Ten years of coffee, cuts, and causes: Squirrel Chops marks a decade at 23rd and Union

When CHS first stopped by Squirrel Chops in 2016, Shirley Henderson told us she and partner Sharon Blyth-Moss wanted to make community building their business instead of their hobby. Ten years later, the coffee shop and two-chair salon just west of 23rd and Union is still pouring, still cutting, and still organizing.

“I honestly think it exceeded my expectations,” Henderson said.

Henderson, a longtime activist who was part of the “Fight for 15” campaign alongside Kshama Sawant, admits she was nervous early on about being openly political as a business owner. Squirrel Chops went on to back Tax Amazon, the 2020 protests against police violence, and Sawant’s runs for office. It turned out to be a draw.

“All of the things that we’ve stood for have only deepened people’s loyalty and respect for who we are as a business,” she said.

When Henderson wrote a Seattle Times op-ed during the Tax Amazon fight saying she paid more in taxes per dollar than Jeff Bezos, the shop got hate mail… and new regulars, including bus drivers who wanted to support a business willing to say so. Just this week, a customer said he came in because the shop supported Sawant’s congressional campaign.

To Henderson, owning a Central District business doesn’t conflict with her socialist politics. “We just happen to want to work for ourselves,” she said. “As a socialist, I want to treat staff with dignity and respect, because they are the backbone of this space.”

She is taking that platform to City Hall, where she is testifying on Mayor Katie Wilson’s first budget, which she called austerity. Wilson’s proposed 2027–28 budget would raise the Seattle Police Department’s spending by about $68 million, mostly due to union-negotiated wage increases.

“What kind of a socialist is that?” Henderson asked.

Blyth-Moss and Henderson are a couple, but they never set out to brand Squirrel Chops as an LGBTQ business.

“We didn’t start off as a lesbian coffee shop just because we are lesbian,” Blyth-Moss said. “But it’s definitely a queer chop shop.”

The salon specializes in gender-affirming haircuts, and Henderson credits Blyth Moss, who has built a following on social media, with bringing in trans clients who have since become coffee regulars.

“Especially in this political climate, people are looking for a safe place,” Henderson said. “We want this to be a space for everybody, and we mean that.”

Squirrel Chops opened as an early tenant in The Central, one of the first new buildings at 23rd and Union. The owners had wanted a funky old building, but older spaces came with higher rents and short leases ahead of demolition. Today the intersection is ringed by high-rises, in what Henderson calls the epicenter of gentrification in Seattle.

When the pandemic hit, Blyth-Moss moved the register to the shop’s street-facing window, and Squirrel Chops pivoted to takeout overnight. With the neighborhood working from home, business ran steady all day.

Blyth-Moss says she never thought the shop wouldn’t make it, but 2026 has been the hardest year yet. New building owners came in as the lease was ending, and the renewal turned into a struggle. Henderson said green coffee prices jumped about 120% after climate-driven poor harvests in Brazil and Vietnam.

Drip coffee has stayed near $3.75, even if it comes at a small loss for the shop.

“I want something that people can access,” Henderson said.

“If you go too high, people just won’t do it,” Sera Cahoone, a near 10-year veteran barista with Squirrel Chops added. “They’ll make it at home.”

The shop’s bean choices are political, too. Squirrel Chops dropped Slate Coffee to support workers after a walkout there. Retail bags now come from roasters including Stamp Act, and the house espresso comes from Thin Man, roasted by a longtime friend who got Henderson into coffee when she apprenticed at his bike shop. He now roasts essentially just for Squirrel Chops.

Over the years, the small space has hosted “tiny bench” concerts with Cahoone and other musicians, Friday happy hours, coffee-with-Sawant events, and a sign-making session ahead of the protests following Donald Trump’s first inauguration.

The pandemic paused much of that. Now a recent art show by barista Nazira has kicked off a revival, chef Becky Selengut will hold a cookbook signing in December, and “Gay Friday” is due for a comeback.

“It’s become that place where people meet people,” Blyth-Moss said.

Henderson and Sawant, friends since a 2009 marriage equality rally, now organize together in Workers Strike Back. Sawant finished third in August’s 9th Congressional District primary with about 13% of the vote, though Henderson said she ran much stronger in the Central District. The group will keep pushing her campaign issues: ending U.S. military aid to Israel and stopping planned King County data centers.

For places like Squirrel Chops to thrive, Henderson said Seattle needs commercial and residential rent control, more public transit, and public healthcare and retirement programs.

“If your workers can’t afford to live in the city, what do you have?” she said.

Henderson’s last word for the neighborhood was a thank you. On one particularly bad day, she came into work to find a painting commissioned by a regular: a squirrel with a pearl earring, with a note saying the shop was a space the family treasured and was safe for their trans child.

“That, for me, was like, this is why we’re here,” Henderson said. “There is such a need for a safe space, a friendly space, a space that people can just gather outside their home, especially when everybody’s so lonely and isolated.”

Squirrel Chops is located at 2201 E Union. Its 10th anniversary celebration is planned for Friday, October 30th. You can learn more at squirrelchops.com.

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