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NOTE: This event took place on Saturday.

It's a perfect day for Tako Truk's benefit event to aid Haiti earthquake relief. Not a cloud in the sky and it's nearly 60 degrees out.

They're serving up CoCo Piggy and other Tako Truk favorites (the Drunken Boy Soup is particularly good today) at Two Beers Brewery, 4700 Ohio Ave. S., until 6 p.m. You can't miss it. It's the building with all the people and the Tako Truk awning out front. And the people tossing cans of bad beer at a bed of nails.

Cost: $20 gets your four tickets. Each is good for two tacos or a beer or a chance at the "bad beer toss" game.

The Tako Truk guys -- Cormac, Bryan and Miles and their friends -- are raising money for the Shelterbox charity. Shelterboxes provide food and shelter for up to 10 people. It's a worthy cause and a great day for this event.

I'll post a few photos now and more later. The Truk guys will know by next week how much they raised. It will be on their Twitter feed and I'll post here as well.

UPDATE: This post has been updated since it was first published. The hours for Nettletown have been added.

We have updates on two Eastlake-related restaurant stories: Tako Truk's Haiti benefit and the new Nettletown restaurant:

• There's now a location for Tako Truk's event on Saturday: Two Beers Brewery, 4700 Ohio Ave. S., Unit A, in SoDo. The event will be from 1 to 6 p.m. As we reported previously, the event is a one-off to benefit Haiti relief, specificially the Shelterbox charity. Shelterboxes supply food and shelter for up to 10 people. Cormac Mahoney, Tako Truk's chef extraordinaire, will be cooking Truk favorites, he says, including (probably) CoCo Piggy and the octopus tacos. Twenty bucks will get you four scrip tickets. Each ticket is good for two tacos, a beer or a chance to play the Bad Beer Toss Game, prize to be determined. The Weekly has part two of its interview with Cormac online today.
• Christina Choi, Eastlake native and wild foods guru, will open her new restaurant, Nettletown, on March...

Are you sad that the Eastlake Red Robin is set to close on March 21? Keith Leeman thinks he can save the venerable restaurant, the original Red Robin location.

Leeman has set up a Facebook page, "Don't close the ORIGINAL Red Robin Eastlake." The statement on the page says:

"A fan page designed to show our appreciation to Red Robin while sending a message that the original "Seattle" Red Robin should remain open!

"If you are equally devastated, please join the group and send a message to Red Robin to keep the hope alive!"

Want to keep the Eastlake Robin open? Go sign up!

UPDATE: This post has been changed since it was first published. The date of the closure has been corrected. Links to stories by the Seattle Times and SeattlePI.com have been added.

Red Robin has announced this morning that it will be closing the chain's location at Eastlake and Fuhrman, the original restaurant in the chain.

The restaurant will close March 21. The lease on the building runs out in April.

A press release gives the reason for the closure:

The Company’s decision to close the University location was driven by the need for considerable investment to maintain the building and make the restaurant more efficient from an operations perspective and more comfortable and convenient for guests.  The Company will continue to operate its other Seattle-area Red Robin® restaurants and has offered to relocate all of its 50 University restaurant Team Members to other Red Robin® restaurant locations.  The Company may also seek an alternative location for a Red Robin restaurant in the University community in the future.

Eric Houseman, president and CEO of Red Robin, says the decision to close the original location was "very difficult, but one that we believe is ultimately in the best interest of our team members and guests." The company is now headquartered in Greenwood Village, Colorado.

Red Robin is asking community members and frequent visitors to send in their memories of the restaurant to universitymemories@redrobin.com or go to the Contact Us part of Red Robin's web site. They'll be randomly selecting one entry each week for the next three weeks and awarding the author a $100 Red Robin gift certificate.

Other celebrations of Red Robin's 40 years in the community are being planned, with details to come.

