Slog

News & Arts

Line Out

Music & the City
at Night

« Remember This When Boeing Cites a S… | Jobs Report Not So Hot »

Friday, September 7, 2012

Chow Why Did the Madison Park and Bellevue Branches of Bill the Butcher Close?

Posted by Bethany Jean Clement on Fri, Sep 7, 2012 at 7:38 AM

The namesake Bill (William Von Schneidau, who now runs BB Ranch in the Pike Place Market) and the COO parted ways with the local upscale butcher-shop chain some time ago, then lawsuits about breach of contract and stuff were initiated. Now the Madison Valley and Bellevue branches of Bill the Butcher are closed. I emailed to ask why, and they said:

Bellevue closed due to the City of Bellevue's inability to issue us an occupancy permit because of the lack of power to the grid on the block and the need for a major infrastructure upgrade, specifically an underground tunnel is required to bring power from beneath the Main street intersection to the site.

The Madison lease is up shortly and the location had inadequate parking, so we elected to close and open the Wallingford location which we have constructed and anticipate opening in September.

More stuff that's now closed over here.

FacebookShare

Comments (11) RSS

Oldest First Unregistered On Registered On Add a comment

Been past Bill's shop in the market? I'm a huge carnivore but his setup gves me the creeps. Don and Joe's rulz.

Posted by gloomy gus on September 7, 2012 at 7:55 AM

Inadequate parking? The madison valley location has a nice-sized lot, and free street parking, that was never full. But hey, say what you want.

Posted by rostin79 on September 7, 2012 at 8:10 AM

I've been wondering about the Stone Way location. I think Zaw will appreciate them opening this month. Good news at least on that front.

Posted by biffp on September 7, 2012 at 9:05 AM

I heard they were shut down after bloody animal corpses were found all over their property. Creepy.

Posted by raku on September 7, 2012 at 9:37 AM

The Rogue and Peasant in Fremont also closed: http://fremont.komonews.com/news/busines…

Posted by schmacky on September 7, 2012 at 10:40 AM

That power explanation sounds fishy to me. There's parts of downtown Bellevue that lack three phase power?

Posted by Catalina Vel-DuRay

on September 7, 2012 at 10:41 AM

Parking was a concern? WELL FUCK HIM AND HIS CUSTOMERS

Posted by Reader01 on September 7, 2012 at 10:42 AM

I cruise past that Stone Way site twice a day, and it's had a "coming soon" sign on it for well over a year. It went up in June 2011, I think. His permits have probably all expired. Given that these people have demonstrated a powerful lack of ability in doing things the right way, I will expect to see them fail to renew them and get shut down right in the middle of jerry-rigging the power from a nearby pole.

I'd love some good meat but I just don't believe in these guys.

Posted by Fnarf

on September 7, 2012 at 11:35 AM

Former Madison Bill the Butcher butcher here. I left BtB after they were not able to provide paychecks to their employees. I would get phone calls from the landlord asking for the rent. BtB never paid their rent at the Bellevue shop, claiming they didn't pay because they had power issues. Closing those shops wasn't so much their decision as it was they were more or less evicted.

BtB are dishonest and bad people. I tell my friends not to shop there. They owe so many small farms money. The farms would sell them cows on credit, and when they finally demanded payment, BtB would just find other small farms to take advantage of.

Posted by Formerbtb on September 7, 2012 at 12:32 PM