OUR STORY
Building community with a friendly staff, good tunes and great coffee.
Joel Wood started the Cafe Solstice cart in 1993. Doug Sowers, who came to Seattle in 1991 with his Spokane rock band, joined him one year later and the two have operated Solstice together ever since.
During the 1990s, the Cafe Solstice coffee cart was one of the defining local, independent ventures that made Broadway the hub of Capitol Hill street life. In 2001 they left the Hill to move into their spacious, vaulted ceiling cafe at 42nd and University Way.
Solstice’s open, inviting atmosphere on The Ave is a favorite among college students who hunker down for long study sessions on rainy evenings. “We’re an old school coffee shop,” says Joel. “We like having a comfortable place for people to hang out.
With a successful 12 years in the University District, Doug and Joel were ready to open a new chapter for Cafe Solstice with a return to Capitol Hill. Part coffeehouse, part bar, part bistro and Cafe Solstice opened for business a block off Broadway where they started at 10th and Thomas.
“It’s to bring people together, so in the morning people have coffee together and they talk, and at night they have a beer after work — they talk, they hang out,” Solstice general manager Sarah Schafer says, “It’s about creating relationships.”
The 3,500-square-foot (plus mezzanine) Solstice serves breakfast and lunch/dinner cafe-style fare plus baked goods and coffee and beer (including more than a dozen on tap.) It’s open seven days a week.