History on the Red Robin is available on the company's Web site:

• Red Robin started in the 1940s as a tavern near the UW called Sam's Tavern. Sam sang with a barbershop quartet and his favorite song was "when the red, red robin comes bob, bob, bobbin' along ..." Eventually, the tavern became Sam's Red Robin and then just Red Robin.
• The tavern expaned into it's 1,200 square foot space on Eastlake in 1969.
• The first Red Robin outside Seattle -- located in Yakima -- opens in 1979.
• In 1980, the company expands to Portland.
• Headquarters is moved from Irvine, California, to Greenwood Village in 1996.
• Red Robin became a publicly traded company in 2002.
• The 250th Red Robin was opened in 2004.

RELATED STORIES:

• SeattlePI.com's Monica Guzman talks to the manager of the Eastlake Red Robin and also has a link to the building's King County Property Record (the building was constructed in 1916).
• The Seattle Times' Nancy Leeson quotes Anne Marie Kriedler, the owner of the building, as saying she is in the process of leasing it to another restaurant. Lesson says the property has been listed for sale since last year for $2.5 million. Read Leeson's blog post for more of the story.

UPDATE: This post has been changed since it was first published. A link to a Weekly interview with Cormac Mahoney has been added.

Tako Truk updated its Web site this afternoon with details of their one-off event on Saturday, March 6.

The event, co-sponsored with Two Beers Brewing, will be from "1pmish-6pmish" somewhere in SoDo, the Truk's site says. The Truk site advises watching their Twitter feed for more details.

They'll be raising money to send Shelterboxes to Haiti. Shelterbox is an international disaster relief charity that "delivers emergency shelter, warmth and dignity to people affected by disaster worldwide," according to the charity's Web site. Each Shelterbox "supplies an extended family of up to 10 people with a tent and essential equipment to use while they are displaced or homeless."

Each kits costs $1,000 and can be tracked so donors can see where it goes.

Oh, and they'll be serving Tako Truk food, of course. Cormac Mahoney, Tako Truk's chef extraordinaire, says they're thinking Coco Piggy, veggie/octopus and the stew. They'll run a scrip system: four tickets for $20. Each ticket will get you two tacos or a beer or a chance to play Bad Beer Toss. Cormac explains:

"bad beer toss", a game popular at all two beers brewery events that involves a point system derived from how spectacularly you can get a warm can of bad beer to explode when you throw it at various sharp and pointy targets.... sounds fun, yeah?

The prize for winning Bad Beer Toss may be a Tako Truk party at your house. Maybe. Cormac says he's still "mashing numbers on that one."

"I'm really impressed with the Shelterbox org and want to send as many of those boxes as possible," Cormac says in an e-mail. "They've been deploying to Peru to help the flood victims there as well. Our inital goal is to send 10 boxes, which would be $10,000, to help 100 people get under shelter and be able to cook and take care of themselves, relatively speaking. I think we can do it."

If you think you'll be coming to the event, head to Tako Truk's Web site and click the RSVP link to e-mail them so they can get an idea of how many people might be coming.

The Weekly has the first part of an interview with Cormac online today.

UPDATE: This post has been changed since it was first published. Information on Matt Dillon's partnership in Nettletown have been added. Choi is a co-founder of Foraged & Found Edibles.

Eastlake native and wild foods guru Christina Choi will be opening a new restaurant in the old Sitka & Spruce location at 2238 Eastlake Ave. E. 

The restaurant will be called Nettletown and will open by the end of February, Choi says.

Matt Dillon, owner of Sitka & Spruce, is a partner with Choi in the new restaurant. "I will be heading the kitchen and everyday affairs and Matt will be there to egg me on," Choi says on her blog, Nettletown.

Choi co-founded Foraged & Found Edibles with Jeremy Faber. The company supplies all kinds of wild ingredients -- think mushrooms to ferns -- to local restaurants. Choi also writes and publishes the Illustrated Wild Foods Recipe Calendar.

Nettletown will be in the same vein, Choi says, with lots of wild food and seasonal and local items on the menu. There will be Asian and Pacific Northwest influences. And seafood as well.

Choi says the new restaurant will in the style of a cafe with counter service. She'll start with lunch and brunch and add dinner service later, she says. 

