You have until January 25 to eat this delicious plate of food from The Kingfish Cafe.
  • Jennifer Richard
  • You have until January 25 to eat this delicious plate of food from the Kingfish Cafe.

Last night, Laurie and Leslie Coaston, sisters and owners of the Kingfish Cafe, announced that they will close the restaurant on January 25.

"We have been serving up soul on the hill for nearly 20 years. We first opened the Kingfish Café in April of 1997 and shared with you our family recipes and stories," wrote the Coastons on the restaurant's Facebook page. I can't remember a time when people haven't waited for hours every night for their "My Way or the Highway Buttermilk Fried Chicken," stewed collard greens, and towering strawberry shortcake.

It's hard to imagine 19th Avenue without the Kingfish. And it's hard not to be upset over the closure of yet another Seattle black-owned business (see the recent closures of Central District mainstays Philadelphia Fevre and Catfish Corner), though CHS Blog hearteningly reports that the the decision to close was up to the sisters "and not a lease or financial issue." Coaston also told CHS and the Seattle Times that they have a new project in the works, but for now they're keeping any more information about it to themselves.

What I have always loved best about the Kingfish is its atmosphere: high ceilings and rickety fans, creaky wood floors, unfailingly warm and unnervingly attractive staff, and, most of all, the huge sepia family pictures that hang on the rough plaster walls. Those photographs — labeled with the names of different relatives, some of them born slaves, their faces frozen amid so much energy and movement — got me every time. Many restaurants strive to create a familial feeling, but the Kingfish just has it in its bones: a true sense of its identity and history that speaks through the walls as well as the food.