You are not going to recognize (or want to spend any time in) that area in 5 years.

Sad. But maybe they'll put in a Panera that's closed onSundays. :P

The last time I was at the Hurricane, the Space Shuttle Columbia exploded and a cockroach ran out from under my plate.

Sad. But maybe they'll put in a Panera that's closed on Sundays. :P

Just what I wanted on my bike commute, another Amazon or UW construction site to bike through....

I remember having a drink and an open-faced chiliburger at the Dog House back in the day. Or did I read that in a JP Beaumont novel?

We're on the fast track to becoming the new Bellevue.

I'm hoping for a Panera, but only if it's, uh, closed on Sundays.

Via6 in that area is pretty cool.

Can we just beat the shit out of the next Amazon employee we see? I think it would make you feel better.

Oh. C'mon. That place got just awful.

The Dog House was pretty great for strong drinks and a piano bar. But The Hurricane? It was a shell of it's former self and existed pretty much on nostalgia for the 90's and the Dog House. Loooong past it's time to go.

Oh man, I drank so many milkshakes and ate so many fries there after RKCNDY shows!

I'm still lamenting the loss of the Doghouse, the Hurricane never clicked for me.

This is quite the old news.

The Stranger wrote this same article when the Doghouse closed.

What @16 said

At least the owner has a realistic perspective. It's a standalone building with a parking lot in downtown Seattle. There is probably no future for standalone buildings with parking lots in downtown Seattle.

This is such bullshit!! EVERYONE loves that place!! Don't let it happen!!

@11
Do you ever say anything positive?

Thank you Dan and tkc. The Hurricane was never all that people (it was a nice try)..... but a place you could go and be assured of a cheaply made footlong chili dog (with American cheese slices), and a Monarch Vodka martini at midnight ..... now that's a true icon... (#bringbackthedoghouse)

@19, go buy it then. Not the business, the land under it.

This is actually something I don't understand well about long-standing businesses. If you've been in the same location for awhile, buy the freaking land underneath.

This was my hangout in the early 80s when it was the Dog House. The waitresses there had been there when it originally opened. I loved the place on a Saturday night going there after the bars closed. I went there one night about 2:30 am with some friends. I ordered a chocolate shake, fries and a grilled ham and cheese. The waitress (whose name was Eunice, I think) said to me, "Honey, you're not going to eat that junk this late at night. I'll bring you a tuna sandwich and some milk." and she did. I didn't argue with her. I knew I wouldn't win.

Oh man, say what you will about the quality of food or the surly service. This place is a goddamn landmark. I spent MANY evening there drinking coffee, watching and playing in crappy punk bands that played in the bar. Next thing you know Fantasy Unlimited is going to become an Apodment exclusively for Amazon shitheads. New Seattle is bullshit.

I spent many an underage night there gazing at the hot junky cooks and several hungover mornings there after I was 21. It was pretty vile either way, but highly effective. My favorite hurricane story was my father, probably 52 at the time, being refused a beer because he didn't have his ID. Jackasses.

Fuck Amazon Forever. Never buying ANYTHING from them EVER AGAIN... FUCK AMAZON.

Didn't we know months ago this place was closing? Keep your eyes on the news, guys.

http://seattletimes.com/html/businesstec…

I remember catching the greyhound from Bellingham when I was 17, hanging out at the Hurricane hoping someone I knew would show up.... they always did. Then I would hang out with them and catch a ride up to Freak Manor with them the next day.

If anyone actually went to the Hurricane, it wouldn't be closed. (well maybe it would). None the less that place is always empty.

I remember catching the greyhound from Bellingham when I was 17, hanging out at the Hurricane hoping someone I knew would show up.... they always did. Then I would hang out with them and catch a ride up to Freak Manor the next day.

Best biscuits and gravy I've ever had. I'm so depressed.

You may as well just list everything in the Denny Triangle and SLU which is older than 4 years, coz it's all going.

@1, you wouldn't want to spend any time in that area NOW.

Seriously, it's all surface parking lots. That whole triangle between Denny, Westlake, and Fifth down to Lenora, and even a little further in places, is practically empty. It's the last place in downtown where you could fire a gun for four blocks and not hit anything. A couple of hundred people are going to have to find new parking places when it's filled in, but there's almost nothing else. Oh, yeah, the Toyota dealer, that's a turnon.

Surface parking belongs in deep suburban malls, not downtowns -- and even deep suburban malls are erecting multistory garages these days.

