With the departure of Theo Chocolate from the Fremont scene back at the end of 2023, there are chocoholics among us who may have been suffering withdrawal symptoms. Those folks can now rest easy with the arrival of Spinnaker Chocolate to Stone Way.

Spinnaker had previously operated a shop in Ravenna, which they closed in April. They opened up at 3509 Stone Way N around mid-May, although they consider themselves to be in a “soft-opening” phase at least until early June. A café is slated to open at some indefinite point in the near future. (I noticed the espresso machine …

Many readers of Wallyhood get notifications of our stories sent to their email inboxes or are advised of new stories via social media. When a new story is published, these folks get to see the first few lines of each story and a link back to our site if they would like to read more. (If you’d like to sign up for email notifications, click on the floating Subscribe box in the lower right corner of any page on our site.)

A few weeks ago, a technical problem prevented these notifications from going out. That has now been fixed. However, …

Around mid-January, I was bicycling on the Burke Gilman trail where it crosses N 36th St., and I was surprised to see a monitoring device lashed to the nearby stop sign. “Traffic study in progress” the label on the device said. My surprise was due to the fact that, just back in October of last year, I wrote a story for Wallyhood about this very intersection complaining that the design of this intersection was bringing bicyclists and drivers into conflict. I offered up some suggestions for improving the crossing point, and readers also added some useful input in the comments. …

It’s been a few years since we did an annual wrap on the Year in Wallyhood. But this year, we’re bringing it back: a list of our top ten stories ranked by page views*. To put these numbers into perspective, wallyhood gets about 15,000 page views every month and about half as many unique visitors. Business-related stories (openings and closings) dominated our top ten in 2024 but we also see festival news and trees falling over. One thing is clear though, our writer DOUG is top dog having authored 4 of the top ten stories.

Here, then, are the top …

This Friday and Saturday, January 10 and 11, Ladd and Lass Brewing will be celebrating their third great year of brewing beer, and we’re all invited to join the party. I used to say that Ladd & Lass, located at 722 NE 45th St, was the nearest brewery for most of our neighborhood. With the addition of Gasworks Brewing down on Lake Union, that’s true for fewer of us. Still, it’s just the other side of I-5 on 45th street, so I’m sure you can find your way there.

What’s on tap (pardon the pun) for the 3rd Anniversary? From …

You may have heard the Christmas ships if you were by the water any evening in the past few weeks; they have been parading in the waters of the greater Seattle area since the end of November. But the best chances for viewing them near our neighborhood are still ahead of us, and the grand finale, on Monday, December 23, can be viewed from Gas Works Park.

If you’re asking yourself, “What is he talking about?” here is a bit of an explanation. The Christmas ships are a holiday tradition around these parts. Lead by an Argosy cruise ship with …

In a newsletter sent out last week to subscribers, wallyhood among them, Dustin Ronspies, owner and head chef at Art of the Table which has been a neighborhood mainstay for over 17 years, said that he is closing his restaurant for good come late November. He pointedly said he would not be looking to open a new place, and implied that he and his family would be moving out of the area. No specific reason was cited for the closure other than the cumulative toll of 17 years of “long days and longer nights,” and a desire to move on.…