(Image: Havana)
Ertel in Havana’s heyday (Image: Havana)
A shaper of Capitol Hill nightlife is cutting his final ties with the neighborhood and a longtime part of the Pike/Pine club scene will shutter.
Designer and musician Quentin Ertel has announced he is closing Havana after 20 years at 10th and Pike.
“As we built Havana 20 years ago most people scratched their heads and asked whether this sleepy corner of Capitol Hill was a good place for a bar,” the announcement begins. “It was a fair question at the time, but as any creative person knows, once you have a vision, once you’re thinking outside of the box, you forge ahead despite significant odds. And so we did.”
Havana’s last night of business will be Saturday, June 27th.
“It’s been a rarity. It’s been a privilege. Havana succeeded beyond our wildest dreams,” the announcement concludes.
The exit will be part of changes underway for the building home to the club which officially turns 20 this Saturday. CHS reported here on the closure of the neighboring 6,200-square-foot Glossier store that opened with piles of millennial-pink hype in the summer of 2021. Building owner Hunters Capital is on the hunt for new tenants to keep Poquitos company at 10th and Pike.
For Ertel, closing Havana will be a final disconnection from Capitol Hill’s nightlife scene that he helped build. CHS talked with Ertel in 2018 as he sold 10-year-old The Saint to make way for new projects along E Olive Way.
Ertel’s ties to the Hill were at one point nearly more complicated — and way more expensive. In late 2013, the entrepreneur pulled back on plans to open a “Roman-style trattoria” in the building formerly home to Brocklind’s costume shop on lower Pike. The restaurant project moved forward under a new owner — Meet Korean BBQ opened there into the teeth of the pandemic and has grown into the center of a Capitol Hill food and drink business family. Owner Heong Soon Park is opening Sea’d In inside Chophouse Row, his fourth Capitol Hill establishment within a few blocks of Pike/Pine.
Ertel’s remaining Seattle creation is Shibuya Hi-Fi, a premium, Japanese-style analog listening lounge in Ballard he opened in 2023 with Captain Black’s owner Brian Rauschenbach and DJ Supreme La Rock.
As for Havana and what comes next, the closure marks the second loss of a Pike/Pine club in recent years. The Rhino Room “temporarily” closed at 11th and Pine in late 2024 and never reopened. They sell couches there now.
In the meantime, Havana will have a few more nights and a final Pride weekend to celebrate. “Everybody has a Havana story,” Ertel once told CHS. Regulars and remember-ers can stop in for a drink and a last dance — and, maybe, a story or two.
Havana is located at 1010 E Pike. Learn more at havanasocial.com.
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