Macrina Bakery is Open!

 

6/29/23 Macrina Bakery at NE 85th and Roosevelt Way NE, Maple Leaf

6/30/23 grand opening

After much anticipation since the announcement of a new location in Maple Leaf, the neighborhood gave Macrina Bakery a hearty welcome at its grand opening last Friday. When I arrived mid-morning, the line was out the door and partway down the block! I don’t think it was only pent-up demand for delicious breads and pastries (though certainly there was that). We’ve seen some beloved businesses close during the pandemic, and Macrina Bakery is the first major business to open here since. With all of Macrina’s other stores in neighborhoods much larger and more commercial than Maple Leaf, it feels extra-special that this local chain chose us for its sixth location.

The day before the grand opening, I sketched the building from across the street (above). They didn’t have their outdoor tables set up yet, but I could see where they would be (on the left side). I’ve been peeking into the windows for months, and on Friday, my hunch was confirmed: The spacious, well-lighted interior is beautiful and comfortable looking. I predict good winter-weather sketching in there! Sketchwaiting in line, it was fun and neighborly to see people greet each other after bumping into each other spontaneously there. (I chatted with the young girl I had met a couple months ago while I was sketching, and she even asked to show my sketchbook to her mom, who was in line with her.)

6/30/23 I didn't know that "cornetto" is Italian for croissant!

Given the long (but fast-moving) queue, I was afraid I was going to feel pressured to give up my nice outdoor table quickly, but most people were either carrying out their pastries or dining inside, so a couple of outdoor tables were still available when I sat down. Even so, you can bet I made the sketch of my chocolate cornetto (Italian for croissant) quickly – I had to get on with the more important part!

The gluten-free spouse guy will be happy to see the pastry options for him on
the tiered platters. I brought home a marionberry biscuit for him.

Nom-nom!

Photo taken 2 seconds before the cornetto was devoured.

Bakery Business

1/4/24 Utility work outside Macrina Bakery, Maple Leaf neighborhood

 The utility project I sketched in September is still going on in my immediate neighborhood. The work looks similar every time – the same machines, the same big holes, the same noise – but it just moves a bit further north each time. I usually pass it on my walks wherever it happens to be that week, but since all the heavy equipment is the same, I haven’t sketched it again.  

Last week I noticed the project was on the side street adjacent to Macrina Bakery. In fact, an excavator was parked in Macrina’s small employee parking lot, and it looks like some related work might occur right on the property. Obviously, I’ll have to check out the status again soon because, you know, I need to look after bakery business (by that I mean my own).

White pen note: In case you’re curious, I have given up on the white Posca marker and have gone back to my standby Sakura Gelly Roll. While the other Posca colors in the 0.7mm “pin” size behave somewhat better, the white always seems to develop clogging issues eventually. I have tried three so far with the same results, regardless of which way I store them (point up or point down). I have one more that I’m storing horizontally at home, and that seems to be doing OK so far, but that means I can’t take it with me – and urban sketching is 99 percent of my use for it. So it’s déjà vu all over again, all over again. And again.

Macrina is Coming to Maple Leaf

 

4/21/23 Site of new Macrina Bakery, Maple Leaf neighborhood

Macrina Bakery is opening a new location in Maple Leaf this summer! It’s the most exciting thing to happen in the ‘hood since last October’s big pumpkin. It’s not just that it’s a bakery within walking distance (which could be good or bad news, depending on whether you’re gluten-tolerant); it’s also the first major retail venue to open here since long before the pandemic (when a few venues sadly closed). Despite winning a national Neighborhood of the Year award, Maple Leaf has very few restaurants and even coffee shops. Macrina will be a welcome addition.

Directly across the street from the entrance to Maple Leaf Park and next door to The Reservoir Tavern, it’s a great spot for people walking and driving by on Roosevelt. The former LeBlanc Floors & Interiors store space has been completely gutted, and I see space for lots of tables. Most important: Big windows on two sides will bring in plenty of natural light for sketching. I hope it will be next winter’s rainy-day sketching spot!