And the Hurricane never held a patch on the Dog House (which was special).

that whole area is/was owned by one family. and they sat on it. for decades. the hurricane and a few other buildings aside, it's a parking crater.

fuck parking craters. they don't help any city.

@33, hop on Link, ride to Tukwila/International Boulevard, cross all fifty-odd lanes of traffic to the diagonally opposite corner (which will take almost as long as the train ride from downtown), and go to the Pancake Chef. You can thank me later.

do you want to recognize or spend time in that area now? have you ever? it is kind of wasteland of parking lots in DT seattle.

Amazon doesn't have the power of eminent domain, you know. They can't buy the property unless someone sells it to them. I can't stand morons who blame Oklahoma City for taking the Sonics. It was Howard Schultz who sold them. Just like I couldn't stand the morons who blamed Californians for moving here. They didn't invade, they bought houses that were put up for sale.

About every third post on Slog bemoans what a backwater Seattle is, how we need more density, density, density. And transit. And now that someone wants to build up and get rid of a parking lot, everyone's an Emmett Watson.

I never really ate here. I smoked lots of cigarettes here, though. Lots of coffee and beer and cigarettes.
Mostly, I will miss the tile. The swell circle tiles all over the outside.
This is, however, old news.

Yeah, I feel a tinge of sadness... but I haven't hung out there since I turned 21, let's be honest.

Also #39 is right.

@15 and 28: Yes, but thought people might want to know the specific closing date, thanks!

@23, Your point reminded me of CBGB: Hilly could have bought that place for practically pennies on the dollar back in the 70's. Instead, he allowed himself to fall behind on back rent which led to the property getting sold to some fashion poseurs who turned that Rock and Roll shrine into a G** Damn boutique.

My brother and I have had lunch at the Hurricane most Fridays for the last 15 years, except for when I lived overseas for a while, then it was just when I came into town. Rachel Rudnick first took me there in the 90s and called it "the grunge peach pit", but I didn't get the joke because I didn't watch Beverly Hills 90210.

I like the Hurricane, it's weird and divey with good cheap diner food. I'm actually glad that SLU isn't a derelict sh!thole anymore, but in a year where we've lost the Funhouse, the Viking, the 2-bit (apparently) , and now the Hurricane, I feel like things are moving a bit too fast.

The prospect of trading crufty old icons for "office space plus a small plates cafe downstairs" really doesn't float my boat at this point.

Man, did this city blow it when the Seattle Commons was voted down. The argument against was it would destroy the "character" of the neighborhood. Well, it happened anyway and we didn't get a central park.

This breaking news was in the Times six months ago.

The Hurricane closing is W-A-C-K

@37 +5000

When it was 3am and had no place to go, grab a coffee and some hashbrowns at the hurricane. Yes, it was a terrible dive, but it was our terrible dive. A place where anyone could belong after midnight.

I've lived here for 20 years and never heard of this place. Oh well.

The Toyota dealership will be gone very soon. They are building a new facility on Airport Way. Another Amazon tower probably in its place...

I have mixed feelings. The Hurricane always felt like a Doghouse consolation prize, but I go there sometimes and have a lot of nostalgia feelings, from back in the early 1990s when my friends and I went to it after many, many a show.

SLU was a wasteland of slightly decrepit one-story warehouses. Now it's a wasteland of construction sites. Soon it will be a wasteland of dull office buildings, "luxury" residential towers, and $12 cocktails. I preferred the warehouses -- of course -- but still I can't really justify them as a good use of the land.

Now if I want to walk around lonely industrial areas I have to go all the way to Georgetown.

Alright, so time for a bit of honesty for all of the delusional people in this post.

First, Hurricane wouldn't be in the situation if you all visited more, unlike talking about how "great it was". My wife worked for a biomed business in the area, I drove around for work so some times we stoped for lunch there or dinner after work. It was always fucking empty. You know why? Because its in a shitty spot, and everyone goes down to Second street where theres more bars with better food.

Yes, the Hurricane may have been the shit back in the day, but now? Nope, its nothing anymore.

And don't fucking act like Amazon is a shitty company because its buying real estate. You know what Amazon did? Helped turn SLU from a drug peddling camp to a campus with thriving businesses. You want to tell Amazon to fuck off from Seattle? Tell that to all the restaurant workers and food trucks in the Area who thrive and depend on the money that Amazon pays their employees.

