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Hitch Up the Mules
Jan 24, 2001 -- Over 80 years ago, before the Lake Washington Ship Canal was built, a team of 24 mules dragged what is now Fremont's signature building, the Red Door Alehouse, across the small creek and swamp separating Queen Anne from Fremont, and settled it on its present site.By the time the mules got the building up the bank, it faced the wrong way, so the back and front were reversed. The mules were too tired to turn it around, and that is the way it stands today.
In a few weeks, owners plan to jack up the building and move it to a new location--one block east, to the corner of Evanston Avenue and North 34th Street. The site is presently occupied by a parking lot and, in the summertime, flea market vendors. This time the Red Door will probably not be pulled by mules.
Alpha Zinkus opened the Red Door 13 years ago in the building that had housed the Fremont Tavern, and before that Fremont's long lost and lamented drugstore. Old-timers from the neighborhood told Zinkus about the mules.
He had planned to close the Red Door on February 3, then reopen in early June at the new site. However, Zinkul says they haven't yet received DCLU approval, and he's worried that the new foundation won't be ready by then. "They're already two weeks behind," he groaned.
If they haven't moved the building by June, he wants to reopen anyway, so he doesn't lose the summer, his busiest season.
The new Red Door will be somewhat larger. It will take over the entire building, including the space now occupied by the Dubliner. Zinkus says bigger bathrooms, an expanded kitchen and office space are planned.
The Dubliner, nine years old, will move to the former City People's Mercantile space, at Fremont Avenue North and North 36th Street.
Dubliner owner Andy Kelleher says his tavern will close its current location on February 15. "We had hoped to stay until St. Paddy's Day," he says, "but they're changing the locks at midnight and kicking us out. We've got to remodel the new space and hope to be in it sometime in May. We'll have a bigger, better kitchen, and about a third more space overall."
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