The line stretches down the sidewalk like a car wash on a sunny Seattle day. Actually, on this drippy, gray Saturday morning at Green Lake, the line is an undulating tangle of tail-wagging dogs in queue for a little pampering.
The Sit! Stay! Café and The Grooming Spa next door have you covered: Dog dads and Dog moms relax with yummy human treats while the dogs get dolled up next door.
Just around the corner from the lake, the Sit! Stay! Café is the Green Lake hangout for dog owners. A living-room setting, hot espresso and cookies that make you say "WOW" help the time go by nicely. All this, and they love your dog.
They think your dog is the best. They know your dog's name; heck, they even take the time to learn your name.
The café has been open a little more than three months and already has a loyal base of mostly dog-oriented customers - an eclectic assortment of area singles, couples and professionals.
Pam Mauseth is the lead barista and co-owner of the café. A striking, 52-year-old, blonde Seattle native with blue eyes, Pam smiles and motions at the customers, who are engrossed in conversation.
"I don't know where you can find this anywhere else," she says. "People come in here because they want the interaction. I mean, this is like a Master's Lounge, it's [for] all these people here that make this."
Another creative outlet
The concept for Sit! Stay! Café was an idea that just unfolded. Mauseth started looking for an outlet for her art when her two daughters headed off to college. She called Scott Jason, 55, a friend she had worked with before, and they started considering business options.
Driving past Black Swan Coffee Roasting Co. in Woodinville, Mauseth turned to Jason and said, "We oughta just do our own coffee. I'll make the labels, and we could sell our coffee wholesale."
Mauseth and Jason persuaded Black Swan, with its organic, fair-trade and shade-grown coffee, to venture with them.
Mauseth points at the colorful labels on the drink cups and says, "I thought, 'This is great. I can draw my own dogs, Hoonah and Nitro, on the labels.'"
Still, Mauseth and Jason had not considered opening a coffee shop. They were calling on businesses to market their coffee when they called on The Grooming Spa.
The Grooming Spa owners, Mike Ruffo and David Williams, listened to Mauseth and Jason's proposal and said, why don't you turn this place next door into a café and sell your coffee there?
Mauseth and Jason ran with the idea, although Mauseth was afraid of the espresso machine at first.
When she is not pulling shots, Mauseth does portraits of Sit! Stay! Café customers and their dogs. Framed above the windows are a dozen or so honored customers in the same graphic style as the coffee-package logos.
Like a good bartender, Mauseth is also a natural confidante for singles looking for an introduction and love. But instead of using web pages to match singles, Mauseth offers the café portraits.
She points out the portraits of the single guys - the idea is you get to consider the characters in the portrait and decide if you want to meet them.
The grinning, single guys and their grinning dogs in the portraits are adorable. Of course, single girls want to meet them.
A café in progress
Mauseth and Jason's Sit! Stay! Café continues to unfold. They make sandwiches and Italian sodas, sell whole coffee beans, tea, chocolate and cookies.
Customers urged them to start serving liquor, and their liquor license is imminent.
There's free wi-fi, and they are making plans to open the café to the sidewalk in the summer.
Sit! Stay! Café promotes many pet charities, including the Delta Society for Service Dogs. Many of the customers have rescued their dogs.
Bryan, a regular customer, leans over to Mauseth and says, "Would you call Mark and see if he would bring Moose over to play with Winston?" which, of course, she does.
Minutes later, Moose and Winston meet at the café, where the two large dogs get down to the business of playing.
With the many conversations in the room and the dogs running and playing, Mauseth says, "The main thing is, it's really not who runs this, or who owns this place....Anybody could come in here and learn how to do this and do it. The thing that really makes this is this. We do coffee, and we laugh a lot. It's the clientele that's drawn here that actually makes this shop."[[In-content Ad]]
