Find Restaurants »
Recommended Events
-
Oola's Citrus Vodka Release Party
Oola Distillery- Thurs May 24, 6–9 pm.
-
Puget Soundkeeper Alliance '90s Party
Sole Repair- Thurs May 24 at 9 pm.
-
Sunday Mixology Class: Gin
Tini Bigs Lounge- Sun May 27 at 4 pm.
Popular and Recommended Restaurants
- Ballet (Capitol Hill)
- Boat Street Cafe (Downtown)
- Sitting Room (Queen Anne)
- In the Bowl (Capitol Hill)
- 5 Point Cafe (Belltown)
Chow Links
- Accidental Hedonist
- Budget Bytes
- Cakespy
- Cask Strength
- Chef Reinvented (Becky Selengut's Blog)
- Cornichon
- Dinegerous: Awesome Health Dept. Data
- Edible Seattle
- Green Plate Special
- Herbivoracious
- Jim Drohman's Blog
- Mike Easton's Charcuterie
- Seattle Beer News
- Shut Down! Seattle Health Dept. Restaurant Closures
- The Pacific Northwest Cheese Project
- The Pedestretarian
- Thirsty Sisters
- Washington Beer Blog
Previously in Food & Drink
Chow on
Slog
News & ArtsChow
Wednesday, May 23, 2012
Chow More Devastating Sandwich News
Posted by Bethany Jean Clement on Wed, May 23, 2012 at 2:50 PM

Last week, a terrible thing happened: The I Love New York Deli in the U-District closed (with outcry in comments over here).
Now we have learned that, horribly, the original I Love New York Deli in the Pike Place Market is also gone, gone, gone, as of this past Sunday.
I just had a rather heartbreaking conversation with owner Jon Jacobs. He was at his Big Apple Deli in Maple Valley, which remains open. Among other factors in the closures, he mentioned that his meat costs had nearly doubled. "We tried raising the price 25 cents and people went insane," he said. "Look at the price of gas versus seven years ago... and I wasn't going to cut back on quality." He says the micro-neighborhood of the U-District shop, which opened near Scarecrow Video in summer 2009, has suffered mightily because of the economy and construction in the area this past winter (as noted in comments here—and it was arguably never a great location in terms of foot traffic in any case). "Business really dropped off," he said, "a lot of businesses had trouble—the hot dog place went out of business—they've been there forever. Five businesses went under."
"It sucks, but there's nobody to blame but myself," Jacobs said. "Financially, it just wasn't feasible anymore. It just got to be where it was ridiculous... You just get to a point sometimes where you just can't fight anymore."
"Those were the love of my life, those stores," he said. "You get behind in the rent, and you just can't catch up."
Jacobs mentioned filing for bankruptcy (the Maple Valley store is a separate entity). "I don't want it to be this way," he said. "Those days that i was at the Market, I loved those days. This is the hardest time of my life... if I could pay the bills right now, I would. I know I'm not the only one, but I feel like I am. I work 20 hours a day—I work my ass off. It's really hard."
Meanwhile, Jacobs is trying to negotiate a lease on a space on the Ave to resurrect the U-District store, which would involve a loan from his father.
Monday, May 21, 2012
Chow The Name of the Barbecue Place Opening at Cowgirls Inc.
Posted by Bethany Jean Clement on Mon, May 21, 2012 at 2:50 PM
Friday, May 18, 2012
Chow / Breaking News Devastating Sandwich News
Posted by Bethany Jean Clement on Fri, May 18, 2012 at 2:39 PM
Two different devastated Seattle sandwich-lovers sent us the terrible, terrible news: I Love New York Deli in the U-District is closed forever.
An employee at the original Pike Place Market location, which remains open, confirmed the closure. Ace Stranger reporter Grant Brissey says, "This is true. The place was gone, overnight, and not just gone—gutted. Counters, kitchen equipment, everything." Brissey photographed the tragic scene:

- Grant Brissey
- SAD.
We've been unable to reach owner Jon Jacobs to inquire about WHHHHHHYYYYYYYYYYY?????? and express our sorrow. We've called and called! Stranger sandwich expert Paul Constant says this turn of events and the failure of the promised 24-hour Capitol-or-First-Hill branch of I Love New York Deli to ever appear are dual blows from which he may never recover. "This is terrible, terrible news," he says.
In the very-thin-silver-lining department, we've meanwhile discovered that I Love New York Deli has a sister shop called Big Apple Deli in Maple Valley, so if you know where that is and ever have to be there, you can at least get a great Reuben.
After the jump, the detailed sorrow of the two Slog tippers.
Chow / Conflict of Interest Give Me Your Socks and I'll Give You a Cupcake
Posted by Megan Seling on Fri, May 18, 2012 at 1:33 PM

