To Tina Donley of Seattle, the Thursday closing of Mama’s Mexican Kitchen in Belltown is yet another symbol of “new Seattle” replacing the old, pre-Amazon one. In Belltown, anyway, Mama’s follows Funhouse and Hurricane as another old-school establishment being wiped out by condominiums and office buildings for Seattle’s nouveau richer. “It’s really sad,” Donley said after placing her lunch order with her favorite waitress, Eileen Smith, who had worked there since January 1976. “It makes you feel a little lost.”
Mama’s hosted its last lunch and dinner services Thursday after 42 years at Second Avenue and Bell Street. It was bought last year for $4,525,000 by Minglian Realty, a British Columbia-based real estate development company focused on building multi-family complexes in Eastern China and Western Canada. Another owner will open a different restaurant in its place and a mixed-use building will be erected above it… read more >