National Cornetto Day

1/30/24 Chocolate cornetto at Macrina Bakery

Last year on National Croissant Day, I was disappointed that the PCC bakery was already out by late morning, and I had to settle for a Danish. This year, it was already mid-afternoon by the time we got to Macrina Bakery after a walk, so I didn’t have high hopes (though I also knew that the many alternatives would certainly not disappoint). I was happily surprised to find that they still had three types of cornettos (Italian for croissant) in stock. I chose a chocolate-filled one. My gluten-free guy got a raspberry Nutella hand pie, which was so good that I almost regretted that it wasn’t National Hand Pie Day!

Since Macrina’s Maple Leaf store opened last summer, my goal has been to try every pastry once before repeating any. My record was unbroken – until this chocolate cornetto, which I first tried on opening day. Boo-hoo – now I have to start over.

Paws, Claws, Cookies and Macrina

6/30/24 Paws & Claws adoptable dogs at Macrina Bakery

Macrina Bakery’s Maple Leaf store, which opened to much neighborhood fanfare a year ago, celebrated its anniversary in a unique way: It hosted a meet-and-greet event for dogs rescued by Paws and Claws Pet Rescue. Hoping to be adopted, the dogs met prospective parents in the parking lot. Macrina staff offered decorate-it-yourself dog-shaped shortbread cookies to visitors who gave a donation to Paws and Claws.

My self-frosted cookie looked a bit pathetic – as an art medium, I prefer ink to icing any day – but I had fun trying to capture the pups with my brush pen.

These dogs were waiting with their foster parents to meet potential forever parents.

The pup I decorated myself isn't quite as pretty as the store-made Pride cookie. Both were equally delicious, however.

Macrina Cinnamon Roll

 

3/7/24 Macrina Bakery

After dropping off my car for servicing before breakfast, I walked the few blocks to Macrina Bakery. (It was 29 degrees that morning, and I had no intention of sketching outdoors!) It was early enough that I got a good table facing the large side windows where patrons were nicely backlit.

Without necessarily planning the contents of each panel in my comic-like spread, I briefly thought about how I wanted the pages to look before I dove in with the cinnamon roll at lower left. (I always start with the food, regardless of its placement on the page, so that I can quickly get on with the business of eating, which was especially critical on that morning because I hadn’t had coffee or food yet.) As a lefty, I tend to start on the right and move leftward. The young woman, the man who looks like the comic character Dilbert and the vased flower fit nicely into those spaces.

I was then left with a narrow horizontal space at lower right, which was awkward to fill: Most elements in my view seemed vertical or squarish. Remembering tips from Drewscape in his YouTube video that inspired the comic approach I’ve been using, I zoomed in on the arm of the woman I had already sketched at upper right. I’m not sure what it adds to the “narrative” of my Macrina story except that her continual texting gave me plenty of time to sketch her twice. I really like that this compositional approach “forces” me to look for subject matter or views that I might not otherwise consider sketching.

Skeptical yet ever-hopeful: the Pilot Juice Paint Marker

Material notes: After it went dry shortly after I had started using it, I finally got around to refilling my Pentel pocket brush pen. It’s good to have it back in my hand.

In other news, I’m trying yet another white pen: a Pilot Juice Paint Marker. From its description and appearance, it’s likely to be the same as the Posca I finally gave up on after cursing it regularly. But my white pen hope springs eternal.

By the way, remember Murphy’s Laws of Urban Sketching No. 4: Ten minutes into your sketch, a large delivery truck will park in front of you for the next 30 minutes? It happens in cafes, too.

View blocked.

Japanese Maples

11/5/23 Macrina Bakery, Maple Leaf neighborhood

 

11/4/23 Maple Leaf neighborhood

The first walk I took after our high winds and heavy rain, the sidewalks were blanketed with leaves. Many of the trees I sketched last month were now nearly bald, and I was afraid leaf-peeping season was over. I was delighted to see that the trees that usually start to turn first, the Japanese maples, are also the last to give up. Quite a few in our ‘hood must have hung on tight during the gusts and deluge because they are at full glory right now.

