Green Bean Scorched

I woke up early this morning to a voicemail from my friend Andy that Greenwood's Green Bean Coffee House was burning down.  He and his wife, Lisa, a co-founder of the Green Bean, had gone into Greenwood to open the Bean for the day - only to discover that the Bean and three neighboring restaurants were being destroyed by a fire.  You can find news updates at the Times and Phinneywood, but let me just say here that this is a devastating loss for the people of Greenwood...

My wife and I have eaten multiple times at the neighboring restaurants.  Our thoughts are with the hard working families that ran these establishments.  We were, however, most familiar with the Green Bean.  We moved to Seattle three years ago to be a part of the Green Bean and the Sanctuary community that supported it.  Two of the three people we knew in Seattle before we moved here were Lisa Etter Carlson and Hayden Smith, who co-founded the Green Bean with Sanctuary Church.  Our life revolved around the Bean - we lived around the corner, we volunteered as baristas, and we built countless relationships with all of the fascinating people that came through the door.  The Green Bean was the first place to go to if we wanted to see people and the last place to go if we had work to do because there were always people with whom to "sit long, talk much"!  We will miss the chocolate chip coconut scones, the wobbly wooden tables that I couldn't fit my legs under, and the Mount Rainer painting that took up almost the entire east wall - but most of all we will miss bumping into the friendly baristas, the artists, the students, the homeless who found refuge at the Bean, and all of the unique neighbors with whom we regularly crossed paths in this physical space.  Indeed, the spirit of the Bean will live on and something will rise from the ashes, but right now it's time to grieve the loss of what was...