Kathy Casey Food Studios served its last plate on Ballard Avenue after twenty-seven years in the same storefront. A few blocks away, a parking garage that had sat boarded up since 1999 reopened this summer, twenty-seven years after Joann Fabrics locked its doors for the last time. Neither closure has anything to do with the other. Both happen to be landing in the same twelve months.
Every storefront on the avenue turns over eventually. What's different about this fall is that the spaces actually resetting were running on decades-long clocks, not seasonal ones. A block that looks like constant churn from the sidewalk is really two long timers finally reaching zero at the same time, with a handful of faster-moving businesses filling in the gaps around them.
The Space Kathy Casey Left Behind
The address is 5130 Ballard Ave NW. For 27 years it was Kathy Casey Food Studios. On Thursday, September 24, it became GoodMart, a seafood market and deli from chef Victor Steinbrueck, the same chef behind Local Tide in Fremont. The new spot seats 40, runs an oyster bar, and serves fish cooked several ways alongside poke bowls and ready-made meals. Steinbrueck first tested the concept through pop-ups before opening Local Tide's permanent Fremont location in 2020, a restaurant that went on to land a spot on the New York Times' list of the city's 25 best restaurants in 2023. Construction on the Ballard build-out was led by Dovetail, with Ballard-based Heliotrope Architects handling the design, so the same neighborhood firms that know the block are the ones who rebuilt it.
A 27-year tenancy is a long time for any storefront to hold one identity. Ballard Avenue runs at more than one speed, with multi-decade fixtures like Kathy Casey's studio sitting a short walk from newer businesses on much shorter cycles.
A Few Doors Down, the Actual Fish Ladder Is Having Its Best Week
The former Fish Ladder Lounge, later Shelter, is set to become Kochendorfer's, a bar registered to John Kochendorfer, whose résumé includes a run as lead brewer at Elysian and time at Ferndale's District Brewing. The name on the old lease was a nod to the neighborhood's most famous piece of infrastructure a few blocks north, and the timing of the handoff lines up with the one stretch of the year when the actual fish ladder is doing exactly what its name promises.
Coho salmon are running through the fish ladder at the Hiram M. Chittenden Locks right now. The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife's count data shows daily coho counts typically becoming available from early September into October, which is the same window several local viewing guides point to as the best two or three weeks to actually see fish moving through the underwater windows. The viewing room stays open from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. daily, no ticket required, while the bar named after the ladder closes and reopens under someone else's name a short walk away.
The Twenty-Seven-Year Parking Garage
The other long-running closure this year sits at 2217 NW 57th St, the former Joann Fabrics building. Joann closed the space last year after decades in the same spot, and the building had a second layer of history nobody could see from the street. Its underground parking garage, built with 32 stalls at the wider dimensions common in the 1990s, had been boarded up since 1999. It reopened this summer for the first time in 27 years as part of the build-out for the Ballard Pickleball Club, a project led by Pat Gilbrough, the former owner of Ballard Health Club across the street.
The plans call for five indoor courts, a second-story mezzanine overlooking them, and a small practice area toward the back. The garage itself is already active, currently open to Ballard Health Club members, with Gilbrough saying he intends to open it to club visitors once the pickleball courts launch and to the general public on weekends, primarily during the Ballard Farmers Market. A structure that sat sealed off since the last Clinton administration is now doing double duty as a courtside amenity and a market-day parking overflow.
Not Every Storefront Runs Slow
The two multi-decade stories carry the most weight this season, but they aren't the whole picture. Koshari, the Egyptian and Lebanese restaurant owned by husband-and-wife team Ayman Almasri and Amani Abouammo, is moving into a new space at 5604 17th Ave NW, a relocation rather than a decades-long anniversary. We Fix Old Stuff, a repair shop specializing in lighting and household objects, opens a new workshop on 14th Avenue NW on Friday, October 2, joining a small but growing category of Ballard businesses built around fixing things rather than replacing them.
Sip & Ship closed its original Ballard location in December after 23 years, citing the redevelopment planned for its block, though the business still operates its Greenwood store. The Waterwheel Lounge, a Ballard dive bar with a half-century run, closed out its final night with New Year's Eve karaoke. Longevity isn't rare here. It's just not the only rhythm the avenue runs on.
The Calendar Doesn't Wait for Any of It
None of this pauses the weekend calendar. Mike's Chili Parlor, at 1447 NW Ballard Way, hosted a two-day festival honoring the late Dolly Parton this past Thursday and Friday, September 24 and 25. The Ballard Commons Park hosts its annual Pet Celebration and St. Luke's pet blessing on Sunday, October 4, from noon to 3 p.m., an event that invites residents to bring their animals out for the afternoon. The Ballard Wine Walk returns again this October, its usual format of ten tastes across fifteen participating shops, Washington wines only, a $45 ticket for anyone 21 and over, with check-in at the Columbia Bank branch on 22nd Avenue NW. It's one of two Wine Walks the neighborhood runs each year, the other landing in March.
None of these events depend on which chef is running the kitchen at 5130 Ballard Ave NW or whether the pickleball courts are finished. They're fixtures that keep showing up regardless of what's happening two blocks over on any given lease.
The two twenty-seven-year stories are the ones worth remembering past this season, because they're rare. Storefronts on the avenue change hands on much shorter cycles all the time. When a Ballard Avenue space actually holds its identity for nearly three decades, its closing is news precisely because it happens so infrequently, and its replacement gets watched a little more closely as a result.
If you're weighing what a changing block like this means for a home you already own or one you're considering in Ballard, that's the kind of neighborhood-level context The Network tracks block by block. Reach out to schedule a free consultation and talk through what's actually happening on your street.
