Holiday cheer.

I was back on Broadway last night, after a crazy 12 hour/day work week, in search of a white elephant gift for my work holiday party today. The place was decidedly less holiday cheery than downtown right now, but we're trying to hold our own with some fun shop windows and wreaths on our street lights.

The Broadway Grill has an awesome green tinsel tree with red feather boa type decorations in their front area. And a huge, more traditional white/gold tree near the back. They always have great festivities. They're having deal on their gift certificates for the holidays right now too... buy $100 get $50 free.

I ended up hitting Urban Outfitters, as their off-the-wall gift selection is remarkable. Ended up with a make-your-own snow globe and a gold piggy bank. I'm looking forward to doing some more gift buying on Broadway this weekend. Bailey and Coys is a must. As is the soap shop down near the Deluxe.

4 random bits of Broadway-related food info

Dig in.

• Metroblogging Seattle says there's a new taco joint down Olive Way
• Quinn's is averaging 3 of 5 stars so far over in the Stranger reader reviews
• 6 restaurants open late near Broadway
• Seattle Times recalls Seattle's restaurant history, Broadway "fern bar" Boondock's, Sundecker's & Greenthumbs
  

Rerouted buses.

If you're headed down the hill for Black Friday shopping today, your best bet is going to be traveling on foot... Unless you want a nice tour of north downtown. Buses going down Pine (the 10, 11, 14, 43 and 49) are all rerouted this morning due to the parade.

You can get as far as Boren Avenue, afterwhich they are rerouted to Stewart. My bus driver wouldn't let us off until we got to 2nd Avenue.

Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving! Happy shopping!

No, I don't want broadband with my pizza. Thank you.

I'm rarely on the hill for lunch because I work downtown, but today was an exception because of the holiday. Broadway sure is abuzz in the afternoon.

I stopped in to Pagliacci's for a few slices of their Mushroom Primo pizza. The place was packed.

I found a seat near the front of the restaurant sandwiched in between a mother with a large stroller, and a Clearwire sales person who had his sales materials strewn over a couple of tables.

I knew right when I sat down that the sales guy was going to try to talk to me. He had that look in his eye. Or maybe I was just jaded from being approached so many times by Clearwire salespeople on the street and in malls.

The sales guy had obviously made a connection with one of the employees, who stopped by a couple of times. A potential sale?

I buried my head in The Stranger to try to avoid contact, but unfortunately looked up just as the guy was leaving. I hope the look on my face when he flashed his business card my way was enough of a response to convey what I was thinking. You see, my mouth was full so I couldn't speak. I was eating lunch!

Staking claim in a busy restaurant to try to make some sales is a new low.

Living in a walkers' paradise.

You already knew this, but Capitol Hill is officially a "Walkers' Paradise" according to our Walk Score.

Walk Score is a tool that evaluates the walk-ability of neighborhoods based on nearby restaurants, grocery stores, bars, parks, schools, etc. Most addresses around Broadway get around 97 out of 100 points possible.

Capitol Hill has a lot going for it in terms of walkability, including:

1. Easy access to Broadway and the Pike/Pine corridor.
2. Close proximity to downtown work locations.
3. Roads are laid out in a grid pattern with many traffic circles and other "speed control" devices.
4. Cal Anderson and other parks just off Broadway.
5. Seattle Central. I know there are also some K-12 schools in the area as well.
6. Limited parking lots, so pedestrians can easily get in/out of shops.
   

The tool was created by the Front Seat Management project, which promotes environmental living. It's headed up by a former 'softie and fellow Seattlite, Mike Mathieu.

By the way, apparently a neighbor just to the south on Madison Ave reached a perfect walkable score of 100. So we have something to work toward... I wonder if the north Broadway condo development will help.

She's got the beat.

Hello! I'm a new poster to the Broadway Seattle blog. I'm excited to be here!

I stumbled on this blog about a week ago. Stoked to see a blog dedicated to the heart of the hill rather than the 15th area, as covered in the Capitol Hill Seattle blog, I emailed the author.

Lo and behold the person I emailed was "J", who is the author of both the Capital Hill Seattle and the Broadway Seattle blogs. He said he was looking for someone to "pick up the Broadway beat".

So here I am. Nice to meet everyone. I'll do my best to post more than twice a month. Feel free to call me Al.

Cheers,
SparklingAllison

Quinn's leaves comments

Cool to see the folks who manage Quinn's wading into the Chowhound fray. It's a challenge to do this kind of communication right but it's such a useful way to address problems head on and win the hearts and minds of eaters and readers. After writing about businesses on Capitol Hill for about two years, one of the biggest surprises has been how few stores and restaurants get involved in the conversation or contact us -- guess what businesses, we're always on the hunt for something real to write about. If you have something to say, get on the Internet.

Tree removal vs. Taco Bell removal

As a sidebar to today's Slog about development of Broadway's north-end blight, neighbor John writes:

A little off turf, but did you notice the trees along Broadway, north of Republican, are tagged for imminent removal. (We're talking many big trees. They can't all be unhealthy.)

You'll note the presence of similar trees in the project sketches included in the Slog post. Maybe somebody at the city just has their wires crossed. Seems like a waste to cut them down. Still, we're not planning a protest -- any progress that can kill off the cockroach-like Broadway Taco Bell is progress, indeed.

Broadway trick or treating pictures

Halloween on Broadway
Originally uploaded by sea turtle

The fancy pants part isn't the only area of Capitol Hill that has a good time on Halloween. Photo bug sea turtle snapped this and more on Broadway this Halloween night.