When I stopped by last week, Choi and her boyfriend were hard at work remodeling the old S&S space. "It's taken longer than I would have hoped," she said with a laugh. Choi not only lives in Eastlake now but spent her first five years just blocks from the new restaurant. Pretty cool!

Choi has posted about the new venture on her Nettletown blog.

The Weekly's Voracious blog has an interview with Choi. And Seattle Magazine has a brief post about the new restaurant.

UPDATE: This post has been changed since it was first published. I've added details on the event.

Just heard from Cormac: The March 6 thing is a one-off event in collaboration with some friends. He promises more details in a couple of weeks.

Our original post:

I don't know what it means but Cormac Mahoney (I assume it was Cormac) sent out a Tako Truk tweet about an hour ago:

yawning... stretching... listening to rain...  thinking that we should get together... say, saturday march 6, 2010... afternoonish?

And from Tako Truk's Facebook site:

You all still there. Something special coming March 6. Stay tuned........

I've got an e-mail in to Cormac to see what's up. Could coco piggy be in our future?

Our previous Tako Truk coverage is collected here.

Two Eastlake restaurants are offering you a way to dine and donate to help victims of the Haiti earthquake. Both of these events end on Sunday:

• Grand Central Bakery, 1616 Eastlake Ave. E.: When you eat at Grand Central (8 a.m.-4:30 p.m. Saturday and Sunday), add a donation to Mercy Corps to your bill and the bakery will match it. They hope to raise $10,000, which includes a $5,000 donation from Grand Central.
• Eastlake Bar and Grill, 2947 Eastlake Ave. E.: The fundraiser here is that $1 from the purchase of every half-pound burger will go to the Red Cross Haiti Relief program. The fundraiser will be going on at all four of the Neighborhood Grills locations: Eastlake, Greenlake, Southlake and Lake Forest. They're open until 1 a.m. Friday, and from 9 a.m. to 1 a.m. Saturday and Sunday.

The Seattle Times' Providence Cicero reviewed Cicchetti, Serafina owner Susan Kaufman's new restaurant, and came away impressed. "A charming hangout with echoes of Venice," the headline from last Friday's paper says.

Cicero highlighted the bar's extensive list of cocktails. "The bar gets more acreage than the kitchen because this is a drinks- driven place," Cicero notes.

As for the food at Cicchetti, Cicero says:

The food riffs on Mediterranean flavors. It's simple, uncomplicated fare and many of the two dozen hot and cold plates rank high on the bell curve of bar food.

What did she like? Port and fennel sausage, red snapper, the "oven floor cheese," salt-cod fritters and ricotta fritters.

In conclusion: "Unpretentious, convivial and affordable, Cicchetti attracts a broad swath of citizenry. I suggest you park your gondola in the shade and give it a try."

Read the whole Seattle Times review here.

We previewed Cicchetti in November here.

Eastlake Bar and Grill, 2947 Eastlake Ave. E., has a special fundraiser going on next weekend for victims of the Haiti earthquake: $1 from the purchase of every half-pound burger will go to the Red Cross Haitian Relief Fund.

The fundraiser will be going on at all four of the Neighborhood Grills locations. Besides Eastlake, those include Greenlake, Southlake and Lake Forest.

Another fundraiser coming up at the Neighborhood Grills will be on Feb. 3 and will benefit the University District Food Bank (full disclosure: I volunteer for the food bank).

Order off the special menu that night and two thirds of the price of your meal will go to the food bank. Order off the regular menu and 50 percent goes to the food bank.

"Sorry no steak night or coupons that evening," the Grills say on their Facebook page. "We're trying to raise some money!"

The University District Food Bank serves a large part of north Seattle, including Eastlake. In 2009, they served 52,945 customers and distributed 2.1 million pounds of food.

And not just because Alcena Plum, owner of Louisa's Cafe Bakery, bought an article about the Eastlake restaurant in the Stranger's holiday Strangercrombie auction.