Waiting for one in particular to turn red, I noticed Saturday that it seemed to be stuck on orange. I was afraid it wouldn’t get any further this year – a lot of trees seem to be turning only partway, then giving up – and I didn’t want to miss it completely. I liked the counterpoint of pumpkins on the porch (at right).

The next day I checked out the Japanese maple growing outside Macrina Bakery, and it was as full red as any tree could be (top of post). I had trouble deciding on a limited palette to use – of course, I needed red, but the blue in my primary triad seemed too cool for this scene. The heck with limited – I pulled out all the stops.

I wasn’t sure if Derwent Inktense Ionian Green, the cool green I’ve been carrying lately, would be the right shadow complement to the tree’s red, but I gave it a shot. What’s surprising is to see how different that green looks when it’s activated (in the foliage) compared to dry (the background windows) – it’s much warmer in its dry state. I find this often to be the case with Inktense pencils – they make unexpected color shifts when water-activated.

You can see both the maple and the yellow tree behind it from a different angle when I sketched the bakery’s grand opening last summer.

Knotty and Nervous

7/10/23 Tree on Roosevelt Way NE

Macrina Bakery recently shared a customer’s image of a knotty old tree visible from a window seat. I love drawing those trees (which the PlantNet app tells me are either Tilia Europaea, the common lime, or Tilia Cordata, the linden), many of which line both sides of Roosevelt Way Northeast for several blocks. On a cool, cloudy morning, I grabbed that seat inside the café so that I could sketch it.

I’ve sketched quite a few of those trees over the years, like this one in 2015 and another in 2018. The one at right was more challenging (and therefore more fun) to render than it had first appeared. The light through the overcast sky was coming from the left, so it had to be brighter on that side. But the tops of the burls and bumps on the opposite side were also slightly illuminated. It was an ideal subject for a toned-paper study (that happens to be bright pink).

7/10/23 Pups outside Macrina Bakery

On my way out of the bakery, I found two pups nervously waiting for their human to return from the door they had disappeared into. It must be hard on dogs, who are probably never completely certain if they’ll ever see their human again.

Pi Day

 

3/14/25 Macrina Bakery, Maple Leaf neighborhood

Given that geometry was never my favorite subject, Pi Day is not usually one of the holidays I observe. But toward the end of a busy Friday when I needed a break, I had no objection to a mini maple apple pi at Macrina Bakery.

Not only was I able to snag a seat at all at this always-busy place, I was lucky enough to get my favorite window seat with a great view of a bumpy, old linden (which I had sketched from the same window shortly after Macrina opened in 2023). It’s a nice spot that also gives me a view of the Maple Leaf Reservoir water tower and park walkers.

Three Maple Leaf Stories

 

8/27/25 Macrina Bakery, Maple Leaf neighborhood

I hadn’t been to Macrina Bakery in ages! Partly it’s because I haven’t been indulging in pastries as much, now that I’ve run out of ways to reward myself (but downsizing activities will resume in the fall and winter, as will the rewards!). A larger part, though, is that Macrina is often so crowded that I can’t get a seat. After dropping off the Subaru at Chuck’s Auto for routine maintenance, it was early enough that I found seat – one of my favorites by a front window. It gave me an easy view of one of the many knotty linden trees on Roosevelt Way (I had sketched another one a couple of years ago).

Walking home, I spotted not only an urban couch but two additional chairs waiting to be “re-homed.” A free, instant livingroom! In fact, even as I sketched, an interested party pulled over to examine the goods. The look on his face said that the price wasn’t right.

A couple blocks from the couch, I was shocked to see an empty lot where a house once stood, not too long ago. There wasn’t much to sketch there, but I noticed a couple of large pickups, likely belonging to contractors on site. As I sketched, a man living in the house next door to the empty lot came out, so I asked him about it: In place of the single-family home that had been there, four new houses will be built.

We both frowned at the prospect, but he had an upside: His two-year-old son was thrilled by the earth movers and other demolition equipment he’d seen so far, and surely more to come. At least the two-year-old and I have that in common.

