Next Thursday is a prime opportunity to have a night on the town with friends or a special someone, and benefit worthy causes. It’s the annual Eat Out on Capitol Hill night. Participating restaurants will donate a portion of your bill to Country Doctor Health Centers, which provide accessible healthcare, regardless of patients’ ability to pay.
Participating venues range from cafes—including Caffe Vita, Hello Robin and Ada’s Technical Books—to casual diners—like Bimbo’s Cantina and Lost Lake Cafe—to some of the dressier venues along the Pike-Pine corridor, such as Manhattan, Tin Table, Mamnoon and Sitka & Spruce. Maybe all you want is a sweet treat, and Molly Moon’s and Cupcake Royale are on the list. You can see the full list below. The range of locations, fare and price points ought to encourage a lot of engagement, and the cause is worthy.
Care to make it a full night? Just as there are a range of venues for Eat Out, there are plenty of events to make it a truly memorable night.
Shop to support Fred Hutchinson with Lisa Cole and Lawrence Zarian
It will be Fashion Week in Bellevue, so for those who spend their days on the east side, it might be ideal to shop for a cause at Intermix at the Bellevue Collection before coming to Capitol Hill for dinner. Vogue magazine presents A Night of Shopping at Intermix with stylist Lawrence Zarian and Vanguard Seattle’s own Lisa Cole. As a rare treat, both will be on hand to offer tips and advice to attendees as they prepare for fall. Ten percent of proceeds from sales will be donated to Obliteride, supporting Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research.
Take in a show downtown
If you want to do an early dinner before a show, there is the 5th Avenue Theatre’s production of A Chorus Line now playing in Seattle. (Read Johann Van Niekerk’s review of it here.) It starts at 8PM.
At ACT Theatre, there is Don Quixote & Sancho Panza: Homeless in Seattle, which humorously uses Cervantes’ famous duo to address homelessness, substance abuse and mental health among homeless Latinos.
Don Quijano (a more recent immigrant) speaks entirely in Spanish, while his counterpart nicknamed Sancho Panza (“illegal since age 1”) communicates in his first language, Spanglish. Together they navigate the system of emergency rooms, psych wards, shelters, day labor, and tent cities while meeting street life head-on, with comedy and dignity.
Showtime is 7:30.
Over in Lower Queen Anne, On the Boards will be opening the first performance run of their new season. The production, Germinal by Antoine Defoort and Halory Goerger, is a much talked-about, humorous and heady look at human civilization, depicted as—and with—a slew of clever theatre tricks. (This is where I will choose to be on Thursday night after dinner. Update, September 22: Oops. Double-booked. I’ll be at this on Friday!) Showtime is 8 PM. Read more about Germinal on the Vanguard blog.
My personal MUST SEE event of the evening is Optical 2: Huminary, an audiovisual showcase that is part of Decibel Festival. It will feature music from Alice Boman, Survive and Max Cooper, with dance by The Pendleton House and visuals by Benjamin Van Citters. I’ve been looking forward to this for weeks. Read more here.
Relax with an artist lecture by Spencer Finch
A slightly more low-key but also compelling option is the artist talk of Spencer Finch at Seattle Public Library, sponsored by The New Foundation. It’s free, with first-come-first-served seating in the Microsoft Auditorium on the first floor of the downtown Central Library (1000 4th Ave).
From the press release:
Spencer Finch pursues the ineffable through his work—from the color of a sunset outside a Monument Valley motel room to the afternoon breeze by Walden Pond, the shadows of passing clouds in the yard of Emily Dickinson’s home or the light in a Turner painting. With both a scientific approach to gathering data and a true poetic sensibility, Finch’s installations, sculptures, and works on paper filter perception through the lens of nature, history, literature, and personal experience.
Doors open at 6:45 and the lecture begins at 7 PM.
Start your fall with a night on the town. Get out, Seattle!
Eat Out on Capitol Hill 2014: Participating Locations
Cafes, Bakeries and Creameries
- Ada’s Technical Books and Cafe
- Broadcast Coffee, Bellevue Ave.
- Broadcast Coffee, Yesler
- Caffe Vita
- Cherry St. Coffee
- Cupcake Royale
- Hello Robin
- Molly Moon Ice Cream
- Victrola Coffee
Bars and Eateries
- Altura
- Barrio
- Ba Bar
- Bimbo Cantina
- ChaCha Lounge
- Coastal Kitchen
- Good Citizen
- Hopvine Pub
- Liberty
- Lost Lake Lounge
- Mamnoon
- Manhattan
- Mioposto Bryant
- Mioposto Mt. Baker
- Monsoon
- Oddfellows Café
- Poppy
- Poquitos
- Quinn’s Pub
- Restaurant Zoe
- Ristorante Machiavelli
- Sitka & Spruce
- Skillet Diner
- Smith
- Tallulah
- The Tin Table
- Van Trapps
- Via Tribunali
- VIOS
- Witness