a rainy day. Top Pot Doughnuts at Summit Ave. E. and Mercer Street is in it’s own little mini neighborhood nestled under giant trees that add a coziness that would be hard to match anywhere. This is a very dense residential neighborhood but there are big trees and gardens all around, and Top Pot is a wonderful collecting point for the folks who live around here. I am happy to say that I am one of them.

Top Pot’s neighbors include Spike Mafford Photography, Sun Liquors, Toscana Pizza, The Summit Tavern, Cairo ( an arts shop), Indian Summer (second hand shop), and a little corner market called Summit Foods. There is outdoor seating for Top Pot and the two drinking establishments which make this little set of shops among the most inviting places in the city.

Top Pot Doughnuts now has 3 locations, but this is where it began 10 years ago. They have a much larger location in downtown Seattle and another one out in the burbs somewhere (Wedgewood). Originally they used to make their doughnuts here in this small shop, but have since moved that to the downtown store. They also roast their own coffee beans downtown. But I think this Capitol Hill location is where it’s heart and soul still reside, even though the other two may be bigger and busier.

The walls are completely made up of bookshelves which are filled with old books. Nobody ever reads any of the books that I know of, but they sure do add to a comfortable atmosphere. Most of the time there is a sprinkling of people here chatting or sitting with their Apple laptops. On the weekends and earlier in the mornings there is a line out the door. The evenings are mellow and it’s a good place to sit and get some writing done. There is a huge awning out front that covers the whole sidewalk and several tables under it that make it a fabulous place to sit even when the weather isn’t the greatest.

This isn’t a place for tourists. Broadway, the “main street” of Capitol Hill is a few blocks away up a steep hill. This is a place for the people who live around here. It is a treasure for this neighborhood. And in some ways it, along with its neighboring shops, define what life is like here on Summit Ave. E.. And what a fine life it is.

Joe Bar Cafe

What can I say about my favorite place in the universe. I have been coming to this place nearly every day for the last 15 years. I used to live just around the corner, and the Joe Bar was where I first met my neighbors. I moved away to another neighborhood briefly, but eventually I had to come back. I have decided that as long as I am living in Seattle, it will be as close the the Joe Bar as possible. Now I am living just 3 blocks away. For me, and many others who live arund here, it is the community gathering place.

This neighborhood is not just any Seattle neighborhood. Capitol Hill is the primary and largest of all of Seattle’s neighborhoods. Though there are some really great neighborhoods in the city, Capitol Hill is the heart and soul of the city. It is where the the energy of the city comes together, and where it’s character originates from. Whatever “scene” there is in Seattle, Capitol Hill is where it is. It is the densest of all the neighborhoods and has cheap apartments, multi-million dollar mansions, and everything in between. It is so progressive that 97% of the residents voted for Obama in 2008. Broadway is the “main street” of Capitol Hill, and at the north end, the dense urban part of the Hill gives way to super high-end homes. Right at the transition from urban to mansion is the Joe Bar Cafe.

The Joe Bar is tucked just around the corner from the north end of Broadway and right across the street from the Harvard Exit Theater. There is a huge tree that completely covers the street and adds to the coziest atmosphere of any cafe in the whole city. There is nothing nicer than sitting outside at one of the Joe Bar’s tables on a quiet Sunday afternoon with a cappuccino and a crepe. Spend enough time here and before long you will meet the wonderful people who call this beautiful part of town home.

The Joe Bar Cafe serves great coffee drinks, of coarse,and an assortment of sweet snacks like muffins and cookies. But it also serves made-in-heaven crepes, soups, and sandwiches. They have some of the best wine and beer too, which make a warm summer evening sitting outside one of those moments in life to savor.

Some would come here and feel the coziness of the place and think that this, and the big tree over it all, are where the Joe Bar gets its magic. But from someone who has been a local for most of his adult life, I know that the real charm comes from the fabulous people who live around here and call the Joe Bar their third space.

There is something special too about the space itself. It not only feels really comfortable, but spend any time at all here and you will surely find yourself in a wonderful conversation with someone you didn’t know when you walked in. Truly, this is the reason why I have kept coming here over the years.

The staff are friends with everyone. Everyone knows the staff, and the staff knows everyone. You will always get a warm inviting genuine greeting when you walk in the door. They are as deep a part of this neighborhood as any local. And a lot of the staff are locals too.

There’s no shortage of other cafes in the neighborhood. Indeed there is the massive Roy Street Coffee and Tea less than 50 feet away. But the Joe Bar Cafe is where you come to meet, and become part of, the neighborhood. I have been to many American cities, and traveled to many other counties, but I have yet to find anywhere that I feel more at home than in the neighborhood at the north end of Broadway. And the Joe Bar Cafe is the heart and soul of this wonderful neighborhood.

Have a cappuccino and a crepe and I’ll meet you at the Joe Bar.

Joe Bar Cafe – Home of the One Eared Rabbit

Pier 57 Ferris Wheel

 

Since April, Seattle has been watching the construction of a fabulous new white ferris wheel on Pier 57 of the downtown waterfront.  What a beautiful thing it is!  When it’s finished late in June or early July 2012, it will be open all year around and will take riders 200 feet in the air.  The developer, Hal Griffith, who also owns Pier 57, wanted something to keep people coming to the waterfront during the 5 year demolition of the viaduct and construction of the new waterfront tunnel.   Everyone I’ve talked to thinks it is wonderful.