Dilapidated Garage

 

8/16/24 Macrina Bakery, Maple Leaf neighborhood

Whenever I sit at Macrina Bakery’s outdoor tables, I wonder about the dilapidated garage across the street. The wood is rotten, the roof sagging, the door askew and always partially open, moss and old vines everywhere. What’s surprising is that it doesn’t at all go with the house it belongs to, which is very well-kept and with a lovely yard. As I sketched it and the old pickup in front of it, the owner came out, opened the broken door, and went in to get a very old motorcycle. After a loud, stinky warm-up, he rode off in a cloud of smoke. It may not go with the house, but the garage does go with its contents.

A Birthday and Other Small Celebrations

11/15/24 Macrina Bakery, Maple Leaf neighborhood

I had a birthday last week – not a “big” one, but an ordinary, run-of-the-mill one. Still, I enjoy milking birthday celebrations for as long as I can. The first was a little sketching party with a few friends at Macrina Bakery (above).

The next was a personal tradition I’ve had for decades: Going to the Green Lake Starbucks early on my birthday for my free drink (one of few perks that haven’t been eliminated). When I worked full time, another personal tradition was to take a vacation day on my birthday (because working on my birthday was against my principles), and even then I enjoyed getting up early for that free drink. Before I became a sketcher, I just brought it home, but now I usually drink it there and sketch.

11/16/24 Green Lake Starbucks

The third sketch journal page below is a small celebration of my ongoing downsizing project. I’ve been losing momentum lately because the tasks are more onerous now: Tedium combined with sadness is not a good recipe for enthusiast productivity. I kind of dread it, and at the same time, I’m getting close to the end, so I want to finish – but it’s slow. The small load I took to Goodwill on this day is probably the last for a while – all the rest is either trash (not much), recycling (lots) or shredding (hopefully not too much).

11/21/24 Victrola Coffee Roasters, Ballard neighborhood

A Third Place

5/11/25 Chocolati, Greenwood neighborhood (For the record, this brownie drenched in hot fudge sauce was so huge that I could eat only a quarter of it at a time!)

For most of my adult life, I have longed for a “third place.” Traditionally, the third place is a pub or bar where people stop after work for a pint with familiar faces before heading home. Rather than an evening pint, an afternoon coffee has always been more my vibe. When I was single, I enjoyed taking my journal out to cafes on lazy Sunday afternoons before the next work week began. As a strong introvert, I wasn’t necessarily seeking conversation or community, but I liked the feeling of recording private thoughts in a public space. And people watching was always fun.

Throughout my working life, I continued taking occasional breaks from work and home chores by seeking out coffee shops, but I never really found a place that had exactly what I was looking for. Maybe I’m too picky: The shop couldn’t be too small nor too large. The music couldn’t be too weird or too loud. Ideally, it should be within a 15-minute drive and with easy parking. The ambiance had to be comfortable in just the right, difficult-to-articulate way. And it goes without saying that the coffee and snacks had to be good. Is that so much to ask?

5/17/25 Revolutions Coffee, Green Lake neighborhood

When I started sketching, the requirements became even stiffer. I still needed all of the above, plus the tables had to be set at angles that made it easy to sketch other patrons. And good lighting, preferably from big windows. Back in the day (spoken with that familiar tone of everything-was-better-in-the-past old fogeyness, emphasized with a deep sigh of resignation), people read hard copy books and wrote in paper journals, so cafes with good lighting invited such patrons. Now, most patrons use screens, so lighting isn’t important or even welcome.

And speaking of those people on screens, some are using those potential third places as their actual work places – occupying tables for hours, conducting meetings or job interviews, and writing their PowerPoints, all for the price of a latte. Zoka Coffee, one of my favorite indoor spots when I first began sketching, became impossible in later years because seating became so competitive. (Not to mention that their pastries went downhill. Pfft – that put an end to that.)

5/26/25 Macrina Bakery, Maple Leaf neighborhood

Most recently, I had high hopes that Macrina Bakery would become my third place. When it first opened, it seemed to check all my boxes with the added benefit of being within (too-easy) walking distance. Fairly quickly, though, it became too popular. I’ve stopped in many times lately when I couldn’t find a single seat available.