Bethany Jean Clement, the Stranger's restaurant critic, acknowledges that purchasing the article (which is in tomorrow's edition but online now) might have influenced her review but, she says, not much:

I had to be nice in writing this review, because Alcena Plum purchased it in our annual Strangercrombie charity auction, but please note that I did not have to be this nice. What a relief it is to be able to write this to you. Strangercrombie aside, I would like to hereby sincerely recommend Louisa's, whether for a massive cinnamon roll or a carefully prepared, tasty, and also fairly massive dinner. Without pretension and with its heart in the right place, Louisa's is serving nice food in a nice neighborhood space.

Clement raved about the garlic sage prawns (perfectly cooked and lots of 'em), the smoked tomatoes in the panzanella salad, the tacos el carne adovado, the free-range chicken and the half-bottles of wine. And, she says, the "portions are mighty."

Read more of the article here.

It seemed like half of Eastlake was at Cicchetti on Saturday.

The occasion was the annual Eastlake neighborhood "thank you" event put on by Susan Kaufman, owner of Cicchetti and Serafina. An Eastlake resident, Kaufman was busy working the room, chatting with friends and taking photos (check out the pictures on the walls at Cicchetti; they're Kaufman's work).

The event usually happens at Serafina but took place this year in Cicchetti, Kaufman's new restaurant just across the courtyard from Serafina. Neighbors enjoyed the views from the upstairs, and the food and beverages generously supplied by Kaufman.

Guests' name tags included the street they live on, which made it easy to find neighbors you knew or were just meeting for the first time.

As we used to say at the little weekly paper I worked for in high school: A good time was had by all. Thanks, Susan!

The entry to Cicchetti is just off the courtyard off East Boston.

Serafina usually has its annual Eastlake community "thank you" event in the fall, but owner and Eastlake resident Susan Kaufman and her staff were too busy launching their new restaurant, Cicchetti, to do it at that time last year.

The slightly delayed "thank you" will be this coming Saturday, Jan. 16, from 1 to 3 p.m. at Cicchetti, 121 E. Boston St., around the corner from Serafina. They'll be serving an array of cicchetti (Venician small plates) and beverages.

You'll need to bring the invitation letter that was found inside the latest edition of the Eastlake News, the community council's newsletter, to get in. Copies of the News can be found all over the neighborhood.

In the letter, Kaufman notes that Serafina is entering its 19th year and that she's "humbled" by the restaurant's popularity. "I have said it many times and in many ways," she writes, "much of our success is due to the loyalty of our community, Eastlake."

She adds:

"What a special neighborhood it is. Eastlake, through all its changes and growth, continues to have the same heart & soul. I am proud to be an integral part of this community, both as a resident and a business owner."

In addition to the "thank you" event, Kaufman will host the first meeting of the Eastlake Merchants Association at Cicchetti on Jan. 28.

UPDATE: Thursday, Jan. 14: The lease sign is off the old S&S space. I'm making inquiries about what is up.

Original post below:

Anyone need a cozy Eastlake location to house their restaurant?

Sitka & Spruce's old location is available to lease. The popular restaurant closed in Eastlake on Dec. 30 and will reopen on Melrose Avenue on Capitol Hill in the spring.

When Sitka & Spruce announced in December that they were closing, there was a rumor in The Weekly that Cormac Mahoney, the chef behind last summer's popular Tako Truk and a former chef at S&S, might be leasing the space. But when I asked Cormac about it, he downplayed the rumor. I'm taking that as a "no."

Personally, I'd love to see Cormac and the Tako Truk crew locate in the neighborhood. Can we start a petition?

The Slog got folks in Eastlake wondering on Sunday with a "Stranger Suggests" item about the Eastlake Zoo.

The Slog lauded the Zoo as:

"... a big room with high ceilings and smoke-cured timbers that glow faintly with age, nostalgia, and the benign, respectful indifference of a quality old-timers' bar."

What got people's attention was the next sentence in the Slog post where they noted that you could "drink a little whiskey" at the popular Eastlake tavern. What the ... ?!? Had the Zoo suddenly changed liquor licenses without anyone noticing?

Nope. A call to the Zoo (and a check of its Web site) confirms that it's still just beer and wine (and a few food items) at the Zoo's bar. 

