It's been twice in two months so I'm thinking this could be a regular blog post; visiting a favorite restaurant because it's the last time before it closes forever, or in other words, Vanishing Seattle. I understand I was gone for 17 years but to tell you the truth, so much that I remember growing up here is still around. Many things may be different, like the name of the Coliseum is now Key Arena, but the things that make Seattle unique and the things I love are basically the same; the Space Needle, the Seattle Center, Nordstrom, the Public Market (or Pike Place Market-the official name), Green Lake, Magnuson Park, the Ballard Locks, the Montlake Cut, Opening Day of Boating and crew races, the Daffodil and Tulip Festival at La Connor, Mariner baseball, Seafair, the Seafair pirates and Seafair parades, hydroplanes and the Blue Angels, the Underground Tour, the Smith Tower, Mt. Rainier, riding a ferry or watching them go back and forth across the Sound, Ivars, seagulls, Chinatown (or Chinatown-International District-the official name), Bagel Oasis, Dick's, the Coop (or PCC-the official name), the floating bridges, Lake Washington, the waterfront, the Ole Curiosity Shop, the steep hills everywhere and the beaches of Golden Gardens and Alki. I would mention neighborhoods and streets but they've all changed so much even though they still do exist like Broadway, University Village, the U-District and "the Ave", Ballard, and our old neighborhoods of Wedgwood and View Ridge where house prices are just astronomical now. But what really gets to me is when I see old classic restaurants closing down where I have a lot of memories. On Friday, we had our last chocolate ecstasy experience at Dilettante on Broadway.
They closed yesterday...forever. Dilettante is still opened in the area with their small Chocolate Cafe locations but Broadway was the first one where it all started in 1976 and grew into a full scale restaurant with a chocolate martini bar. Bruce and I went here for one of our first dates in 1980, we sat down and had one of their homemade pieces of chocolate with a cup of coffee (no esspresso drinks back then.) Now, people come here for the chocolate martinis.
We had our last one on Friday. I had the Chocolate Covered Cherry Martini and Bruce had the Salted Carmel with White Chocolate Martini. I loved mine but Bruce's was also pretty awesome.
I suppose it is even sadder for Lauren and Ari because they live within walking distance to the Broadway Dilettante.
They went here for dinner on Valentine's Day last year and will take their out-of-town friends here as a "must do" when in Seattle, as we often do. My brother had a tradition of coming here on his last night in Seattle during his visits for a Mariner baseball game or Sounder soccer game and he treated us all here when he got promoted at work.
We all came here for a decadent chocolate dessert after his rehearsal dinner in 2003 when he got married which happened to also be our 22nd wedding anniversary. I mean, coming to Dilettante was a significant occasion. For this to go away...this is a serious issue.
The ambience of this Dilettante will be missed, too. Their mocha cafes are just small coffee shop-type places that could be any other coffee shop, except maybe more chocolate pastries and chocolate drinks offered. I've really only been to the one at Seatac airport and Westlake Mall downtown, not that special. It's a sad day for Dilettante lovers. And then last month, we had our last plate of spaghetti at The Old Spaghetti Factory that also closed forever after 46 years on the waterfront.
The old brick building was built in 1902 and the unique ambience of the place will be truly missed. Before it was the Old Spaghetti Factory, it was a warehouse for a salmon packing company, later serving as a storage for the department store Frederick and Nelson, also a product of Vanishing Seattle. This Old Spaghetti Factory opened shortly after the original restaurant opened in Portland in 1969. Nick and Lauren loved coming here when they were little and we came often. Nick always wanted to check out the railroad tracks right next to the building before we went in. This place was always a Seattle classic, especially if you got seated at a table in the old trolley car inside.
It was a great family restaurant because what child doesn't like spaghetti? (What adult doesn't like spaghetti?)
The price was always right, too. Each entree included warm sourdough bread with whipped butter, iceberg lettuce salad and spumoni ice cream for dessert. What a deal.
Like Dilettante, the Old Spaghetti Factory still exists with restaurants located at Lynnwood, Tukwila and Tacoma. But for us, the waterfront was the only one we'd go to. We came here for some much needed comfort food in 2010 after we returned from Nick's wedding in Hawaii and before heading home to Idaho. A nice stopover in Seattle meant dinner at the Spaghetti Factory, our home away from home. And it was here that Nick taught us to never pour our own wine, you always let someone else pour it for you because that's the way they do it in Japan; one of the many Japanese customs we would learn from him.
My last Vanishing Seattle isn't restaurant related, but about a local icon who passed away here in Seattle on Friday, Stan Boreson. He was the star of my favorite children's show on TV when I was little because he had a basset hound dog named No Mo that slept on top of his piano.
He was a local Scandinavian comic, musician and recording artist who wrote lots of corny songs (that kids loved) and sold 15 albums with songs he played on the piano and his accordion. I still remember the show's opening song:
"Zero dacus, mucho cracus / hallaballu-za bub /
that’s the secret password that we use down at the club/
Zero-dacus, mucho-cracus / hallaballu-za fan /
means now you are a member of KING’s TV club with Stan.”
His show ran from 1954 to 1967. He had lots of sidekicks on his show: Grandma Torvald (his drag character), Pepita the flea, Bozo the Clown, the Old Timer and his horse Nel, Myrtle Mopup, Chief Wetblanket, Victor Rolla (the singing phonograph) and Space-Nik (the 1962 Seattle's World Fair Era creature).
But I loved No Mo, his dog, the most. He was named after the famous Slo-Mo-Shun IV hydroplane via a write-in contest that drew 10,000 entries. No Mo never really did anything except sit there on top of the piano and just look cute but since I always absolutely loved dogs, he was the star of the show to me.
What will be next? When will it happen? Why will it leave? Stay tuned for the next episode of Vanishing Seattle.
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