Classic rock records played loud and in their entirety is just one of several reasons why I never went back.

Perfect nurishment before one's
ChopSuey gig.

That is terrible news. I will now fantasize about Piecora's being revived here in Chicago, where the people who bought it reside, because there is very little decent pizza in this city.

NOOOOOOOOOOO

This is the worst news ever. I take back anything even-handed that I ever said about Pike/Pine development. THE NEIGHBORHOOD IS DYING THERE IS NO QUESTION ABOUT IT.

Yay Development!

1: I know you would've preferred Steve and Eydie, but Piecora's classic rockism almost brought me to tears on several occasions. Plopping down in a booth, ordering a slice and beer, AND hearing the opening chords of Sticky Fingers (knowing it won't stop till the end of "Moonlight Mile") = heaven.

You missed the Monday dinner specials.

I am heartbroken. I love everything about this place.

I imagine the Piecora family hated doing so, but at $10 million, wow - who can blame them. Hopefully their talent will open up at another location.

@3 Don't hold your breath. Sam Zell's Equity Residential outfit is more unctuous than the greasiest of pizzas. Future tenants of 1401 E. Madison, beware!

I'm scratching my head trying to remember the Piecoras' political leanings. Or maybe I'm confusing them with Matt Canlis or Verna Beaver.

HOORAY FOR MORE UGLY APARTMENTS OR CONDOS IN SEATTLE!!!

RIP Classic Seattle. Welcome to New Seattle, for those who can afford it.

I stopped going to Piecora's when they supported John McCain for President.

How much pizza do you have to sell to make $10,300,000?

How much pizza do you have to sell to make $10,300,000 while paying $15 an hour?

First Stellar and now Piecora's? Jay-sus that's depressing.

See, this is what poor Dave Meinert and poor Andrew Friedman are going to have to do if we raise the minimum wage to $15.

Nooooooooooooo :( This was the first stop in a series of ever-more-awkward drunken escapades for my friends and me in our "omg, we survived the first year of college, let's party" tour. Supergeek honors students gone "wild" (yeah right)...oh, I will miss this place.

I live on 15th, my window over the Piecora's parking lot. I guess there goes my view... As if the Chloe and that fucking dog weren't enough...

As a juicy 20-something living on Capitol Hill in the late 80's, I loved that Piecoras would deliver a half pizza. Even better was when they would deliver a whole pie for the half pie price! I always tipped the delivery guy with weed… maybe that explains the whole pie thing.

Had our wedding rehearsal dinner there, and it was our go to family dinner joint. Went there for my wife's bday last week, and we talked about how our kids are going to have fond memories of the place. Guess not.

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

goddammit.

Goddamn it. This is one of the last, lingering threads of old Seattle. I had many a first date there, went to quite a few Mia Zapata-related fundraisers there (she worked there, as did Mike McCready), and took both of my brothers there when they turned 21.

Someday, in my Seattle heaven, I'll have a slice at Piecoras, a burger at the 318, and a cold beer at Buckaroo.

Too many things I'll miss: Can't vote for just one in this poll! :(

McGinn announced his candidacy for Mayor of Seattle at Piecora's in 2009.

Oh for fuck's sake! Is nothing sacred anymore?
This was the only decent slice of pizza in this town. I don't need to get a wood fired organic artichoke gluten free bullshit, just a place that has a counter and sells pizza by the slice that's actually pizza.

Goodbye Capitol Hill. Hello Beacon Hill!

@26: No, it's not. It's a drag they're cashing in, but there's still good pizza: Italian Family Kitchen, 1st Ave. Delancy, Ballard.

Density is inevitable.

They should relocate to Northgate or Shoreline. For serious.

Oh piffle, if this were in any neighborhood other than Capital Hill (West Seattle, Roosevelt, anywhere people like what they got) the comments would be all pro density and progress and anti NIMBY.

Great Pizza place and the think I'll miss the most is the awkward step down from the back dining room which was so difficult to negotiate when stuffed with pizza and beer, BUT rapacious property developers must be served. Don't like it? Tough shit, go back to Yakima or wherever the fuck you couldn't stand to leave.

@14: And all this time you basked in your convictions even though McCain lost? Did they support Romney in 2012? If not, think of pizza and nice house salads you missed - not to mention exchanging pleasantries with the staff some of whom voted for Obama.

unending sadness.

@28, Don't know that IFK place, and Delancey makes something tasty, but it's not really a pizza place if you can't just walk up to a counter and get a single slice served on a paper plate. Delancey is a restaurant that has pizza on the menu. Nothing wrong with that, but it's not the same and doesn't serve the same purpose.
And before anyone else chimes in with Ballard Pizza Company, that place isn't even open for lunch, costs $4 a slice, and your jaw will ache after trying to chew their gummy dough.

@ 30 - You don't get it. Those neighborhoods you mention, West Seattle and Roosevelt, they are still recognizable as BEING West Seattle and Roosevelt.