Not sure that I'd agree with the Slog that the Zoo has a "clammy" quality. What it does have is a comfortable air about it. It's a relaxed place where, like a certain TV show of a few years ago, "everybody knows your name." And there's no pressure to do anything but linger over a beer or a glass of wine and maybe chat with your neighbor, or not, as the mood strikes you.

Some things don't change much, or very quickly, as the years go by. And you have to admire that. Thanks, Eastlake Zoo, for being your reliable self. Carry on!

UPDATE: This post has been updated since it was first published. A video on the Metro fare changes by Johnathon Fitzpatrick has been added.

Another week, another holiday. Here is the list of what businesses are open in Eastlake on New Year's Eve and New Year's Day. 

The list shows what is open on each day. If I've missed your business, let me know and I'll add you in. Or, if something has changed with your business's hours, let me know. E-mail me at curtmilton (at) comcast.net.

NEW YEAR'S EVE HOURS
FOOD AND DRINK

• Azteca, 1823 Eastlake Ave. E. Hours: Usual hours, 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Web site: www.aztecamex.com
• Cicchetti, 121 E. Boston St. Hours: 5 p.m. to 1 a.m. Six- and seven-course tasting menus early in the evening upstairs; a la menu on the main floor until 1 a.m. Web site: www.serafinaseattle.com
• Eastlake Bar and Grill, 2947 Eastlake Ave. E. Hours: noon-2 a.m. Web site: www.neighborhoodgrills.com/eastlake/index.html
• Eastlake Zoo, 2301 Eastlake...

UPDATE: Added Christmas Eve hours for Lake Union Mail.

Here's the list of what's open in Eastlake for the holiday.

Christmas Eve is the time to shop and eat out in Eastlake because stores and restaurants will mostly be open. But note that many places will be closing early.

On Christmas Day, not much is stirring in Eastlake ... but a few places will be open. Check the list to see which businesses will be open.

I'd like to encourage you to patronize our local, Eastlake businesses as much as possible this holiday season. They're a great bunch of people and the neighborhood would be at a loss without them.

If I've missed your business, please make a note in the comments or e-mail me at curtmilton (at) comcast.net. I'll post New Year's Eve and New Year's Day hours next week.

Happy holidays!

CHRISTMAS EVE HOURS:
FOOD AND DRINK:

• Azteca, 1823 Eastlake Ave. E. Hours: 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Web site: www.aztecamex.com
• Eastlake Bar and Grill, 2947 Eastlake Ave. E. Hours: 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Web site: www.neighborhoodgrills....

Alcena Plum, owner of Louisa's Cafe Bakery, 2379 Eastlake Ave. E., says she has applied for a "service bar" license for the restaurant.

This type of license would allow Louisa's to serve drinks from a menu but there wouldn't be a lounge. Drinks would be mixed in an area of the kitchen.

Alcena says it takes about 60-90 days to upgrade her liquor license. We'll let you know it's in place.

Will you be open on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day? Let us know! Post the hours you'll be open in the comments below. Or e-mail me at curtmilton (at) comcast.net. I'll post a wrap up list later in the week.

Happy holidays!

Thanks to Eastlake Ave. Blog reader ajussel for the tip: Sitka & Spruce has announced on their web site that they'll be closing the doors of their Eastlake location on Dec. 30.

The new Sitka & Spruce will open in the spring, they hope, at 1531 Melrose Ave. on Capitol Hill.

Matt Dillon, the S&S owner, says on the restaurant's Web site:

"A 'thank you' to all of the friends, now family, who have passed so graciously through the doors, and made this such a beautiful experience for me and all of the family who have worked so hard and selflessly to make Sitka & Spruce what it is.

"The new Sitka & Spruce will not be much larger in size, just a handful more seats, but the experiences over the last three and a half years have given me much needed insight into the blossoming maturity that is upon us."

Sitka & Spruce will have an open house on Dec. 30, 6 p.m. to whenever, the site says. Cost is $15 plus drinks.

Jonathan Kauffman has more at the Weekly.

