Gulliotine
There are a couple more Capitol Hill-area food a drink closures to tally this summer as First Hill is losing a pizza joint and a Broadway cocktail joint has shuttered.
On Broadway, 2024-born Guillotine from veteran bartenders Andrew Larson and Colin Smith closed down last month:
Wow its been quite a ride the past couple years. We wouldn’t change it for anything. The friends and chosen family we have made throughout this journey is by far the hardest part of this. Thank every single one of you for your love and support. We love you guys so much! This isn’t goodbye! You’ll be seeing us around!
CHS checked in last summer with Larson and chef Joey Walter to see how the first year of business in the former Witness space had gone. After launching with an ambitious cocktail and dining menu focused on, well execution, Guillotine had sliced back its efforts by last summer with simpler food offerings and reduced staffing — Larson and Walter were running the whole joint on their own.
Two years after Guillotine’s opening, the 400-block Broadway E lounge space is now in search of a new project to fill the empty bar.
(Image: Italian Family Pizza)
Meanwhile, First Hill’s Italian Family Pizza has closed after 10 years of business on Madison.
In 2016, Steve and Jennifer Calozzi moved their popular restaurant from 1st Ave to First Hill to make way for demolition and development downtown. Atelier Drome transformed the former Madison at Boren check cashing outlet into a workaday pizza joint where the Calozzis served up giant East Coast-style pies — and plenty of East Coast attitude. In 2016, the family’s struggles with street crime, homelessness, and disorder around First Hill’s methadone clinics became news.
In 2018, CHS reported on the couple’s decision to sell the pizza shop to a new owner. Now investor Haiying Xiao has shuttered the joint as it hit the end of its 10-year lease.
Building owner Hunters Capital’s hunt for a new restaurant to fill the space is on.
The closures are part of what has been a busy season of comings and goings around the area’s food and drink businesses. For most empty spaces — like the former 14th and Union Skillet lined up to become Tanaka Ramen and Izakaya — the wait for a new project to begin making plans is only a matter of time. Others like Sam’s Tavern have come back from the dead. And, of course, there are others making plans to create even more food and drink space on the Hill.
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