Food & Drink Jan 13, 2016 at 4:00 am

Belltown's Beloved Mama's Mexican Kitchen Will Close Forever on March 31

Mama's, a Belltown fixture since 1974, announced it was closing last year. Now there’s an official last day. Kelly O

Comments

1
fond memories, but I haven't eaten there in 20 years. used to get my scirocco fixed in the car repair space on the alley.

I look forward to whatever our new Chinese overlords have planned.
3
I worked in three different buildings close by in the '80s and went to Mama's frequently but trailed off; took a long time client there just a few months ago knowing it would close - same place, exactly. Oh well, time and so forth...
4
So bummed. When I moved here in 1992, that block (and the Frontier Room down the hill) was about the only thing happening in Belltown.
5
"In 1999, McAlpin purchased the building that houses Mama's for $900,000. Last March, he sold it to Minglian Holdings, a British Columbia–based affiliate of a Chinese development firm, for more than $4.5 million. Come April, McAlpin says he and his wife will embark on a new adventure: retirement."

Good for them. They've been in the neighborhood for 42 years, built a successful business, made smart investments and are now cashing out to enjoy their sunset years. That's a perfectly fitting end to their family restaurant.

"This is an old building," says Biagio. "Sometimes all the burners in the kitchen go out. At new restaurants in new buildings, you never see anyone lose their mind, never see equipment fall apart, never see the reality of life."

As an owner of an old building, I'm sure he's done with having to keep up with the increasing upkeep of having to maintain an old, flat roof commercial building - the seasonal roof leaks, shorting electrical wiring, and crapped out kitchen stoves. Most of the nostalgic hipsters around here probably don't get to enjoy the "pleasure" of having to maintain an old commercial structure.
6
Shitty heavy greasy food, Gutbombus Americanus. Won't miss it. I do miss the Noodle Ranch, now some shitballs pizza joint.
7
memories, that's all that place had going for it. it was cheap cheese product. it's terrible mexican food. terrible mexican food with elvis. that ain't enough to warrant business in perpetuity.
8
never got the love for this place from homers. the food is terrible.
9
Not sure why it's "beloved". Good riddance. Bland, not-Mexican, fatty-fatty food for tasteless Norwegians who think they're eating something "exotic".

Hey Mama's, you've been, like, 8 blocks from Mercado Latino which has been in Pike Place for over 20 years and has an amazing selection of spices and hot sauces. Why did you never shop there?
10
@9: because you got to give the people what they want.

its Azteca-style Mexican, as served all over Merica. you don't like it, i don't like it, but why change what works?
12
Anyone in want of Mexican in Belltown should go to Villa Escondido (old frontier room). Altho it doesn't have the cutesy decor of Mama's, the food is quite good, and i'm guessing they could use the business. Their salsa verde is amazing, tastes like a citrus and cilantro explosion in the mouth.
13
If you lived in Seattle before 1995, you would almost be certain to have fond memories of the place.
See Cyclops, Sit n' Spin, Septieme, Two Bells, the Gay 90's, Squid Row, Rocket Pizza, World Pizza ,'S', Milky World and so on.

Sad to see it go. A great place for broke kids in thier 20s.
Are there any 'lake of cheese' places left?
15
@12, Yes - Villa Escondido is exactly where one should go for Mexican food in Belltown.

Mama's main offering is nostalgia for Seattleites that have been here since the 90's. As a transplant, the place feels to me like a TGIFriday's. This is what you guys thought made Seattle great? This is the old Belltown you are sad to see leave?
16
I try not to be a super nostalgic, anti-change, anti-transplant Seattle native but, @15, you make it really, really hard. Enjoy your new, aluminum sided city.
17
It is true that one who was not here in Seattle's 'infancy' (as many of you transplants probably like to think of it) won't get the appeal of Mama's.

It's called history.

It's called growing up with something as part of your life.

It's going to an affordable dive at 1:30am after seeing an awesome rock show and glutting the alcohol into submission, being somewhere that EVERYONE can be and be seen and converse about whatever the fuck. Places like Mama's were this for many generations of Seattle folk. These places are our memories.

There used to be many, many more places similar to Mama's, many of which @13 mentioned above, that were a big part of establishing Seattle's quirky, working class aesthetic over the last 50 years. Most of those places are gone now, and are being replaced with the antithesis of quirk. This is what we mourn. It's not the food. I'm in agreement that Mama's food was pretty blah. An establishment is more than the sum of its parts. This article does a great job of illustrating exactly this.

Life moves on. This family deserves to cash in. But that doesn't soften the feelings when we born-n-bred Seattlites keep being reminded of the death-knell of the city that we used to know and love.

So, if you can't have any compassion for those of us who were here before you were even conceived, those of us witnessing a stretched-out dying of the city that was, then fuck you right back. Us true Seattlites hurt when our past is razed for the constantly expanding new.

I just hope that the new we create is as approachable, multi-layered, and as much like family as Mama's has been. Adios.
18
I grew up in Seattle and I don't care about restaraunts closing. I loved the Canterbury as a kid, it's gone, so is my grandmother. She'd be the last person to feel sorry for me that I can't afford to live here anymore. I made choices in life that mean I don't have much money and a lot of you who are devastated did too.
19
Speaking as someone who comes from a place where we know from Mexican food, I can attest that Mama's was very good. Not great, but very good. You naysayers talking about it's lack of "authenticity" need to reread one of Fnarf's mini essays on the topic. It's a myth and you're putting on airs.
20
I go there all the time and have for decades...for the salsa. I do NOT eat there, the food is awful and way too expensive. The salsa is delicious and I will miss it.
21
It's so weird to read the comments by older Seattleites about their special, special city. The transplants aren't here because they love Seattle, or they love getting rained on all the time while eating shitty Mexican food, and being far away from home. They're here to make fucking money, the kind they can't make wherever they're from. It's not their fault that the city council here makes no effort to provide affordable housing in the face of gentrification, and is fine handing the city over whole-cloth to developers.

Tl;dr: If Mama's is some kind beacon of 90's Seattle, 90's Seattle sounds cheesy and awful.
23
Link to the Fnarf article, Matt? What happened ro that guy?

And sigh, #21- it was a time. It s over. It was really fun to be in Seattle in the 90s. There was great art and it was cheap, that is all. Yes it rains (people still complain about that?) but is is a beautiful area. My rent was less than$200 a month on capitol hill, so we has time to work on art, reading, writing, music and so on.

It is over and was fun, in a way that does not seem to exist in many places anymore.
Don't be so threatened by the past.

24
@21 - It isn't that it was special. It's that it WAS. And now it ISN'T. That's it.

It just gets really old to repeatedly have a new demographic belittle what was here before. I have no problem with change. It hurts sometimes, but it is inevitable. I DO have a problem with people who have no clue telling me how to feel about something that they haven't experienced.

Perhaps reading an article like this could or should be a window into understanding. But it usually winds up being more fodder for people to harsh on Seattle's disappearing past even more.

90s Seattle was cheesy by modern standards. It wasn't even close to awful though. It was amazing. Still can be, if the new folk would allow for something of the old familial community of art and class breakdown to occur. Doesn't seem to be working out that way, though.
25
This is one of the first places I ever ate at in Seattle and as someone who is not a wealthy tech worker, enjoyed going there when I lived in Seattle. I enjoyed the Cadillac margarita and the prawn quesadilla, but most of all meeting friends there and hanging out and having a good time. Adios, Mama's. Thanks for the memories.

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