We've enjoyed going to this sushi chef's restaurant called Chiso located in Fremont. Hopefully, he'll bring the same type of magic to Eastlake. Now we need four or five more good restaurants (where did the Tako Truk go???). Here is the article about Taichi Kitamura from the Times.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/allyoucaneat/201044671

UPDATE: This story has been changed since it was first published. Links to Nancy Leeson's blog post and the first reviews on Yelp have been added.

After several hectic months of renovation, Serafina’s new restaurant space, Cicchetti, opens on Tuesday, Nov. 24.

Susan Kaufman, Eastlake resident and Serafina’s owner, says she’s “very excited” to see the new restaurant open. She refers to Cicchetti (pronounced “chi-KET-tee”) as “Serafina’s little bratty sister.”

The new place is right behind Serafina in a former architects’ office that Kaufman says she had wanted to buy for years. When it became available, she bought with the intention of creating a private dining room.

But that idea soon became Cicchetti, named after the “small plates” found in restaurants in Venice. 

“I liked the idea of the small plates,” Kaufman explained Saturday evening as the restaurant bustled around her during a “soft” opening. “I like to eat like that. It’s just a nicer way to eat.”

The Moors brought this style of food to Venice, she said. She didn’t want to limit it to just what was served in Venice, so she and Executive Chef Dylan Giordan incorporated influences from around the Mediterranean, adding in touches of Portugal, Spain, Morocco and more.

Kaufman sees Cicchetti as “a little secret restaurant.” There won’t be any reservations and she says there should always be a place to sit. She thinks of it as a casual, neighborhood, drop-in place where you can sit at the bar and have a glass of wine and a couple of small dishes, or take a table and have more of a meal.

Big windows (including one that runs from behind the bar up to the second floor) give you views of Lake Union. Upstairs has space for groups as well as communal tables and a couple of cozy rooms for smaller gatherings. There’s a space on the ground floor that the hostess referred to as the “library.” 

There’s an impressive bar downstairs where bar chef Chris Bollenbacher (a “mad genius,” Kaufman says) has created an extensive list of drinks concocted with house-made infusions, syruprs and the like.

Kaufman wanted the neighborhood to know that she’s “been mindful of the parking situation.” She rents a lot a block south to serve both restaurants and diners can also park in the lot above the Eastlake Market for only $3.

And, she says she hasn’t forgotten about Serafina’s annual Eastlake Appreciation Party.  Things were too busy with work on Cicchetti to have it in the fall, Kaufman says, but it will happen sometime after the first of the year.

Cicchetti will be open Tuesday through Saturday, 5 p.m. to 8 a.m. Enter off of East Boston. Check their web site or call 206-323-0807 for more information.

Related stories:

• Nancy Leeson's post about Cicchetti from her Seattle Times blog, All You Can Eat.
• First reviews of Cicchetti on Yelp are here.

Thanksgiving is coming next week. I'll be compiling what I suspect will be a short a list of Eastlake businesses that will be open on the holiday. Is yours one of them? If so, post your hours here in the comments and I'll add you to the list. Or, e-mail me at curtmilton (at) comcast.net.

Happy Turkey Day!

Grand Central Bakery will showcase its new line of U-Bake products during a special sale on Thursday at the Eastlake cafe, 1616 Eastlake Ave. E. The sale runs from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m.

It's for a good cause: 50 percent of the proceeds from the sale of U-Bake items will benefit Lettuce Link, a program of Solid Ground, focused on growing, harvesting and donating fresh, seasonal produce to Seattle’s food shelters and those dependent on the emergency food system.

The U-Bake line features Grand Central favorites like pie dough disks, preformed pie crusts and puff pastry that you can bake at home.

The sale will also be happening at Grand Central's Pioneer Square location.

A Tweet from Alcena at Louisa's Cafe Bakery this morning:

It's here!!! Table service brunch Saturday & Sundays til 2! Come and let us serve you!

I didn't mind waiting in line to place my order (gave me a chance to chat with people), but I have to admit the table service will be a nice addition. I had breakfast at Louisa's a couple of Saturdays ago and the place was jumping. Can't wait to be waited on!