So lengthy, and thanks for all of the catfish. Jackson’s Catfish Nook, which fed the Central District in a number of incarnations for precisely 40 years, closed Friday, January 3.
“I simply can’t do it anymore,” proprietor Terrell Jackson stated in an Instagram video asserting the closure. “I’m maxxed out, y’all.”
Jackson’s grandparents, Woodrow and Rosemary Jackson, opened the soul meals restaurant — initially simply referred to as Catfish Nook — in January 1985 on the nook of MLK Method and Cherry Avenue. In 2014, the restaurant closed, however Terrell Jackson continued the enterprise as a pop-up, then opened a Ranier Seaside house in 2015. A 12 months later, Jackson’s Catfish Nook moved again to the Central District on Yesler Method, however that location closed in 2018.
The saga of movings and closures appeared to return to an finish on Juneteenth in 2021, when Jackson’s Catfish Nook held a grand reopening at its new location on the bottom flooring of an inexpensive housing improvement close to the nook of twenty third Avenue and Jackson Avenue. This was a part of a mini pattern of Black-owned companies returning to the center of traditionally Black Central District.
However the Central District has gentrified and there are fewer Black residents for the reason that days when the Jacksons opened the primary restaurant on MLK. Based on Census knowledge, the proportion of Black residents within the neighborhood dropped from 57 p.c in 1990 to 16 p.c in 2018. “Neighborhood foot site visitors, those [that] supported a enterprise like this one, are not actually right here,” Jackson advised native media outlet Converge. He additionally stated that the excessive minimal wage, which jumped to over $20 an hour this 12 months even for tipped restaurant staff, contributed to his determination to shut. “I’m not Amazon or Walgreens or Walmart who will pay their staff that a lot,” he advised Converge.
Eater Seattle reached out to Jackson however didn’t hear again.
Jackson clearly loves his hometown — the restaurant’s wall is roofed with the signatures of consumers, together with loads of Seattle-based skilled athletes and celebrities — however advised Converge that he would possibly relocate to Houston or Atlanta, cities with bigger Black populations.
To say that Catfish Nook shall be missed is perhaps an understatement. Early this week there was a handwritten signal on the door apparently addressed to Jackson: “Are you able to contact me about your tartar sauce? I want to purchase what there’s.”