What people are saying more and more these days is that you cannot even SEE Capitol Hill anymore for all the goddamned shiny overpriced apartment and condo buildings springing up, along with their attendant yuppified service places - that would be where you would get your $4/slice woodfired organic free-range pizza.

Seriously, it's time to consider re-naming The Neighborhood Formerly Known As Capitol Hill. Because in just the last two years, this place does not look nor feel the same at all, and the list of dead soldiers just keeps growing: B&O Espresso, Bill's Off Broadway, the Bagel Deli, North Hill Bakery, now Piecora's.... etc, etc....

The best pizza around is Bambino's

In fact, their calzone is so good, most of the time I order that.

They know how to make crust...real crust...which contrary to what Ron Paul says, is important. Very important.

http://www.bambinosseattle.com

*meh*. I never found their pizza to be the best ever, and I found the service to be sub-par, bordering on rude, and slow. Plus it's a low-rise building in the middle of mid-rise zoning. Development of housing there will be a good thing (and hopefully it won't be a hideous block building like so many on Capitol Hill)

@14, I suspect Piecora's was a mixed bag politically--I went to a Democratic pow wow over there about 10 years.

Decent pizza as I recall, spicy but a bit overcooked from my one experience.

You've still got Hot Mama's and Pagliacci's (Which is good east coast style for a franchise) on the Hill. How does Big Mario stack up?

@39 with an attitude like that, no wonder the service was rude.

We've never had anything but great service there. Seriously great service -- employees alerting us to specials we didn't know about and remembering our favorite beer and giving us extra salad and that kind of thing.

Increased density and housing might be good things in themselves, but you also have to look at what you're sacrificing to get them. Sacrificing a bunch of auto dealerships, empty warehouses, and Diamond parking lots? No problem. Sacrificing a beloved restaurant institution? No way. That kind of thing rarely benefits the city in the long run. It chips away at its soul. A certain amount is probably inevitable over the years, but I'm still gonna scream about it.

Also, of course it's going to be a hideous block building just like all the other hideous block buildings. What else do you think it would it be?

@40 I can't take anybody who likes Pagliacci (no apostrophe) seriously.

First they came for Bagel Deli and I said nothing. Then they came for Piecoras but I said nothing. Wait, Fuuuuuuuuuck.

Big Mario's has great pizza, but not much seating, and they only have slices.

Stop acting like you give a shit. That place was mediocre at best. I've lived here 38 years and only went there 2 times. More than enough for me.

@30 I think you're simply incorrect. People get upset when a beloved business or historical building in any neighborhood is demolished to make way for something new, especially when they strongly suspect the new thing will be ugly, overpriced, and boring.

That's really the only advantage of a neighborhood like Northgate. There's nothing to lose. Who's going to scream when they tear down a Ram or a mattress shop? Everything that already exists here is so ugly and boring there's even a chance that the new thing might be an improvement.

I was never personally a huge fan of Piecora's, so I'm not really sad about it closing (especially since the owners chose to do so). Chop Suey, however, is going to be in trouble when the new tenants move in to the new development going up there and constantly complain about the noise from the venue.

Sucks that yet another unaffordable apartment building will scar Capitol hill while wiping yet another landmark/ staple away. This hill is way too gentrifled as is. On the bright side i guess we will definitely have Olympia pizza and Spaghetti on 15th to depend on . Please don't sell that block next.....

@47

don't worry. by the time that happens, we'll have passed legislation calling for the immediate deportation of anyone who moves within two blocks of an established music venue and then tries to complain about the noise.

on that note, does anyone want to fund this idea I have for an Initiative?

"if this were in any neighborhood other than Capital Hill (West Seattle, Roosevelt, anywhere people like what they got) the comments would be all pro density and progress and anti NIMBY."

Really? Because, I live in West Seattle and people are screaming bloody murder about development over here, and never mind that the Huling Brothers dealership lots are STILL vacant seven years after they went out of business.

"if this were in any neighborhood other than Capital Hill (West Seattle, Roosevelt, anywhere people like what they got) the comments would be all pro density and progress and anti NIMBY."

Really? Because, I live in West Seattle and people are screaming bloody murder about development over here, and never mind that the Huling Brothers dealership lots are STILL vacant seven years after they went out of business.

They deliver to the CD, unlike the racist at Big Marios.

The Pizzaaa (Jeffro's Veggie) and my wife just reminded me of the stumbling home Long Island's! Perhaps with their millions they can re-open elsewhere... or not.

I love how on one thread we have most people saying "Fuck local business that can't pay 15 bucks an hour, any business that pays a poverty wage should close". And then on this thread we have a bunch of people getting upset that a local business who pays below 15 bucks (I'm assuming they pay the current min wage), everyone's like NOOOO HOW COULD THIS HAPPEN, ITS A TRAGEDY!!!! Might be good to keep in mind how much it sucks to lose local business when we're vilifying them on other threads.

@55, you are spot-on. The hypocrisy and inconsistent reasoning of some on here is simply amazing.

@55 -- Yup, a bunch of whiney bitches up in here. If people love Piecora's so much, they should be celebrating the 10 million dollar pay day the owners just got.

