Smash Wine Bar (1401 N 45th St) will be ending a nine-year run on 45th Street, with a quiet final day this Saturday, June 27th.
Owner Dana Hannon explained that the rent and fees had climbed considerably over the years to the point where she was paying double what she had when she signed her original lease, and it wasn’t economically feasible to stay put any more. She believes the new Mack Urban construction project next door hasn’t helped things either, and attributes $200,000 in lost sales to the construction project (not surprisingly, the construction crew wasn’t running up large tabs on rounds of Domain Armand Rousseau and Krug Clos d’Ambonnay. )
“I’ll miss my regulars, and just being in the neighborhood,” Dana said, “but we’ll be opening a new restaurant soon in Ballard by the locks.”
The new restaurant, which she hopes to cut the ribbon on in about a month and a half, will be named Kristeen’s and will be more focused on counter service and take out. (The odd spelling is from her middle name: she was delighted, but not surprised, to find an available domain name.)
Following the final turn of the “closed” sign at 11 pm on Saturday, Smash will be holding a sale of its inventory and equipment from noon to 5 pm on Sunday and Monday. Dana promises not only wines on sale, but bakeware, ovens, plates, silverware, furniture and more.
“I hope all of the regulars and people we’ve had a chance to get to know over the past five years come by and say hi,” she said. You’ve got three days.
It’s unclear what will go in Smash’s place. The move sounds like it may be coming as a surprise to the building’s owner, and Dana speculated that they would not be allowed to put another restaurant in the space without significant work, as her lease was grandfathered in from a permits perspective. This would be a tragedy, as Wallingford has few enough spots with outdoor seating as is.
(Thanks for the tip, Megan!)
Wow so Ballard is that much cheaper than Wallingford? Who knew…
Maybe if we are lucky a new CVS will move into that space 😉
I bet Ballard is cheaper for what you get. The rents are probably higher, but the sidewalks are swarming with potential customers, compared to Wallingford. I don’t have any numbers, but I suspect the rents along N 45th here are far out of proportion to potential revenue for a normal retail business or restaurant. The stable businesses here are the ones that own their own space.
I am SO SO SO SORRY! I love going there, and Dana is the best of the best!
We will definitely stop by there as much as possible before the 27th. This is really sad. She is such a nice person, and has worked so hard.
Damn, damn, damn!
I am so bummed to lose Smash: I haven’t made much progress on identifying my next neighborhood go-to restaurant. But walk-by or even drive-by traffic in that part of the neighborhood was already negligible, I’d imagine, and not helped by the construction. I do plan to check out Dana’s next venture, and hope to find a new spot in the neighborhood to become a regular.
This is a surprise to the building’s owner? Didn’t Dana make an attempt to bargain with him? Seems the landlord might be better off easing up on the rent than losing a viable tenant, especially when previous tenants at that location (the Thai restaurant, the kosher-style deli, and a couple of others I can’t even remember anymore) came and went in short order. Dana must have gone to the John Kerry school of negotiating.
Or is the real problem perhaps the 800-pound gorilla in the room that everyone in politically precious Seattle prefers not to notice or talk about: the $15/hour minimum wage?
Well, I think if you read the article again, you will see that the numbers just did not work for her. She owned the place, did the cooking, is the only waitperson, and has done everything possible to stay where she was.
I think your comment is equivalent to encouraging all the folks who rent, to try to negotiate with their landlords. Clearly, the owner has crunched the numbers, and they are not working. It is true that the construction across the street has decreased business, both from parking and from the constant construction noise. I think she tried everything, including negotiating what the landlord, to stay here. She is a great person, has a loyal clientele. It sure is our loss.
thanks for all the love and support. i put a lot in to place over the years. i do not think their is much to negotiate with the building owner however. he simple wants more than the space is worth. rent everywhere is going up. he was not the owner when i purchased the space. for me it is personal as well. i do love wallingford so much though. it has been a pleasure serving the community. come see us before we go.
Welcome to the New Seattle. Maybe an Olive Garden can afford to move in there and we will become Anywhere USA.
The first weekend my hubs and I moved back to Seattle we ate here. It would have been 4 year next month. Id have to say, the food and the service has changed a lot since that first meal but we are going back tonight to have a last go at it.
The worst part of all this is that we aren’t looking at a new restaurant moving in that space any time soon. Even the newer buildings with the retail space remain vacant. I hate to preach to the choir but Wallingford has so much potential but instead we get the off gas of the u-district. Misplaced shops, restaurants that close before you get a chance to try them and dozens of drug stores. Luckily Wallingford Center remains.
Side note: when is lower stone getting a grocery store?
So sad — didn’t go there often, but have enjoyed many the happy happy hour! Hope Kristeen’s has a similar happy hour deal. I hope something neighborhood-friendly moves in.
Sarah,
There was going to be QFC at Stone Way & N 40th, but the NIMBYs put the kibosh on it. So the answer to your side note question is, “Probably never.”
Gonna miss you Dana. There are way too many empty store fronts. We need an empty space tax, that should incentivize the greedy land lords.
