Posted on 04/05/2021 9:19:20 AM PDT by mylife
In immigrant enclaves around the world, waves of new communities build upon the foundation left behind as the previous tenants move away. New cultures and businesses build on top of the old ones, stacking up like the layer cakes that Remo's in Seattle's Rainier Valley neighborhood once made more than one hundred of each day. Those cakes, bought for weddings, birthdays, and graduations for generations, came out of the area once known as the Garlic Gulch,
“We had several Italian grocery stores at Atlantic Street, Italian pharmacy, Italian barbershop. The residents were mainly east and west of Rainier Avenue, going all the way up to Beacon Hill, as far south as – oh, a little south of McClellan Street,” Remo Borracchini described in the book “Rainier Valley Food Stories.”
None of that remains, so when his three daughters announced the bakery’s permanent closing this week just days after another classic Garlic Gulch brand, Oberto, announced it would be shutting its factory in the neighborhood, it felt like the end of an era.
When the Italian community first arrived in Seattle in the first decade of the 20th century, they came for coal mining jobs. The area Borracchini describes appealed to the mainly rural immigrants because of the available space for farming. Then, as quickly as the neighborhood became known as Italian, they were joined by Japanese residents, then the Black community spread south from the Central District. In the late 1970s, refugees from the Vietnam War moved in, along with Latino immigrants and newly arrived people from East Africa. By the early 2000s, Borracchini’s and Oberto shared the streets with pho shops, taco trucks, teriyaki counters, and Ethiopian restaurants, reflecting similar populations as the neighborhood just to the south, which was then considered among the most diverse in the country.
(Excerpt) Read more at seattlepi.com ...
What is the real reasons for the closings?
Now the area is filthy ghetto.
Gonna have to rename it to Wetback Wanch.
Good, communists don’t deserve good Italian food.
I imagine it was the covid
and the “wokeness”
What is it now, Kunta’s Korner?...
Garlic Gulch was America
Seattle is not
No Problem, Moderns in Seattle will quickly adapt to, and endorse, eating Soylent Green.
Italian food in Seattle?
Fagetaboutit...
I know what I’m talking about, I came from upstate NY (the Fingerlakes region) and it is LOADED with Italians!
When I got to Seattle, one of my first missions was to find a good Italian place... no luck at all!
In the days before the “new I-90” interchange I only remember Obertos to the left as I drove past and hit the “T” intersection. as you went into town.
Going out of town I buzzed over Beacon hill and caught the I-90 on ramp off Rainer. So Obertos was always off to my left.
Typical Seattle. Everything is on the left.
Understood. you cant swing a cat without hitting a dago here :) Texas really let me down
LOL!
Good question that I didn’t notice was mentioned with any unifying reason in the article. Oberto sold to a Canadian company in 2018. I gathered Remo’s was impacted by the Covid virus. Mentioned lightly in the article. So that is my assumption.
I bet all those ‘protests’ in the area that were spotlighted north of there in Capitol Hill most likely impacted the decision as well. That area was none to safe way back when I lived there. It could be sketchy on the regular. That’s part of life in that area. But I’d be curious to find out if there were violent protests down in that area as well that also impacted their decision for the long term.
What is the real reasons for the closings?
—
Would not be a surprise after seeing some of the video from Seattle if the reason was the presence of more huge homeless camps
Where abouts are you from?....Rochester bred....Naples NY resident
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