Is another Seattle neighborhood institution going away?
by John Fisher
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posted Aug 17 2012 9:47AM
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Looks like it. There’s a restaurant in the Rainier Valley called the Silver Fork. It’s been there for almost 25 years. It’s nothing fancy -- pancakes and eggs and bacon, biscuits and gravy, chicken fried steak, grits . . .but it’s been kind of a community gathering place – everybody from Ron Sims and Norm Rice to Bill Russell and Ken Griffey have been regulars. But now the Silver Fork is losing its lease because their landlord is selling to Safeway so they can demolish it and build a gas station there. This is not going down well with the people in the area.
The Stranger is on top of the story -- Here's their first mention of the closing, courtesy of a reader. And here's their coverage by their writer Goldy.
I highlighted this story because I was in Austin, Texas a couple of weeks ago, and one of the things I noticed right away was that the city tries really hard to keep lots of local color all over the place, from mom & pop diners and taco joints to indy car repair shops. It makes a big difference. Portland's pretty good at that, too, and even though I'm not one of those die-hard Seattle natives who wants to turn the clock back to 1977 around here, it does hurt when thriving local neighborhood institutions go away. I guess there's a good business case for yet another gas station in that neighborhood (although it's hard to believe!), but I wonder if there isn't some way to find the Silver Fork another location. There's no shortage of vacant or under-untilized parcels of land around there.
Anyhoo, if you'd like to actually do a little something to help the cause, here are a couple of links from Goldy's story:
YOU CAN HELP SAVE THE SILVER FORK!
Submit a comment to Seattle's Department of Planning and Development by filling out the form here, and let Safeway know what the Silver Fork means to the community by sending an email to Sara Osborne, the public and government affairs director for Safeway's Seattle division.
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