Getting a good cup of Joe may be one of the easiest purchases a Seattle resident can make. The near ubiquitous presence of java joints in the Emerald City is truly laughable but no less appreciated when you look at the foot traffic padding in and out of their store fronts.
Today, with three coffee shops hissing out high quality coffee drinks within a half a mile of each other, Columbia City is no exception. However, seven years ago, before Kate Gill blazed an espresso-based entrepreneurial trail by opening Lottie Motts on one of Columbia City's most visible corners, South End residents had to travel to the city's core and its northern neighborhoods to get some decent coffee.
"[Developers and business owners] used to be begging people to please come down and look at Columbia City," recalled Gill, who is currently in the process of selling Lottie Motts to some carefully chosen, yet currently undisclosed, Rainier Valley locals. The last day for Gill's Lottie Motts arrives on Saturday, April 30.
Around six months ago Gill began the slow process of moving from her South End home by renting a house in LaConner, although she says her busy schedule doesn't allow her to spend much time there. When asked why she decided to sell her coffee house and move on, Gill cited fatigue as the primary inspiration.
"If you ever speak with a business owner that is selling or closing, the one thing you'll always hear is, 'I'm exhausted.' You hear that every time, and usually it's a place run by one person," asserted Gill, who routinely puts in 10 to 12 hour days, seven days a week. "I'm tired. My lease is up. Exhaustion is an easy word to say, but it's really hard to describe because sometimes you're elated by your business and sometimes you're really dragged through the dirt by it."
Good beans, rough diamond
From a young age, Gill has been intimately familiar with Seattle's city core and its outlying neighborhoods. During the cold war, Gill's family spent much of their time living in Utah where her father designed missiles, but her family spent their summers in Seattle. With the fall of the Soviet Union on the horizon, Gill's family ended up moving to the Puget Sound region permanently in 1988.
"For some reason I swore I was never going to move south of the Smith Tower," said Gill, who's family set up shop in Seattle's North End.
Despite feeling familiar and comfortable with Seattle's northern neighborhoods, Gill found herself moving to the South End as a young and began working as a paralegal. The profession didn't suit her, and she began contemplating a career change toward her late 20s.
"I lived down in Rainier Valley, and I had to drive all the way to Capitol Hill for coffee," said Gill.
Tired of going out of her way for lattes, Gill's entrepreneurial mind recognized the unfulfilled need, and she began brewing the idea of launching a coffee house somewhere in the South End. At the time, Columbia City's core was dominated by social service non-profits, but the architecture of the area enthralled Gill.
"The buildings were beautiful," said Gill. "It had a special feel to it, and that corner space [where Lottie Motts is located] is gorgeous. It's the very center of Columbia City."
Gill knew there was an economic shift rippling across Seattle. As the dot-com bubble swelled, the real estate prices in the North End soared, and Gill knew that the hot real estate market would shift south. With such an influx of new people and fresh investment in the South End, Gill felt the timing was perfect for her coffee venture.
In 1998, at the age of 29, she opened Lottie Motts, named after her childhood nanny, on the corner of Rainier Avenue South and South Ferdinand Street. The space had previously been the headquarters for 37th District Democrat Sharon Tomiko Santos's successful campaign in 1997 and 1998. Before Santos, the People of Color Against Aids Network called the space home, which they took over after the Central Area Mental Health Clinic moved out.
As far as Gill knows, the last retailer to occupy her Columbia City Corner was a jazz joint in the 1970s named Slim's. She still has the sign, which she contemplated putting up inside with the logo, "same clients, better coffee."
A street wise business
Opening her doors was easy compared to generating a loyal customer base in an area that hadn't seen such a socially-driven retail operation for decades.
"That was Crip central, that corner. That's where the Crips did all their business. It was their town, their space," recalled Gill, referring to the Seattle arm of the Crip street gang which originated in Los Angeles during the 1960s.
Along with the gang activity, Gill said there was a thriving drug and prostitution black market based at the intersection. Recognizing the volatile nature of her new business location, Gill began speaking with the established Columbia City business owners as well as what she calls the "salt of the earth" residents living in the area for advice on how to thrive under such circumstances.
"I was paying rent and I couldn't move around [like the prostitutes and drug dealers]. I was just a good person trying to make a buck too," Gill said. "You couldn't go in there and try to bust their chops. That's where they did their business, and I was asking them to move out. They have a mobile business. It was kind of rough. The prostitutes really gave me a hard time."
With her continuing efforts to speak with the street-savvy locals, Gill said word got around about what she was trying to do. Gill felt that when she spoke with the gang members, drug dealers, and prostitutes they understood what she was trying to do.
"It was funny, when the older, more established street folks that were there started moving out, a younger crew saw a hole to move in," recalled Gill about Lottie Motts' first and second years of operation. "That got a little jumpy. Those guys were a little less schooled in what to do."
Fortunately the pressure of positive change was unavoidable in Columbia City. New businesses in addition to Gill's coffee house began popping up. With them came more lights on the street and more people walking around and in and out of the new storefronts, activities which don't bode very well for prostitution and drug dealing.
Seattle's black market wasn't the only hurdle Gill had to deal with. Many of her suppliers felt intimidated by the South End's social and business climate and stocking her shop proved challenging at first.
"At first I couldn't get a bakery down there because there was no way they could deliver in the South End," Gill asserted.
A crucial break came when her coffee supplier, Caffé Vita, helped her find a bakery by convincing them that it was safe to make regular runs in Columbia City and that Gill's operation would thrive.
" I was the canary in the coal mine. No one was down in Columbia City, not Starbucks. I mean, come on, why didn't [Starbucks] go down to Rainier Beach where they were needed?"
Just over a year after she started Lottie Motts, Gill said Starbucks opened their Columbia City location in partnership with Johnson Development, the company fronted by basketball icon Earvin "Magic" Johnson.
"Yes, Starbucks could have come without Magic Johnson," Johnson said in a June 1999 interview with Tamara Fitzpatrick of The Seattle Times. "But, we know what the community wants. African Americans love to do business with African Americans."
The statement resonated in the area, and Gill's business took a serious hit. She reports hearing customers who had switched their coffee habits over to the shop of the green and white mermaid saying they had to "support their own." Despite the pressure of a renown corporate coffee giant plumping down roots within a hard stone's throw of her business, Gill managed to keep her business humming while positively engaging the community.
"I was really trying to have a place where everyone could at least get together and start talking to each other; people of all races and all economic backgrounds," Gill noted. "When I saw that happening it really filled up my heart."
Gill is currently negotiating a deal with some established and experienced Southeast Seattle business people to buy her place. Taking over the coffee operation at first, Gill said the new owners are looking to launch a new cocktail driven nightspot.
"They're really going to do a good job on that corner. I've waited for the right people to come around and take over that space," Gill said. "It's really going to blow that whole corner up, and it'll be alive at nighttime. Columbia City is an evening and nighttime business district now. Instead of having a dark corner after [6 p.m.] it's going to be alive and light and warm down there at night."
What does the future hold for Gill after the sale? Aside from taking a needed breather and giving her resume an overhaul, she's unsure where her career path will lead. But one thing is certain, she'll miss spending the majority of her time in Columbia City.
"The people are great! In the beginning, there'd be a broken bottle fight in front of the coffee shop, and [my customers] were kind of patiently sipping their coffee trying to support me," Gill said. "It is the last great neighborhood in Seattle. I've always believed that. I really think that Columbia City has that old flavor to it. That cool, funky, weird, backwater groove to it, and now I just don't want it to be washed over like some of the neighborhoods in the North End."[[In-content Ad]]