As you know, I visit many coffee shops in my own ‘hood and outside of it, hoping one will feel just right and become my third place. I’m still searching.

The Mountain Delivers

 

5/10/24 Macrina Bakery, Maple Leaf neighborhood

Several years ago when I had promoted an Urban Sketchers outing to Maple Leaf Park, I oversold it a bit: “The biggest and best highlight is a completely unobstructed view of Mt. Rainier – possibly the best within the city limits!” (I used to make my living in marketing; so shoot me.) On that August day, Her Majesty laughed her head off as she stayed hidden behind clouds.

Caffeine and sustenance before the park outing. 

Seeing that the weather forecast was clear and warm toward the end of last week, I recalled that 2017 outing. As I sent out an ad hoc outing announcement on short notice, I said to myself, “Come on, Your Majesty – don’t make a liar out of me again!”

For early birds, I started the outing at Macrina Bakery across the street from the park entrance. I enjoyed meeting a couple sketchers who were new to USk, and we all had fun chatting and sketching our pastries and coffee (above).

Walking across the street to the park, I looked up at the clear sky and breathed a sigh of relief. This time, I delivered on my promise of a fantastic view of Mt. Rainier. While Her Majesty was the main attraction, the Maple Leaf water tower and the Confluent Boulders sculpture were also popular subjects (good backup material in case The Mountain was under cover).

5/10/24 Maple Leaf Park

It was the first outing of the year that felt like summer – and it’s only May! I know that doesn’t bode well for the climate or the snowpack, but right now, I couldn’t be happier.

"Confluent Boulders" by Patrick Marold

Jim and Paula make homage to Her Majesty.

Natalie’s Birthday Party

12/31/24 Macrina Bakery, Maple Leaf neighborhood

The card I made for Natalie
(drawn partly from imagination and inspired by
a photo of her wearing these holiday accessories)

On the last day of 2024, Natalie invited me and a few other friends to her sketchy birthday party at Macrina Bakery. Friends, sketching and cake – what better way to usher out one year and greet the next? I'm grateful for all of it.

Spring for a Day

 

3/18/25 Metro Market, Crown Hill neighborhood

3/25/25 magnolia tree, Maple Leaf neighborhood

On March 18, I went out on my first petal-peeping mission to see how my favorite cherry streets were doing. As expected, all the buds were still tight (journal page above). Less than a week later, a freaky warm front brought sunny temperatures in the high 60s and even 70s. Hallelujah, spring was finally here! OK, so it only lasted a day, but it seemed like the whole city was outdoors rejoicing. More significant, those warm temps will surely push the blossoms to open!

After walking around Green Lake, shedding layers as I went, I took the top down for the drive home. Spotting a magnolia just starting to pop, I basked in the sweet sunshine to sketch it.

That afternoon, I stopped at Macrina Bakery (below) for the annual ritual that marks my personal harbinger of spring: The first al fresco iced coffee!  

3/25/25 Macrina Bakery, Maple Leaf neighborhood

Sweet

 

11/16/23 Macrina Bakery, Maple Leaf neighborhood

I worked at the Woodland Park Zoo’s concession stand one summer. Making popcorn, hotdogs and cotton candy all day, my co-workers and I joked about how our job was to “feed the wild animals.” I was 16, and it was my first “real” job – the kind with a paystub that showed how much of my minimum-wage paycheck wasn’t going into my pocket. Medicare? Huh. I’ll have lots of money when I’m 65! Why can’t I have that $0.87 now?

I had a birthday last week, and I’m finally vindicated for my 16-year-old self – and very grateful. After paying for my own health insurance for many years as a freelancer, my first Medicare insurance bill was a pretty darn good birthday present. Thanks, Uncle Sam.

To celebrate, a few friends and I met at Macrina Bakery so that I could eat my birthday cake (actually a chocolate walnut tartlet) with sketching company. Some birthdays are sweeter than others, even at my age.

A sweet celebration.