My friends and I wanted to get a great view of the nearly complete Pier 57 Ferris Wheel, so we decided that a quick ferry ride to Bainbridge Island and back would be perfect.  As we pulled away from the dock, the downtown rose up behind the ferris wheel in such a grand way.  The white of the ferris wheel was in stark contrast to the downtown buildings and clearly stands out even from the other side of the Puget Sound at the Bainbridge Island Ferry Terminal.  What a glorious thing for Seattle.  I, for one, am super excited for it to open, and I will be among the first to take a ride.

I think this is a really great thing for the waterfront.  I hope people will love it and ride it a lot when it is open.  It would be great to build a companion roller coaster along the waterfront too once the tunnel project is done.    Seattle has the opportunity to do something truly amazing and world class with it’s waterfront in the next few years.  This beautiful Pier 57 Ferris Wheel is a really great start!

Update: This is now being called the Seattle Great Wheel.

Pier 57 Ferris Wheel

(originally published 2007)

After we made our way through town to the downtown peninsula, the first thing we did was to check into our room on the 24^th floor of the Blue Horizon Hotel on the famous Robson street. I’ve rarely been in buildings above the 2^nd or 3^rd floors, so the 24^th floor seemed like a pretty crazy height and I instantly got vertigo when we opened the drapes. The view of the city and English Bay was magnificent, but I had visions of the whole side of the hotel crumbling away due to a bizarre engineering miscalculation that just happened to become disastrously apparent right when we entered the room. People would be talking for years and years about the day the beautiful blue-tiled high-rise came tumbling down, and I could see my picture on a little make-shift memorial a couple of blocks away where everyone remembered the missing victims of the “Blue Horizon disaster.” Maybe they would find my ring or one of my teeth for identification. The Blue Horizon is 30 floors tall and we were very nearly at the top.

Welcome to Vancouver, B. C. where high-rise living has become a signature of the city. The downtown peninsula is covered with tall buildings giving it a very “big city” feeling. This is intentional. Back in the 1950’s, 60’s and 70’s, the pot-smoking hippies and the academics put their ideas together and the result was something called “Vancouverism,” a radical idea where people live, work and play all in the same neighborhood. They undertook to fight against the way the automobile had transformed other major cities. They were successful in defeating all the huge highway plans that would have run mighty elevated roads into the city’s core. They dreamed of a perfect urban life where tall shiny office towers and condos rose out of beautiful gardens and where people walked, cycled and rode public transportation to work. They dreamed utopian dreams and today Vancouverism is alive and well. Over the last 20 years dozens and dozens of tall shiny buildings have risen out of it’s lush green gardens and given it a gleaming modern skyline where Vacouverites can live in a rich inviting community.

The hotel room had a small balcony for those insane enough to actually want to be outside this high up. Jennifer noticed a cigarette butt and opened the sliding door, picked up the butt and threw it over the railing. “Isn’t the view incredible!” she said.

It was. It was one of the most spectacular views I’ve ever seen.

The Blue Horizon rises up from Robson Street, probably the most famous street in Vancouver. If you’re urgently in need of the latest urban fashion thing or are just so tragically hip that the thought of walking down an unfashionable street rubs you’re oddly faded jeans the wrong way, then Robson Street is the place for you. It’s the place to see and be seen. Put on your latest $400 pair of shoes and your new $800 sweater and take a stroll. You won’t be the only one. Robson Street is packed with people; people shopping for the latest cool thing, people wearing the latest cool thing, and people like me, just enjoying the spectacle of it all. I love streets like this. I love seeing so many people drawn to the same place for a reason other than a big event like a sports game, a circus, or a train wreck. It’s just the energy of the place that attracts everyone. And not everyone is there to buy stuff. I’d say most of the people are there just to be there – the hip shops are just taking advantage of fact that there are so many people.

Start at about Howe Street and walk along Robson taking it in, drinking it in like a rich human soup. Let the energy around you soak in as you walk along and soon you will feel right at home. You don’t have to buy anything to appreciate Robson Street, just be there. There are several coffee shops, bars and restaurants with outdoor seating right on the sidewalk and these are great places to relax and do some great people watching.

As you walk toward Vancouver’s great Stanley Park, Robson Street will begin to change. This is actually the part of Robson that I like the best. Soon you will notice the shops have Japanese, Chinese and Korean signs and the smell of seriously good food starts to fill the air. The fashion scene suddenly is nowhere to be found and an inner peace will start to make you feel very at ease no matter what you felt like a few blocks back.

There is a Blendz Coffee on the corner of Robson and Cardero that has an outdoor patio. This is an excellent place to sit back with a cappuccino and feel like a local. Look around and you will notice people reading books, newspapers, talking with friends and just generally living well. There is contentment and satisfaction with life in their eyes and in their voices. It’s true that these are not poor people, but they aren’t rich either. They are people who have chosen, and figured out how, to live a comfortable urban life. With all the tall residential towers and the gardens, it all looks pretty good to me as I sit sipping on my cappuccino.