The first time I walked into Cyndy’s House of Pancakes up on Aurora Avenue and 105th, I pretty much knew what I was getting into.  Mediocre coffee, service that I couldn’t quite decide if it was gruff or motherly, and a delicious stack of blueberry hotcakes.  I’ve only been back a couple of times, and the fact that I have lived in the neighborhood for almost 5 years begs the question as to why that is.  I guess I thought it would always be there.

When I heard last fall that Cyndy’s was closing, I had the same reaction as a lot of other folks in the area.  I couldn’t believe it.  But given that the owner was looking to retire after nearly 40 years, I felt I could understand.  Then it started circulating that the potential lot buyer planned to put in a strip club.  Uh, oh.  Neighborhood activists worried that a strip club would “harm the character of the neighborhood and serve as a magnet for crime.” Thankfully, that fell through, in part due to the diligence of the local morals squad in identifying an obscure city zoning law prohibiting ‘adult cabarets’ within 800 feet of certain institutions (schools, parks, etc).  A private school existed 742 feet away.  Cyndy’s re-opened (for the time being), and everything seemed right again.  But the spot was still for sale…and then an interesting thing happened.

The Downtown Emergency Service Center put in a proposal to build an affordable housing development on the property.  Their intention was to create another Housing First site, similar in nature (if not clientele) to the successful venture at 1811 Eastlake.  So I wondered, how would the neighbors react to THIS?  Apparently, my cynicism was unfounded for once :-).  By all accounts, many of the people attending the open forum at Cyndy’s earlier this month warmed up to the idea after hearing from DESC’s ED Bill Hobson.  And I was pleasantly surprised in reading many of the reader comments to this excellent re-cap (something that I usually find extremely depressing).

Well done, North Seattle!