So sad to see Smash go! My husband and I got engaged after dining there in January 2011. He swiped a ring pop from the hostess stand and jokingly used it in his proposal. We always enjoyed the food, atmosphere, hospitality, and of course the wine. Such a loss for the neighborhood!
Allen, can you tell me more about the proposed QFC that ever was?
The story I heard about a lower Stone grocery was a block or two south of 40th, it wasn’t QFC, and it wasn’t in the tenement that’s being built right now at 38th on the west side of Stone. Just idle talk, and haven’t heard anything lately, but it seems like a good idea.
There was a cavernous hole in the ground on the southeast corner of 40th and Stone Way for many years. It was originally planned to be a Safeway. That is what I remember.
and, to continue the subject of this thread. I love Smash and Dana. Will miss them a lot.
Check your Wallyhood archives:
http://www.wallyhood.org/2011/01/coming-spring-2012-stoneway-village/
Good job! Thanks Safeway was there originally. It was demolished in 2006. Forgot that it was QFC that was thinking of going there next.
http://www.wallyhood.org/2010/12/festering-pit-closer-filled/
There was a proposal for a QFC in what is now the Prescott building. There was a lot of neighborhood debate over this plan (traffic, safety on neighboring streets, ingress/egress to the site). The economy crashed, and the plan was scrapped. In the interim, the City went ahead with their re-work of Bridge Way and the lights at Stone with no accommodation towards anything to be built in what was a ginormous pit of despair. The Prescott was eventually built, but my opinion is that no big grocery was ever going to go in with that sketchy parking in/out situation. So now we have a gym. South Wallingford really needs a walkable grocery store…so I still hold out hope.
The pit was fine. Maybe we could have had a swimming pool, in better times.
I suspect that a vast majority of those in Seattle are okay with of the developments that are happening, and a small but vocal minority that prefer … pits.
I think the main concerns are lack of parking. and we love more places to eat!
There is such an influx of people, that green space will be much more crowded.
I doubt if there will be any standing pit for any time, because the economy is good, and developers pay very little to stack people in boxes without parking or any amenities, including maintenance.
The main concern for me is a “gold rush” pace of development that more or less rules out sustainable quality. As long as the pit was there, it held a certain potential to turn into various other things. Now that potential is foreclosed, and what do we have? The glorious Prescott – on the street, another exercise place, about half of the street front essentially shut off in fraudulent “live/work” units, and a bagel shop. The Prescott appears to be head and shoulders above the newer developments south of it. What will this neighborhood be like in 20 years as these cheaply erected developments get shabby? We’ll wish we’d kept the pit.
I sympathize. I do. But when I use Google maps and scan how Stoneway looked in the “glory” days of 2007, I can’t imagine how anyone found that to be preferable. Hollowed out earth, roofing and paint outlets. Small and important businesses to be sure, but a type of commercial district ill-fitted for a residential region.
Aesthetic preferences aside, these new apartment units are necessary for density. Density creates vibrancy and cross pollination of ideas which leads to innovation. This is what a city looks and feels like. And that’s been the service of Cities with a capitol C since the the outbreak of civilization.
Goodness, you’ve sure been drinking the Kool-Aid. “Vibrant” thing is a familiar buzz word from that crowd, but “cross pollination of ideas which leads to innovation”? Good grief. In terms of commercial diversity, Stone is being gutted, and what’s left is going to be reserved for high roller enterprises. Hostile to innovation, which isn’t viable in a high rent situation. Like restaurants on N 45th, to return to the subject.
That’s fine. We have very different visions of what we want Seattle to become. You prefer quaint-ville. I prefer cities that are…vibrant.
But to discount where ideas come from is silly and counter to any analysis of the subject matter ever done. The cure for cancer will be invented in the new South Lake Union. The cure for cancer would NOT have been cured in the old South Lake Union.
And the cure for cancer will not be cured in Mt Vernon, Everett, Puyallup. I can promise you that. I want to work to cure cancer and other types of innovation. That’s why I’m staying in Seattle.
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/why-living-in-a-city-makes-you-more-innovative-3715327/?no-ist
If you had won the war against the developments in downtown Seattle in the early 1900s, we be Spokane. No offense to Spokane. Lovely town. But I don’t want to live in Spokane.
Side note: we get angry at all these apartment and townhouses that are sprouting up, but do you know why they are getting built? Because of the neglect of the buildings that were there before. Some of the blame has to goes to some of the multi-generational Seattlites that let their neighborhoods crumble. All the blame can’t just fall upon Californians and New Yorkers that are making Seattle their new home.
Ah, I imagined that innovation line had something to do with Stone, missed the context switch there.
The blame for what’s going on here, on Stone, does fall to some extent on landowners, and on the mayor et al. who are effectively in the pockets of developers. We desperately need to learn how to select a better mayor.
Oh, Alex, I agree with you generally, but I wish you hadn’t trashed stoneway treasures like rodda and dalys, stoneway electric and morgans plumbing! Not everyone works in biotech, and plenty of people still work in the trades you want them to all be forced to shop at home depot?
Speaking of biotech, how can you say the cure for cancer could never have come out of the old SLU? Fred Hutch has been there forever, and SCCA is older than newSLU. newSLU is more about amazon and paul allens hegemony than curing cancer.