In the early morning hours of Wednesday, September 30th, the Shoreline Fire Department was dispatched to put out a structure fire in northern Seattle. This occurred at the location of the former One Cup Coffee, now slated to be home to Black Coffee Northwest, a Black-owned cafe and community hub for the Shoreline area. Upon arriving around 3:30am, the SFD extinguished the blaze and determined it was intentionally set.
Originally scheduled to open today, Thursday, October 1st, Black Coffee NW is now seeking donations from the community to help get their shop up and running.
As seen in photos posted by the SFD, the arsonist(s) attempted to start fires in at least two locations of the Black Coffee NW building at the 16700 block of Aurora Ave N—which is also home to Bethany Church—by the stairs in the southeast corner as well as to the gas line feeding into the structure.
Per the SFD, video footage of the event is currently being “deciphered for individual(s) recognition.” They are also requesting anyone with any information regarding the arson to contact the King County Arson Investigator non-emergency line at 206-263-2070.
In the meantime, Black Coffee NW is seeking community support to help bring their cafe to fruition. After failing to make its $100,000 Kickstarter goal—meaning they receive $0 of the $34,000 pledged due to the platform’s all-or-nothing funding style—the cafe has turned to direct donations, which can be made to their website or through PayPal by sending funds to Erwin@BlackCoffeeNW.com.
We’ve reached out to the team behind Black Coffee NW for comment and will update the story will more information as it is made available.
This story is developing…
Zac Cadwalader is the managing editor at Sprudge Media Network and a staff writer based in Dallas. Read more Zac Cadwalader on Sprudge.