@53

Define "the CD". They definitely deliver to my house.

1874? You moved here to work on the railroad, I imagine...

1874? You moved here to work on the railroad, I imagine..

@43 I did not know about the bagel deli until now. I have been going there since I was a kid and I am sad, more for the atmosphere than for the bagels themselves.

@35 & 46 I understand that people get upset when beloved local businesses are displaced - what I'm saying is that people in neighborhoods further from Stranger HQ are regularly told both in the posts and the comments to suck it because urban density is an unquestionable good. I miss Abruzzi's on Pike (though let's face it, it wasn't very good). There are beloved departed businesses even in Northgate - there was a camera shop that had darkroom space to rent by the hour which was great for artsy student types after they graduate and can't use the school facilities, there was Olympic Sports. Don't let your Capitol Hill snobbery show so easily.
@52 I live in West Seattle too and I know locals there scream bloody murder and I know the Stranger's position on that: http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archive…

y'all are bizarrely irony-impaired. Look, it's okay to be a little hypocritical about things, but at least recognize it in yourselves.

@ 65 - Hold on now. Don't lump me in with the "density is great" crowd. Yes, that viewpoint gets a lot of airtime on here, but me, merry, I have never been one to pump for that bunch. I'd rather live in an unheated shed than an apodment. Those things piss me off for two reasons: 1) they are being touted as an answer to the affordable housing shortage in this town, which is a bunch of patented nonsense, and 2) the developers drove these things through using ginormous loopholes in the city's zoning codes, and they did so knowingly.

Look, I know that the population of Seattle is growing at a fast pace and will continue to do so for many years. I know the demographics of not just the Hill but of all Seattle city neighborhoods are changing. But I will mourn the passing of the city I knew, as every day we lose another little bit of it. And when it's gone, it's gone - it's just... gone.

Having lived on Madison @ 17th from '92 to '95 Piecora's was our go to place, and really it was one of the only places to go for food in the CD/Capitol Hill at that time. The Pike/Pine corridor was also barely alive with activity, not in comparison to today. Cities are dynamic and are ever changing, that's what's makes a vibrant city otherwise you end up being a city like Detroit or Cleveland. The changes on Capitol Hill are just apart of the evolution of our city. If you don't like how your neighborhood is being redesigned, then quit your bitching and actually go to the design review meetings for proposed buildings. Piecora's was an institution to some, but all things must and do come to an end. The crappy one story building that houses Piecora's was nothing special and underutilized the actual potential that lot could become.

I stopped going to Piecora's when I read Danny Piecora's letter to the editor in the Seattle time supporting George W. Bush and the Iraq war. Piecora's seemed like your typical Capitol grunge/hipster hangout only because they hired those people to create an image that masked their true republican Bridal Trails life.

in the 90s they were the only food in seattle brave enough to deliver to 22nd & cherry.

Richie - I remembered when you and your two bro's came out here from the big city and started to set up the "original" piecora's!! Wow....from delivering pepperoni and salame from Croce's to you guys to seeing you again out on the island with all the Sohl's! Maybe you'll have more time to come by now??
Good Luck!

take your $$$$ to Italian Family Pizza, 1st ave and spring st. you will be blown away.....it makes Piecoras taste like papa johns......

This is dreadful news. I order about two Piecora pizzas a month, not because its the absolute best pizza ever created, but because they deliver to the CD (and its still very good pizza) and the service is awesome. And I can't name how many nights I spent back and forth from there, the Comet and Cafe Paradiso in the early 90s. A lot of good memories come out of that place.

Piecora's was good, but every neighborhood changes. We moved to Capitol Hill in in 1971 when I was four years old. I've lived there off and on my whole life. The neighborhood I grew up in, that was really tolerant, really affordable, and a magnet for open minded artists and people who didn't fit in elsewhere in the world disappeared in the late 1990s. The rents started skyrocketing then, Andy's Diner and other old time places closed. But, in reality that, and this closing of Piecora's, has always been happening. There were probably people lamenting in the 1950s when all the car dealerships closed and moved to the suburbs and Ballard. This is yet another piece of progress. In 1985, if you walked from Harvard over to 14th and Madison after 7 pm, it was a deadland between a few bars here and there. The real estate market boomed on the hill, and then exploded beginning around 1997, all of a sudden all these tech geeks wanted to live there, and the demand pushed rental prices higher and higher, pushing the rest of us to Ballard, Georgetown, etc, and then those places started getting overrun. So what. The Capitol Hill I grew up in was vivacious, and filled with creative energy and life, and a place for misfits to find each other. I don't want to live in a world where such a place, which is just a stop on a path, becomes institutionalized. Capitol Hill is now packed at night, its safer, its more productive, and if I and everyone else who laid the groundwork for that had to leave to make room for that to happen, well, I could care less. Good for Piecora's. I worked across the street from there at the Sea Wolf, among a bunch of places around there. I always loved getting a pie on the way home. My friends worked there, you may not like Danny's politics, but at the same time he created a place where people who thought differently than him were free to be themselves and earn a living. You should be so tolerant.