Out with the old… (Image: Dino’s)

(Image: Dino’s)

As they celebrate 10 years of pizza at E Olive Way and Denny, Dino’s Tomato Pie is giving itself a birthday present.

The Dino’s crew finished up the job of ripping out the joint’s bricked-in old ovens and installing newly acquired, hundreds of pounds each upgrades in a matter of days this week during a Sunday through Tuesday closure:

It was a lot of clever work by a hard working team. We are back open today and Dino and Casey are working hard to get the pizza dialed in. Come check us out but maybe bring your patience with you we get it figured out.

While the original 2016 build-out utilized traditional brick-lined gas ovens, the more modern units will allow for a faster, more consistent “Jersey-style” char. Once properly calibrated, Dino’s new ovens should produce “drier” heat and better airflow to produce a caramelized, crunchy cheese crust. The new ovens should also speed up “recovery” time for the busy pizza shop between bakes, ensuring the 20th pizza of the night has as much char as the first.

In with the new (Image: Dino’s)

CHS reported in 2016 as Brandon Pettit first opened Dino’s doors to the neighborhood. The space had previously been a Money Mart. While Pettit’s Delancey focuses on wood-fired pies in Ballard, the Capitol Hill Dino’s was born as a tribute to Pettit’s “a little bit trashier and more Jersey” take on tavern pizza.

Ten years later, that take is still going strong. After thousands of pies, Dino’s new ovens will help it stretch — and char — at least another decade.

Dino’s is located at 1524 E Olive Way. Learn more at dinostomatopie.com.

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“Life means this to me. I’m enjoying, I’m having this moment,” Popalzai says. “Every day, life means something really special.”

LoveCityLove, the nomadic arts and event space currently resident in the former ShopRite on 15th Ave E as the block awaits development, is now also home to something new: Bolani Place, an Afghan café run by Popalzai. If you’ve walked by lately and wondered what’s going on in there, wonder no more.

Popalzai has built her menu around the bolani, a thin flatbread stuffed with potato and spinach, with dough made entirely from scratch. On Fridays and Sundays she adds Afghan palau, the aromatic rice dish loaded with raisins, carrots, and fresh meat. There’s also a banana juice made with oat milk or whole milk, an Afghan yogurt-cucumber drink that she says people can’t stop ordering, and an Afghan burger, a flatbread construction of fries, cabbage, tomato, spices, and a sliced boiled egg, that she acknowledges can confuse people expecting a patty.

“We make burger out of fries,” she said with a laugh. “So this is who we are.”

The road to 15th Ave E has not been a straightforward one. Popalzai grew up in a large family in Afghanistan learning to cook from her grandmother and mother, who fed upwards of thirty people at a stretch. She worked for eight years as a volunteer and later employee for EveryWoman, going to villages in Afghanistan to work on ending child marriages. She was at the Kabul airport during the chaotic 2021 evacuation. The day after she got out, a massive blast killed hundreds in the same spot she had been standing.

She arrived in Seattle, where she experienced culture shock for about a year before falling genuinely in love with the city, particularly its diversity and what she describes as an unusual acceptance of people regardless of their appearance. She has since earned a degree in business administration, a master’s in sustainable development, and is currently enrolled in Seattle University’s MBA program. She also does tailoring and alterations on the side, which is actually how she ended up at LoveCityLove. A sewing customer introduced her to the space’s manager and a conversation about selling at an event turned into a conversation about running a café.

What’s driving her isn’t just ambition. It’s a philosophy about food. Popalzai doesn’t drink coffee, unusual for someone opening a café on Capitol Hill, and is openly skeptical of the heavily processed, over-sweetened food she sees offered at most establishments.

She grew up eating organically and makes nearly everything by hand, including the dough, the juices, and the yogurt drinks. “I know how to make yogurt, I know how to make jams,” she said. “Things people just go grab from the store, we make them at home.”

“I don’t have to have a luxury restaurant right now. But I have to start from somewhere.”

She plans to expand the menu with more types of bolani including pumpkin and spinach varieties, a honey-ginger-lemon tea she wants to roll out this fall, and eventually a proper breakfast offering. The longer-term dream is a full restaurant in the neighborhood. For now, hours are 2 to 8 PM every day except Tuesdays, scaled back from an earlier 11 AM open that proved too long a shift to sustain solo.

The neighborhood response, she says, has been warm. People are curious about the bolani, loyal to the banana juice, and enthusiastic about the yogurt cucumber drink. “They’re showing love and support,” she said. Her message to Capitol Hill is simple: “Life means a lot. They should be kind to each other, respect each other. And what I’m doing is providing good food to the people.”

Find Bolani Place inside LoveCityLove at 432 15th Ave E. Follow @lovecitylove for updates.

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Seattle City Council

“For cannabis stores, it’s 1,000 feet for elementary, high school, middle school. It’s 500 feet for parks,” Hollingsworth said in Wednesday’s special meeting of the council’s land use committee. “So, you know, there are certain things in our city that do have buffers. We call them buffer zones.”

The proposed school, daycare, and park restrictions were part of seven amendments raised by council members Wednesday as they debated legislation that would raise legal limits on residents at “transitional encampments” to 150. The bill would also allow one “interim use” 250-resident village in the city.

CHS reported here on the five prepared in advance of the session that would also add stringent requirements including a joint amendment from Dionne Foster and Debora Juarez would require operators of any of the new, larger villages to develop a public safety plan “with required elements” and authorize a Community Advisory Committee “to advise on public safety plan implementation.”

A separate proposal from Hollingsworth would add a requirement for an operator to enter into a “Good Neighbor Agreement” and “prescribes minimum communication and public safety protocols that must be included in the GNA.”