Do you all want Seattle to be some poor ass run down city where theres nothing but dive bars and greasy food? Then go move to Idaho or some other place like that. Theres plenty of those types of places in areas like Ballard, Freemont, and Capitol Hill.

Point is, while Amazon may not leave some bar that you CLAIM to love but never visit anymore, but Amazon has given the area a boost in the economy, keeping thousands of people employed when other areas were hurting for income (Detroit and almost all of California). Amazon has generated income for people in the area so that they could, in turn, spend money on all of the other local businesses. Seattle is a massive city with a massive amount of locally run places. Do you think that would still exist if no big companies had money? No, this city would be tiny. Just think of this town back in 2000. This city was smaller, there was far less small businesses that people loved, because there was far less money moving around.

Amazon, Microsoft, and the Biomed companies all brought smart people to this town, who would spend money that allowed other people to quit their jobs and start their own small businesses, because there was more money booming in the area, and more chances that taking such a risk would work.

It also brought these smart people who eventually left these big companies, and then started their own small business and start up.

So stop freaking the fuck out because you lost some bar and look at the big pictures. The money from Amazon, Microsoft, Expedia, Boeing, and all of the other big companies around here are what helps float the money around that allows so many small businesses to flourish.

'94 nostalgia...

'94, 2:30am nostalgia...

From #54:

The Toyota dealership will be gone very soon. They are building a new facility on Airport Way. Another Amazon tower probably in its place...

Yes, we'll all miss the Toyota dealership. Fuck Amazon for killing the Toyota dealership. What is this world coming to?

@58, you forgot to use the word "vibrant". All density-positive posts are required to use vibrant. That way the minute we spot that stupid nonsense word, we know that reading further will be a waste of time.

the hurricane is old school????? the author here is obviously not from seattle....but if you're going to move to my town and raise the rent, the least you could do is learn its history.
http://www.historylink.org/index.cfm?Dis…

the hurricane is old school????? the author here is obviously not from seattle....the DOG HOUSE is old school and seattle history.
if you're going to move to my town and raise the rent, the least you could do is learn its history.
http://www.historylink.org/index.cfm?Dis…

Slumming is a lost art. No more slumming allowed. That will cost you now to recreate the experience.

I am wondering if all the times that were important to me will ever belch out loud there anymore. take a look its been Vanish for quite some times. And its ruthless as it comes as no surprise.

Hurricane Cafe - what was the big deal? Went there once. My shoes kept sticking to the floor and my fanny to the seat. Drink served in a dirty class. Food inedible. The few sketchy looking patrons looked as if they'd been camped there since the 1970s. I guess we still have Beth's. Ugh.

All the anti-tech, anti-Bellevue hate. I thought hipsters were a dying breed.

...and also, how many of you would rage about Google Glass if someone brought it to the Hurricane?

^---Says the gamer from Spokane---^ http://www.reddit.com/user/drBbanzai

The last time I took a good look at downtown I thought the Borg had landed. It does not feel like home anymore.

has anyone ever actually eaten here and liked it? didn't think so.

I love the nachos, the breakfast plates, and the burgers.

Don't know what all the hate on the food is. It's a damn sight better than Dennys or any of the major chain 24-hour joints. And they make better omelettes than Beth's.

I'm sad to see them go but I know they'll just reopen in another location. Probably the 1st floor of an Amazon building.

I remember when Larry Rains (former owner of Beth's Cafe (R.I.P.)) & Shane Kalar A.K.A. Hurricane Shane (former Beth's Cafe manager under Larry) opened the Hurricane. It's menu was heavily inspired by the food at Beth's & both locations catered to "real people" of the city(i.e. not rich nor judgemental folk). Sad to say, the Hurricane is a victom of "city progress", which I'm sure will eventually be the fate of Beth's Cafe (now owned by Chris Dalton A.KA. FNOG (F***ing New Owner Guy)Beth's Cafe has changed quite a bit under the FNOG era & not all for the better. Replacing sausage with "chub" in the country gravy & omelets, taking out the old school style juke box using 45 rmp records with a modern internet version, no more espresso & various other "improvements" made by Chris. The block on which Beth's is located sits at the intersection which breaks Aurora avenue from highway road to city street on the N.W.corner of Greenlake.It will only be a mater of time before some realistate investor with deep pockets will realize the monetary potential of that triangle shaped block, given it's location & condition of the buildings which currently occupy it. I believe that FNOG is more akin to business savy & making a buck than true restaurant owner attitude (which Larry Rains was). I miss Larry & the Beth's which was his legacy.

