The popular Broadway bar Bait Shop is officially looking for a new home. There has been some talk about this possibility for a while because, over two years ago, the owners, Mike Leifur and Jonah Bergman, were informed by their landlord, Redside Properties, that the century-old building they’ve called home for over a decade would be demolished. In its place would rise a 6-story, 121-unit apartment building with retail space on the ground floor. In December, Bait Shop “technically” lost its lease and has since been living on borrowed time, says Bergman.
Though the owners are on good terms with their landlord, who, according to Bergman, “has been very transparent” from the start, the lack of certainty has been untenable.
“From what I understand,” says Bergman over the phone, “the earliest that [construction would start] would be the first based quarter of 2027, but I think like anyone who’s gonna do any [huge] project like that, a certain equation needs to pencil in order to get the project going. And so though the demo-clause was triggered [a year ago], and it felt like doomsday when it happened, we are also free to find a good place to move.”
The Stranger reached out to the founder and owner of Redside Properties, Craig Swanson, for comment, but he did not respond before publication.
In 2016, Leifur and Bergman acquired Bait Shop from their then-employer Linda Derschang (of Linda’s, and other bars and restaurants), who opened the port town-themed bar in 2012. In 2022, the owners celebrated the business’s 10th anniversary with employees and customers. Today, you will find Bait Shop not only has some of the best coleslaw in town but transformed a number of its booths into a jail cell and a false front western-style building for April Fools Day, a reference to the kind of company town still around when its building was constructed in the 1920s.
“The one-story building is cool but certainly a dying breed in the city,” explained Bergman, “And though I feel very fortunate to occupy one of the remaining few old buildings of this kind, I also understand that, as cities grow, we need to become more dense, we need more housing.” The new development, which is in walking distance from the Capitol Hill Station, will have 122 bike stalls.
Asked if Bait Shop would remain on Capitol Hill, Bergman says: “I would love to but, you know, I also think the idea of the Bait Shop could work in a lot of different parts of town. However, we’re a neighborhood bar. That’s what we are. We are that little northend thing… So, I’m not trying to open up a Bait Shop at the airport or something like that. I’m trying to kind of serve the community; the kind where we can all just do our little weird things in a little weird space.”
