What's New on Alki Beach This Year for Year-Round Neighbors

Duke's Seafood closed its 2516 Alki Avenue SW location this spring after 25 years near Alki Beach.

Three months later, a different operator signed a lease for that exact address and opened for business in July. Do Si Korean BBQ, which built its name at a Kent location on Kent-Kangley Road, chose Alki as its first Seattle waterfront address. Not downtown. Not Ballard. Alki's waterfront, where a longtime restaurant had recently closed.

That contrast is the story worth paying attention to this year, and it is bigger than one restaurant swap. Walk the 2500 to 2700 block of Alki Avenue SW right now and you will find three storefronts with different recent histories, two now open and a third still in development.

Three Storefronts, Three Different Stories

Here is the current status of three storefronts on that stretch:

• 2516 Alki Ave SW: Do Si Korean BBQ, open since July, in the space Duke's Seafood vacated after 25 years.
• 2718 Alki Ave SW: Happy Lemon, a boba and tea shop that opened here roughly 15 months after its first West Seattle location in Westwood Village found its footing.
• 2726 Alki Ave SW: Seaglass, a coffeehouse and bakeshop from the team behind Driftwood next door, still working through delays past its original spring target.

Do Si Korean BBQ is an established independent expanding from its Kent location to its first Seattle waterfront address. Happy Lemon's Alki shop is its second West Seattle location, following its Westwood Village shop. Seaglass is planned by Dan and Jackie Mallahan, who already run Driftwood two doors down and have operated on the block for nearly three years; Seaglass remains delayed past its original spring target.

The Corner That Used to Churn

For a sense of how unusual this stability is, look one block over at 2738 Alki SW. Before Fire Tacos & Cantina opened there, that corner cycled through seven different restaurants in eleven years. Fire Tacos just marked its fourth anniversary in that spot this year, longer than any of its seven predecessors managed to hold on.

The storefronts on this stretch are at different stages: some are long-established, others recently opened, and Seaglass is still delayed.

A School Built for the Same Long Horizon

The clearest sign that this is a resident economy rather than a visitor economy sits three blocks up from the beach. Alki Elementary School held its ribbon-cutting on August 26, a $67 million, roughly 91,000-square-foot building serving up to 542 students from preschool through fifth grade, ahead of its first day of classes on September 2.

Seattle Public Schools built the facility around a geothermal heating and cooling system with roughly 60 wells beneath the grounds, a mass timber structure chosen partly for its seismic performance, and a design that echoes the tide pools and shoreline just down the hill. Superintendent Ben Shuldiner and Principal Mason Skeffington spoke at the opening under the theme "Come Ashore," a translation of the Lushootseed word for welcome, and the celebration closed with an ice cream social from Ben & Jerry's on Alki.

A building like that is not designed around a summer season. It is designed around decades of daily use by families who live here year-round.

The Sidewalk Got Brighter, and Later

Two smaller changes point the same direction. Seattle City Light finished installing nearly 20 new pedestrian lights along the Alki Avenue sidewalk this year, part of a response to community requests after a string of break-ins at beachfront businesses. And Seattle Parks and Recreation extended this year's "Summer of Safety" hours at Alki Beach to run May 1 through September 30, a longer window than the Memorial Day to Labor Day stretch the park has typically kept in past years, with the beach closing at 10:30 p.m. through the season.

The added lighting may matter to people using the stretch after summer visitors have gone home; the extended park schedule runs through September 30.

What This Actually Means If You Live Here

None of this requires a special trip. It changes the ordinary week.

The coffee-to-dinner sequence that used to mean driving somewhere else could exist on one block once Seaglass finishes its build-out. Do Si gives the neighborhood a second Korean barbecue option within walking distance of the water rather than a drive to another part of the city. The new elementary school, the added lighting, and extended park hours are all changes along this stretch beyond summer recreation.

If you have been telling visiting family that Alki empties out after Labor Day, that description still holds some truth on a quiet Tuesday. Do Si and Happy Lemon are open, while Seaglass remains delayed. Whether Seaglass opens and what activity on the block looks like through a quiet January will be worth watching.

If you have been on this stretch of Alki long enough to remember what used to sit in these storefronts, or if you are weighing what a changing block means for a home you already own here, The City Team has spent years watching Alki's rhythms up close. Schedule a consultation whenever the timing is right for you.