The small-scale Statue of Liberty monument off Alki Avenue Southwest, on the long, sandy Alki Beach, has bad luck when it comes to vandals. Over the years, the concrete replica has been overturned, and its torch-bearing arm has been broken off several times.
Luckily, across the street from the statue, there's another Alki monument--the Liberty Deli, a nine-year-old New York-style deli, with a full-fledged live theater in the front. The deli's owner, Brooklyn native Tom Ansart, was originally drawn to the location--which was the Alki Bike Shop, then briefly a video store--because of the statue across the street. For years, Ansart has looked after Lady Liberty, seeing to her repairs. Once, the arm was lost, but Ansart found it in the water. "I'm always the one that finds the arm," says Ansart, a quiet, middle-aged guy with a graying mustache. And last year, he helped raise $6,000 to go toward replacing the statue's arm when it was broken off, again.
But starting this week, the statue will need a new patron--Liberty Deli closed on February 16. "Essentially, I'm out of here," Ansart said after meeting with his landlord Monday afternoon to finalize their deal: Ansart would close his business (which he runs with the help of his brother, Bob), while his landlord, Nagui Sayah, would let him off the hook for about $40,000 in back rent.
Now, Ansart's attention is turned to closing his shop: selling the last of the coleslaw, drawing the curtains on two plays (Lettice and Lovage, and Stages of Love: A Special Valentine Cabaret), and clearing out years of theatrical props. "You amass so much over the seasons," says Kady Douglas, a woman with a mane of bright ginger hair. With Ansert, she runs Steeplechase Productions, the theater-production side of Liberty Deli, which specializes in "neo-classical, high-art, quirky kinds of plays." On Valentine's Day, Douglas was toting everything from thrones to theater programs upstairs to an apartment that also serves as the deli's "backstage" until the props can be carted away. Steeplechase Productions will continue--without a home venue--after the restaurant closes.
The closure of Liberty Deli highlights the difficulty of doing business on Alki, in a beach town in the middle of a city. During the winter, business on Alki plummets. "We get three times the customers in the summer. Business booms," Ansart says. While he pulls anywhere from $20,000 to $33,000 a month during the summer--when Alki is bustling with folks playing volleyball, hosting bonfires, and tossing Frisbees near the mini Statue of Liberty--his numbers drop to $12,000 a month by December. A few Alki businesses--notably the skate rental shops--close down entirely for the winter. Others scale back their hours, or cut back on staff. The Alki Cafe Beach Bistro, next door to the Liberty Deli, for example, goes to a lunch-only schedule.
Liberty Deli's closure has been in the works since last spring. Originally, Sayah--the building's landlord--offered to invest in the deli, Ansart explains. Sayah's idea, however, involved "dropping the deli, dropping the theater, and opening a bar," Ansart says. No deal: Ansart spends 90 hours a week at Liberty Deli because he's devoted to the theater, and he wasn't willing to drop it. Soon after, the eviction notices showed up.
"He was behind on the payments," Sayah says. "But everything is clear now." Sayah, who's owned the building for four years, says he doesn't have any firm plans for the space.
In the meantime, Ansart will indulge his passion for theater--currently working on a new French play, Une piéce espagnole.