While the amendments would add time-consuming process to the efforts championed by Mayor Katie Wilson to quickly create new shelter facilities, they also are hoped to help with neighborhood pushback as the sites for new villages are proposed.

On Capitol Hill, CHS reported on plans for a new 32-house tiny village on Belmont Ave that would not be part of the plan for expanded, 100+ resident villages but is still raising questions for its operator. The Low Income Housing Institute says it held a community meeting on the project on April 20th — the same day CHS broke the news on the project — but hasn’t said if it is planning any follow-ups for the village.

The proposed school and parks amendment from Hollingsworth and Juarez might be going too far. Committee member Alexis Mercedes Rinck questioned what areas of the city would be able to host a larger Tiny House Village with such onerous restrictions.

“I read this amendment and I understand where this is coming from, but I just have to say, at face value I’m concerned about the message this amendment is sending,” Rinck said.

Under the Hollingsworth and Juarez proposal, the larger Tiny House Villages would be restricted from being located within 750 feet from schools, childcare centers, and playgrounds within public parks and 500 feet from parks larger than two acres in size. Encampments exclusively serving families with children would be exempt as would any of the new, larger Tiny House Villages serving residents in recovery from substance abuse disorders.

Across Capitol Hill, there are at least 18 to 20 campuses and a dozen or more parks that would be part of planning any of the new large emergency shelter villages.

Another late-arriving amendment Wednesday would mandate the presence of 24-hour private security personnel on-site at the villages.

Wednesday, Hollingsworth said the restrictions are needed as the city looks to regain trust around homelessness issues.

“I took on this sponsoring understanding that we wanted to set up the high acuity shelters that we are siting to be successful because, quite frankly, what we’re dealing with at King County Regional Homeless Authority is a mess, and so as we are taking this on as a city, we have to set new expectations and standards for stuff to be successful where the public can trust us.”

The debate over the bill and the seven amendments now moves back to City Hall before a hoped-for vote to move the legislation out of committee next week.

UPDATE: Thursday, Hollingsworth wanted to make it clear she was not the parks and schools amendment’s author.

“I want to clarify that I am not the author of this legislation. Because Councilmember Rivera does not sit on the committee, I sponsored it as a courtesy. Its similar to offering a second on a motion, even if you may not ultimately support it,” Hollingsworth said in a statement to CHS.

“This legislation is focused specifically on high-acuity transitional shelter models, where services like fentanyl treatment and recovery support might be present,” Hollingsworth’s statement concluded.

We’ve asked Hollingsworth if she plans to vote for the amendment and will update when we hear back.

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Seattle Public Schools

The new rules at the city’s public schools begin right away — effective Monday, May 4th.

For the younger crowd in kindergarten through eighth grades, the district is implementing a firm “Off and Away for the Day” mandate. This policy requires students to keep their devices turned off and stowed away from the first morning bell until the final dismissal. Unlike previous years where rules might have fluctuated by individual classroom, this new standard covers every minute of the school day, including lunch breaks and the typically social passing periods between classes. Officials say this shift is designed to encourage face-to-face interaction and provide a total break from the digital pressures that often follow students from home.

High schoolers at campuses like Garfield or Capitol Hill’s surrounding secondary schools will navigate a slightly different version of the crackdown called “No Cell Bell to Bell.” In grades nine through twelve, the district is prioritizing the sanctity of instructional time. While phones must be silenced and stored during every class period, older students will maintain limited access to their devices during lunch and passing periods.

Administrators view this as a middle ground, allowing teenagers to manage their lives during personal time while trying to ensure that screens stay out of the learning environment.

The district noted that these changes are not meant to be a one-size-fits-all barrier to health or learning. Exceptions remain in place for students who require access to personal devices for medical needs or as part of documented IEP or Section 504 accommodations.

The changes follow years of the city’s public schools working out their own policies. CHS reported on the phone policy changes at Garfield High School headed into the 2024 school year including a move to requiring students to silence phones and store them in “Cell Phone Airbnb” holding slots.

The Garfield change comes after families called for a new phone policy to address concerns about classroom distractions and the impact the devices can have on mental health.

School officials also told parents last spring that phone use and texting contributed to public safety issues around the campus involving student interactions drawing non-Garfield youth to the campus area during the school day.

The new district-level policy does not directly address emergencies. During Garfield’s most recent changes, administrators said they shaped the policy to allow students access to their devices for emergencies and “Shelter-in-Place or Lockdown Situations.”

While the city’s high school kids will continue to have their devices in hand when emergencies arise, direct communication with elementary and middle school kids won’t be possible.

“Families who need to reach their child during the school day can always do so through the school office,” the district said in its announcement.

The new Seattle policy is part of a nationwide trend to crackdown on mobile devices and phones. Seattle’s tiered approach is a common model, though many of the largest districts in the country have recently shifted to even more aggressive total bans. The city’s high school kids should note their level of access is quickly becoming a privilege not a right in comparison with districts across the country.

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Here’s the hype from Seattle personality Corteezyy who is promising a weekend of DJs, tacos, margaritas, and Tamborazo on Belmont Ave just off E Pine.

First opened in 2012, Fogon has grown into a food and drink family on Capitol Hill. Its most recent family connection can be found on E Pike where The Counter Shoppe opened earlier this year.

Over the years, its Cinco de Mayo bashes have grown and spilled out onto the street.

2026 will bring the largest celebration yet with two days of Seattle spring including a forecast for sun and 78 F on Sunday.

The 21+ over event will run from 2 to 10 PM each day and will have a $10 cover charge.

It will follow a day of big crowds and solidarity with workers as the city’s 2026 May Day march steps off from Cal Anderson Park on Friday.

Looking for more things to do around Capitol Hill? Check out the CHS Calendar.

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