(Image: @ash_stock)
Northern Broadway’s community of restaurants and bars will grow with an ambitious project from a new chef/owner ready to join the Capitol Hill dining scene.
Plans for Pearl Diver, “a Northwest Neo Bistro,” are underway on Broadway with construction set to transform a mochi doughnut shop and onetime tattoo parlor into a new Parisian-style seafood bistro from chef Ash Stockham.
The Rene Erickson protege left the kitchen of Stone Way’s The Whale Wins to join Canlis alum Brady Ishiwata Williams in growing Tomo in White Center.
Now Stockham is ready to create a new kitchen and become a first-time owner on Capitol Hill.
Pearl Diver plans
Stockham will join a few other chefs growing a North Broadway neighborhood including Nathan Lockwood and Altura which has now been providing fine dining in the area for 15 years. Other new chefs have also moved in. Chefs Leah Engel and Alex Halmi launched the “seasonally dictated” Cafe Lolo in the nearby Loveless Building this spring.
Other nearby favorites include table grill joint Ishoni Yakiniku, longtime favorites Rom Mai Thai and Aoki Sushi, longer-time favorite Deluxe Bar & Grill, self-pour wine bar Nomadic Wine Dispensary, Altura’s more casual Italian sibling Carrello, the nautical dive bar Bait Shop, and the newest comer to this part of Broadway, BusanJeong and its “Korean Pork Broth Rice.”
Pearl Diver will replace Bober Tea and Mochi Dough which packed up its fryer after a year or so of business on this stretch of Broadway. It is likely the sweetshop’s bright pink but not Voodoo-pink paint job will also be a goner.
Pearl Diver will be compact and quaint at around 1,100-square-feet total including around 400 square feet of seating space.
The transition to Pearl Diver is among the more complicated kinds of business changes to undertake under the current city and county permitting environment with a formal change of use process from retail to restaurant underway plus plans to install a new gas oven in the works. Other elements like a refrigerated prep table were already installed by the previous tenants.
Stockham is currently planning for an opening before the end of the year.
Pearl Diver is planned to open in late 2026 at 605 Broadway E. Follow @pearldiverseattle for updates.
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