The Red Apple grocery store at 2701 Beacon Ave. S. is holding their fourth annual Holiday Open House tomorrow evening (Tuesday, December 4) from 4 until 7 p.m. The Red Apple folks promise free food samples, demos, and holiday party ideas, as well as free photos with Santa for the kids. All are welcome.
You think they’ll have some of those cookies pictured on the flyer?
The Red Apple has a high volume of lottery ticket sales, and has sold a lot of winning tickets. Last year, the store sold 14 winning tickets worth $1,000 or more.
This coming Saturday, April 3rd, the Hilltop Red Apple is having their “1st Annual” Easter Egg Hunt at 9am. Stop by the store at Beacon and Lander across from the light rail station or call 206-323-1325 for more details.
An hour later, Jefferson Community Center and Van Asselt Community Center are hosting “Spring” Egg Hunts at 10am Saturday morning:
Bring a basket or a bag to gather up goodies at our Spring Egg Hunt! All children 10 years of age and younger are welcomed to the hunt. Come rain or shine! A pancake breakfast will follow the egg hunt. The cost is $1 per person or $5 per family.
Jefferson Community Center is located at 3801 Beacon Ave S and Van Asselt Community Center is located at 2820 S Myrtle St.
During the last year, many of you have contributed amazing photos to the Beacon Hill Blog photo pool on Flickr. The photos you see here today were chosen from the nearly 700 photos that were taken and posted in the photo pool during 2009. Some were chosen because of their photographic beauty; others, because they captured newsworthy moments on the Hill. Some of these we’ve published before, and some we haven’t.
We would like to thank all of our wonderful Beacon Hill photographers for posting photos to the pool and their generosity in allowing us to share them with you. We hope you enjoy this look back at 2009. Happy New Year!
Fans of Grocery Outlet shopping will soon have another nearby option, however, with a new store opening in the former state liquor store site on Fourth Avenue South in SoDo. The new site is not as convenient to pedestrians as the old one, however; the nearest Link station, instead of being right next door, is about a half-mile walk around a huge block and part of the Metro bus base.
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Mayor-elect McGinn is hosting three town halls this week to hear your thoughts and ideas about the future of the city. Two of the town halls are reasonably close to us here on Beacon Hill.
These are the locations:
Northgate Community Center, 10510 5th Avenue Northeast
7:00 pm, Monday, November 30Langston Hughes Performing Arts Center, 104 17th Avenue South
7:00 pm, Tuesday, December 1Paul Robeson Performing Arts Center At Rainier Beach High School, 8815 Seward Park Avenue South
7:00 pm, Wednesday, December 2
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Beacon Hill’s Helladope had KEXP’s song of the day last Monday with “Just So You Know.”
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Did you deep-fry your Thanksgiving turkey? Still wondering what to do with all that excess cooking oil? Red Apple has joined with Standard Biodiesel to collect your used turkey fryer oil. Standard will donate money to Children’s Hospital for each gallon collected. Please contact the store before bringing in your oil; instructions are in the link above.
Thanks to the P-I’s Big Blog!
If you’re not lucky enough to have air conditioning, or if you’re getting a bit stir-crazy being trapped at home by your A/C, what are some places to head to, easily accessible from the hill, where you can hang out for a bit in a cooler atmosphere?
The Beacon Hill branch of the Seattle Public Library has air conditioning. Seventeen branches do. (I’m so sorry, Columbia City — sounds like your A/C-less branch might even be closed today!)
Wandering around inside Red Apple is refreshing, particularly near meats and in the frozen food aisle, lazily pondering which frozen fudge bar or ice cream sandwich would be best, but mostly chilling in the flood of cold air while standing there with the freezer door open.
Last night, we wanted to get out and get a meal somewhere cool with good food and drinks. I recalled the Collins Pub is just a half-block from the Pioneer Square tunnel station. A few blocks walk and we were in the elevator at Beacon Hill station. Once on the platform, it was a very pleasant temperature. A few minutes later, the air conditioned train stopped and we made our way to the Pioneer Square station and then up, out of the 3rd & Yesler entrance. Downhill and around the corner of the Smith Tower and we were at the comfortably cool Collins Pub. (I had a burger, impulsively with Field Roast instead of beef, with fries and tartar sauce. The burger was good, and the fries great. Wendi had a polenta dish with zucchini, broccoli, and a rustic tomato sauce. The polenta was good. The tomato sauce was a bit acid-y, and the broccoli was a surprise — Wendi hates broccoli. Luckily, I love it. Collins Pub offers a good selection of interesting craft beers. I had a pint of 21st Amendment‘s “Hell or High Watermelon Wheat” — surprisingly tasty and refreshing — and one of Ninkasi‘s “Radiant Summer Pale”, which grew on me the lower it got in the glass.)
What we’d like to know is: Where are you going and what are you doing to beat the heat?
There was reason to be concerned. Beacon Hill is about to lose its only Zipcar site on top of the hill, as well as the nearby site at 29th and Columbian Way. Zipcar members recently received this email:
“The Zipcar location at Beacon Ave S/Lander St is being closed December 31, 2008, but have no fear — there’s a Zipcar located just down the street at S Charles St/Hiawatha Place.”
Just down the street? That’s a long walk for Beaconians, roughly 1.4 miles. See the map below, in which doomed Zipcar sites are marked in red, and the remaining site at Charles and Hiawatha is marked in green:
Zipcar’s website currently does not mention that these sites are going away, so some folks might have planned Zipcar memberships as Christmas gifts, only to find that their local Zipcar will be gone after New Year’s Eve.
This change seems extremely short-sighted, given the forthcoming opening of the Beacon Hill light rail station across the street from the Beacon/Lander Zipcar (which is currently in the Red Apple parking lot), and the Columbia City light rail station a block or two away from the Columbian/29th Zipcar. The locations would seem to be ideal for use in conjunction with transit.
You can tell Zipcar what you think by writing their Seattle General Manager, Carla Archambault, at Zipcar, 380 Union Street, Seattle, WA 98101; phoning 206-323-3539, or faxing 206-682-1657. The email address they give is company-wide (not just Seattle) so it may not be useful, but it is info@zipcar.com.
We’ve seen a lot of great photos of Beacon Hill lately. Here are some interesting autumnal views of the Hill. (Most of these, but not all, are from the Beacon Hill Blog photo pool on Flickr, which welcomes your Beacon Hill photos!)
Several more cool photos, after the jump!
Continue reading A Beacon Hill autumn in pictures