One other day, one other closure announcement from a widely known Seattle restaurant. This time it’s Mercado Luna, the gathering of companies on the nook of Pine Avenue and Summit Avenue on Capitol Hill, which introduced final week on social media that it could shut its doorways on the finish of the month.
Mercado Luna began life in as Mezcaleria Oaxaca, a sibling restaurant to the acclaimed La Carta De Oaxaca in Ballard. Based on Capitol Hill Seattle Weblog, Mezcaleria Oaxaca was initially co-owned by La Carta’s Dominguez-Perez household and Graham Graham (who amongst different issues is the man who did the decor for the previous Crocodile Cafe when it opened). However ultimately the enterprise was spun off from the opposite eating places owned by the Dominguez-Perez household; Graham purchased the constructing in 2022 for $2.3 million, studies CHS.
In 2020, the restaurant added a taco walk-up window — a really fortuitous transfer because the COVID-19 pandemic would shut down eating places that 12 months. As town got here out of lockdown mode in 2022, Mezcaleria went by a shift the homeowners had been planning earlier than the pandemic, because the enterprise became a form of meals court docket that contained not simply the unique restaurant and take-out window but in addition a rooftop bar and a wine store specializing in Mexican wines.
In its closing announcement, Mercado Luna stated that it was “the primary Mezcaleria in the US of America” and a favourite of Anthony Bourdain. “Our kitchen has labored with and hosted quite a few celebrated James Beard and Michelin starred cooks,” the announcement went on. “We’ve collaborated with the Mexican authorities and consulate to arrange unique dinners with a lot of Mexico’s best cooks, wine makers and agave distillers.”
However regardless of these successes, “the collision of the altering nature of Seattle and altering state, county and metropolis rules has made it untenable to proceed to function our effort,” restaurant administration wrote. Eater Seattle reached out to Mercado Luna to see what precisely was meant by that and can replace this submit if we hear again.
Restaurant homeowners across the nation have been contending with the rising prices of products and labor. In Seattle, eating places have been additional impacted by a spike in app supply charges following an ordinance that raised the pay of supply drivers, leading to many individuals ordering much less supply. Homeowners are additionally frightened a couple of potential minimal wage enhance set to enter impact subsequent 12 months that might drive them to alter their enterprise fashions.
Within the final month alone, a variety of notable eating places have closed and cited excessive prices as a minimum of partly responsible, together with Ballard’s the Fats Hen, the waterfront dim sum vacation spot China Harbor, and two places of fried rooster mini-chain Bok a Bok. This isn’t even the one latest closure of a widely known Mexican restaurant on Capitol Hill: Barrio closed after 16 years initially of September.