I remember when Larry Rains (former owner of Beth's Cafe (R.I.P.)) & Shane Kalar A.K.A. Hurricane Shane (former Beth's Cafe manager under Larry) opened the Hurricane. It's menu was heavily inspired by the food at Beth's & both locations catered to "real people" of the city(i.e. not rich nor judgemental folk). Sad to say, the Hurricane is a victom of "city progress", which I'm sure will eventually be the fate of Beth's Cafe (now owned by Chris Dalton A.KA. FNOG (F***ing New Owner Guy)Beth's Cafe has changed quite a bit under the FNOG era & not all for the better. Replacing sausage with "chub" in the country gravy & omelets, taking out the old school style juke box using 45 rmp records with a modern internet version, no more espresso & various other "improvements" made by Chris. The block on which Beth's is located sits at the intersection which breaks Aurora avenue from highway road to city street on the N.W.corner of Greenlake. It will only be a mater of time before some realistate investor with deep pockets will realize the monetary potential of that triangle shaped block, given it's location & condition of the buildings which currently occupy it. I believe that FNOG is more akin to business savy & making a buck than true restaurant owner attitude (which Larry Rains was). I miss Larry & the Beth's which was his legacy.

That is BULLSHIT! It's a historic landmark. If the city were doing it's job no one could touch a chipped concrete brick on that place or an inch of fake wood paneling. If Seattle can rebuild buildings from nothing more than an outer shell, then it can build a high rise with parking garage around all sides of the Hurricane without touching it's seedy smoke stained walls.

My mom was a waitress for over 20 years when it was the Dog House. I went inside a few times when it was the Hurricane and although it was a slice of nostalgia for me, it was way beyond the good old days when Dick Dickerson was at the organ. Time to tear it down.

So sad I still remember when "All roads led to the Doghouse"! and the surly bartender that had hot tea and ice, and wouldn't make an iced tea. Still miss seeing the senior citizens perform their song and dance. Dick Dickerson on the kidney shaped formica organ bar was an encyclopedia of songs. It was a magical place to land in Seattle. RIP

I have great memories of sneaking out of my house in the mid 90's and meeting all sorts of bands here. This was to be honest my favorite place to hang out for several decades and I would drive from Tacoma just for some fried zucchini chips and later (after I was 21) an electric Hurricane (by far one of the most alcoholic drinks I've ever had). I will miss you, I'm sorry that corporate America is ruining downtown. I think companies like Amazon so think about the way they are changing the cultural landscape of Seattle and if it is a welcome change.

I've eaten biscuit and scrambled eggs there. Liked it.

Hard to find non-foo-foo morning food in this city where you don't have to wait in line.

No, no, no, no, GODDAMMIT no. There goes another reason to come back to Seattle, my hometown and former cradle of civilization. Portland's looking a lot better to me now. Sigh.

Years ago, I had a regular Wednesday gig there for three or four months. I think the police dropped by every single time to bust someone in the parking lot or haul someone out for P.I. or nodding out in a booth. We played in the "lounge" area, which was decorated as some sort of tiki lounge, with a mural of a Hawaiian island sunset behind us. No-one ever payed attention, except for a really drunk woman who tried to give us musical direction while we were playing, by shouting suggestions a few feet away from our faces and gesticulating wildly. We did our best to ignore her, and she wrote someone thing on napkin and left it on the stage. At the next break I had a look, and it said "PLAY SOME LITA FORD!!!"

the shithole called seattle was going down as soon as the tunnel project was passed.. who runs that city is a question for the ages . the people don't deserve anything but , starbucks, boeing and every other shit conglomerate .. you got what you deserve.. a case of prostitution.. corporate prostitution

Boycott Amazon

I for one am very rude and unwelcoming to anyone
Who is stupid and clueless enough to work for those
Evil piece of shit fucktards over at AmaSuck.fuck.
I am so pissed at the vile corruption that has come here,
The Walmart "you owe us" attitude that they all roll into town.
Arts communities have been taped , mowed down and leveled.
Family homes have been destroyed along with entire communities. Fuck them.

20 years ago it was nights spent at the Frontier Room, the Off Ramp, the Vogue, or the Gibson House. Then to the Hurricane to sober up with coffee and a good meal. Either the Hurricane or Minnie's at First and Denny. I sure miss the old Seattle. Emmett Watson is rolling in his grave.