By Anne Higuera
Reporting for West Seattle Blog
Two new food establishments are poised to open on California Avenue in the first half of November, bringing new food and drink options and late evening operating hours to a block where restaurant food options are limited after 10 pm.
As we first reported a year ago when they signed the lease, franchises Dave’s Hot Chicken and Gong Cha will be moving into the former Haymaker space at 4706 California Ave SW, which is being divided into two separate storefronts. Now the franchisees are ready to talk about the grand openings for each business, along with employment opportunities. Both franchises are owned by the Keshap Group out of Kirkland and sisters from that family business are heading up the franchise development in Washington state. Prachi has Gong Cha, while Sana is opening the Dave’s Hot Chicken stores.
Dave’s Hot Chicken
“The West Seattle permit took a little longer than expected,” says Sana Keshap. In the intervening months, Keshap has opened several Dave’s from Redmond to Tacoma, including one in Issaquah just last week, with Kent and Lynnwood locations slated for December. “I love this brand very much and I want to give it my all. When we’re opening back-to-back like this, it’s tough. I’m getting support pulled in to make sure these openings go smoothly.”
Keshap says the grand opening will be no later than November 13th, though there’s a possibility they will be able to move it up to the first Friday of the month, depending on how construction wraps up. A soft opening will happen the day before. She says they’re expecting a significant crowd in the early days based on the Keshaps’ Capitol Hill location (also a Dave’s/Gong Cha combo), which had more than 2,000 customers during their openings days. While they will eventually be on delivery apps, they will wait until the volume of customers is manageable. “We want to make sure we take care of everyone who shows up in person.”
Dave’s Hot Chicken offers a variety of fried chicken, in 7 levels of spiciness, along with fried mozzarella, fried cauliflower, mac & cheese, shakes, Slushers and other drinks. Keshap says along with serving the community, they actively look to support it with things like fundraisers that donate a portion of sales on a given day. “We have fundraising programs at all our stores. We have a website where groups like sports teams can apply on line and request a date.”
Assistant managers are already being hired for the West Seattle store, and additional positions are being advertised on Indeed. Keshap says the next round of hiring will be for the rest of the store staff, with training ahead of the grand opening. Open hours will be 10am-11pm Sunday-Thursday and 10am-12am Friday and Saturday.
Gong Cha
The bubble tea purveyor, a Taiwanese brand with 2000+ stores worldwide, has just one store so far in Washington. West Seattle’s store will be the second, so Prachi Keshap is bringing the general manager of their Capitol Hill store to help with the grand opening here. She says they only have immediate plans for two more locations, in the region: Tacoma and Portland.
Prachi says Gong Cha encourages an extended soft opening, so they will do that starting November 12th or 13th, with a grand opening on December 3rd and 4th. She says the Gong Cha grand openings often have activities like face painting or performances—details still be worked out. But she says there will be “buy-one-get-one” specials on select drinks during the grand opening.
Gong Cha’s offerings include traditional tea and boba drinks, plus rotating seasonal specials. A recently released horchata-based drink has been so popular at the Capitol Hill location that they expected to run out of supplies for it before the end of the weekend. Prachi says Gong Cha is much more than a typical bubble tea shop because of its reach and international connections. K-Pop star Felix is their global brand ambassador and the stores feature special merchandise like plushies that fans often line up ahead for hours to buy. She also says a limited number of stores, including the new West Seattle one, will have a Super Wu machine. “It’s named after the founder [Wu Zhenhua], but it’s a machine that basically helps us to accurately measure out the drinks.” She says orders generate a QR code, which the Super Wu reads and then dispenses ingredients, making for a consistent product.
Fliers are already up at the Capitol Hill shop advertising open positions in West Seattle, “Then we’re going to be putting up window clings at our West Seattle location. So we’ve started getting resumes in and we’re starting to look.”
Keshap says the Capitol Hill shop has its busiest hours starting around 9-10 pm and into the early morning hours. She knows West Seattle customers may be on a different schedule, which means the hours may change over time. “So we’ll match Dave’s hours and kind of see where we land. Maybe open an hour later [or] close 2 hours earlier.” With separate entries, the stores can complement each other without being tied to the same hours. Gong Cha will also be on the ordering apps.