All you have to do is come to the CakeSpy shop on Pine between 2 pm and 5 pm with some new socks (or cash) to donate to the wonderful Teen Feed organization. You hand over the socks, I hand over a cupcake. Easy!
Thursday, May 17, 2012
Chow / Life Spring Is When an Old Man's Fancy Turns to Onions
Posted by Goldy on Thu, May 17, 2012 at 9:12 AM
A couple months ago I found a box of sorry looking onion starts near the checkout counter at McLendon's. They were maybe six inches tall and a bit dried out, but only two bucks for a rubber band bound bunch of several dozen, so I figured what the hell? I took them home and haphazardly stuck them in the ground in an empty bed, and that was that.
Stupid me, I wasn't thinking. I have my garden on a strict three year rotation, and this was one of the beds slated for tomatoes, which I usually put in the ground by the middle of May. The onion greens are now as much as a foot and a half tall, but they've only just started bulbing. Still, tomatoes take precedence over all, so last week I reluctantly started harvesting my premature onion crop.
Oh my fucking god are they delicious!
The box at McLendon's claimed these were Walla Walla sweet onions, but this ain't Walla Walla, so I wasn't expecting much from Seattle's cool, damp terroir. I've no idea how the flavor would have held up had these grown to maturity, but harvested as spring onions they are sweet and crunchy with just enough pungency to remind you you're eating an onion. I've been chopping them up, greens and all, and eating them in salads and on sandwiches all week, or sometimes just whole like a scallion. I'll miss 'em when they're gone, and I'll definitely be looking for onion starts again next spring.
FYI, my past attempts to direct sow onions from seed were largely foiled by slugs. If you too are battling these seedling munching gastropods, check out my new gardening column in this week's paper for some fun helpful tips: "Gardening with Goldy: The Secret to Organic Slug Control."
Wednesday, May 16, 2012
Chow Good News, Everyone!
Posted by Bethany Jean Clement on Wed, May 16, 2012 at 3:04 PM
Chow Restaurant Review: Skelly and the Bean Opens on a Salty Shoestring
Posted by Bethany Jean Clement on Wed, May 16, 2012 at 2:09 PM
Skelly and the Bean has so much heart, it almost hurts. The name itself has an adorable source: Skelly is a kid who provided an initial investment of $10 ($7 in coins) to open the place, and the Bean is his less-wealthy little sister. The space was put together on a shoestring, with many volunteer helping hands. The couple that runs Little Uncle painted and moved equipment; the editor of Edible Seattle de-spidered a bunch of the old barn wood that panels one wall. Their efforts, and those of dozens more, are recognized on the Wall of Love: a mural of swirling names in rainbow colors, with designations like "BUTCHER@LARGE," "Anonymous OCD Helper," "Tater-Tot Tester!"...
Chow What Do Governor Chris Gregoire and NY Times Columnist Thomas Friedman Have in Common?
Posted by Cienna Madrid on Wed, May 16, 2012 at 8:31 AM
They both eat lunch, apparently. A keen-eyed slog tipper spotted Gregoire slurping lemonade with Friedman downtown yesterday at the Purple Cafe and Wine Bar. It looked a little something like this:

- The Stranger
- "I went to high school with the Coen brothers, you know."
"Oh really? I adored their movie about bowling."
I really wanted to know what they discussed, but sadly our slog tipper refused to don a mustache and pose as a waiter for eavesdropping purposes, or sidle up to a neighboring table while pretending to read a copy of the NY Times. Which means all we can do is speculate wildly. Help me out, Sloggers!
Chow The Beacon Food Forest!
Posted by Bethany Jean Clement on Wed, May 16, 2012 at 7:35 AM
Have you heard about the Beacon Food Forest? It sounds really, really cool. The possible problem, per the Atlantic:
Of course, any "free" food source begs the question of what to do with overzealous pickers. No definitive answer on how to handle that predicament has been established yet, though. According to Herlihy, the only solutions right now are to produce an abundance of fruit so there's enough for everyone and to embed "thieves' gardens" with extra plants in the park for those people eager to take more than their share.
...but all the city's P-Patches (of which the planned Food Forest is a part) seem to do all right contending with that potential issue... and a program in a small town in England has had to urge people to come and take the produce.
“What we found was that in the first 18 months or two years nobody picked anything,” says Pam Warhurst, originator of the Incredible Edible Todmorden project. “We had to keep saying to them, go on, it’s fine, you can help yourself. Eventually people got the knack of it."
Seattle is just as polite as an English village. (And as unaccustomed to picking fruit and vegetables for free—I wonder how much of the hesitation is "but it might be DIRTY!"-related.)
Also, if you need it that bad, take it. That's kind of the point, isn't it?



















RSS