August 2013

This Weekend: Home Opener at Husky Stadium

This Weekend: Home Opener at Husky Stadium

Get ready to cheer for the Huskies at their home opener against Boise State

The construction crews will clear out just in time for kickoff on Saturday, August 31, when the University of Washington takes on rival Boise State for the home opener—the first game in the thoroughly renovated Husky Stadium. And while you may not be lucky enough to sit in the new luxury suites, remember, every seat…

On the Urban Farm

On the Urban Farm

Seattle’s biggest urban farm is taking root in Rainier Valley

It is a cloudless day and spring has quilted the sprawling 8-acre Rainier Beach Urban Farm and Wetlands (RBUFW) in every shade of green, from the chartreuse tips of awakening shrubs to the hunter green of contorted, Seussian pines. Here in South Seattle, grasses, clover and dandelions hug the ground, sprinkled with drifts of tiny…

Space-Travel Agent Stefan Bisciglia

Space-Travel Agent Stefan Bisciglia

A local space-travel agent aims to rocket your world

Stefan Bisciglia is selling tickets to space, and if you’ve got the cash, you’ve got a seat. The 27-year-old from Gig Harbor is one of only three accredited “space agents” in the Northwest trained by Virgin Galactic, the world’s first “commercial spaceline,” spearheaded by Richard Branson. Having begun his career working for his family’s luxury…

New Store: Maison Luxe

New Store: Maison Luxe

It’s been almost four years since Kelie Grosso decamped her interiors store, Maison Luxe, from its First Avenue digs to an appointment-only spot on an upper floor of a historic Pioneer Square office space. But as of April, Maison Luxe is back in the retail business, having taken over the airy Madison Valley storefront recently…

The Best Themed Restaurants in Seattle

The Best Themed Restaurants in Seattle

Kendall Jones explores the new wave of upscale restaurants with an escapist twist

It is ironic how we spend our days surrounded by a buzzing sea of humanity but live in relative isolation. Even when forced out among fellow humans, we commute with headphones on and eyes fixed to a handheld stream of text message conversations and social media interactions. We forge new friendships 140 characters at a…

Bar Cotto

Bar Cotto

Cozy Italian on Capitol Hill

Bar Cotto (1546 15th Ave.; 206.838.8081; ethanstowellrestaurants.com) is the latest outpost in Ethan Stowell’s growing culinary empire (Tavolàta, How to Cook a Wolf, Staple & Fancy, Rione XIII, Anchovies & Olives). Its snug confines are a tasty paean to Italian cured meats and other treats inspired by “the boot.” Mood Lighting and AmaroNext door to…

Cheap Eats: Rain Shadow Meats Squared

Cheap Eats: Rain Shadow Meats Squared

Carnivores, make this spot your next lunchtime stop

Russ Flint’s Pioneer Square butcher shop (the first Rain Shadow lives in the Melrose Market) is an expansive carnivore’s wonderland: beautifully marbled steaks and portly pork chops, plump sausages and house-made mortadella. And with so much space, there’s room for making sandwiches. At lunchtime the shop fills quickly, with folks on bar stools at the…

High Style: Erika Dalya Massaquoi

High Style: Erika Dalya Massaquoi

The visual arts curator and educator is making a bold statement in Seattle

Personal Style: Leschi’s Erika Dalya Massaquoi is a fashion chameleon, absorbing and reflecting the many moods and styles of her influences, which are as diverse and far reaching as the Miami of her childhood and her parents’ interest in civil rights and modernism. “I’m all about the high/low mix,” Massaquoi says. “You see me in…

Bees at Sea-Tac

Bees at Sea-Tac

Sea-Tac airport is abuzz over a new flight path

Seattle-Tacoma International Airport has become a whole new kind of hub—for more than 600,000 flying insects. Seattle nonprofit The Common Acre (commonacre.org) worked with local bee-hugger organization Urban Bee Company (urbanbee.org) to install 16 honeybee hives at three locations in the scrub near the runways as a way to help combat the massive wave of…

The Newest Spray Park in Town

The Newest Spray Park in Town

Beacon Mountain Spraypark sets a high water mark

Hooray for August, when we can finally say it’s summer without feeling the impulse to knock on wood. After spending most of the year complaining about the rain, we find ourselves seeking out precipitation—in the form of spray parks and fountains. While the International Fountain at Seattle Center wins big for, well, sheer bigness, there’s…

Casual Fare at Madison Kitchen

Casual Fare at Madison Kitchen

Pops of poppy orange, new banquette seating and an airiness are hallmarks of the Madison Kitchen, which lives in the spruced-up Madison Park locale where the dim, crowded Park Place Deli spent many years. Here, neighbors stop in for coffee and a scone—one of the most tender in memory, with blueberries, lemon zest and a…

Ampersand As Apostrophe's Buffalo Parcel Bag

Ampersand As Apostrophe’s Buffalo Parcel Bag

One bag, seven ways to wear it

Chinatown–International District-based Jessica Park, the designer of the ultrachic Ampersand As Apostrophe line of bags (and one cool necklace), is really into the concept of transformation. “Almost all of my bags can be transformed for multiple ways to wear,” she says. Her most popular bag, the Buffalo Parcel ($795), for example, has at least seven…