Vito’s photo by Daniel Sheehan
Serving up eclectic piano-centric jazz
Drawn into the comfortable darkness at Vito’s, a street-level haunt beneath an older apartment building on First Hill, you enter the mix of music, conversation and movement.
You settle in and order a drink. You feel like you’ve stepped back in time to the Rat Pack-era 1960s, when jazz clubs were noisy, party places. Inside, the walls and ceilings are dark with a large island bar, booze bottles shimmering in the light and classic red banquettes at the shadowy perimeter. A pleasant discovery: there is no cover charge. Imagine that.
The musicians play in a mirror-lined corner at floor level, with space around it for dancing. On this particular Friday night, the dynamic Grammy-nominated Brazilian pianist and composer Jovino Santos Neto charges hard into Latin rhythms. He is accompanied by fellow Cornish College faculty member Tim Carey, bass, and long-time collaborator Jeff Busch, drums and percussion. Santos Neto has packed the place. I am glad to have reservations. People are clustered at the bar, too. Women are dancing with arms held high, hips gyrating.
The music is richly energetic, cutting through the clamor of people. This is part of the intended ambiance. Bands that thrive here understand this is no recital.
“The trick to playing the room is to realize it’s a lounge atmosphere,” says co-owner Greg Lundgren. “In a lounge, the music is a soundtrack for the room. It’s designed to be talked over and flirted over. Some bands can get overwhelmed by noise. But the bands we have here respond well to the energy of the room. It’s a challenge, but it’s really cool when it works.”
It certainly works for Jovino Santos Neto’s group.
“I really enjoy it there,” Santos Neto says. “It’s a lively party place. In the location between Capitol Hill and the city, you get a wide age range, from college kids to business men. The acoustics are good, too, either by accident or by design. It surrounds you.”
The revived Vito’s recently celebrated its second anniversary under the ownership of Greg Lundgren and Jeff Scott, artistic entrepreneurs with a flair for originality and eclecticism. Lundgren and Scott took seven months to redesign the space true to the original Vito’s. The large horse-shoe bar is the centerpiece. There’s the red banquette seating along the walls and, of course, the grand piano.
“There was always a grand piano at Vito’s,” Lundgren says. “So we had to get one. We made the entertainment piano-centric. Along with jazz, we have some blues, some R&B, and some lounge singers. Musically, we want diversity in age and style.”
Accordingly, the calendar at Vito’s includes this variety of talented artists: classic solo pianists Jerry Zimmerman and Ruby Bishop; blues and boogie jazz man Casey MacGill; Latin stylists Jovino Santos Neto and Brazil Novo; straight-ahead bands like the Ron Weinstein Trio, the Jason Parker Quartet, and the Brad Gibson Trio; nouveau lounge singers Honey Castro, Ivory Smith, Julie Cascioppo, Jennifer Kienzle and Sara Edwards; jazz innovators Wally Shoup (sax), Burton Greene (piano), Rik Wright (guitar), the Michael Owcharuk Trio, and the Ari Joshua Trio; R&B and soul singer Darrius Willrich; Herb Alpert-style Rat City Brass; the unique pop group Lushy; the lazy-twangy Yada Yada Blues band; talented emerging singer Jimmie Herrod; and the funk-fusion band Satellite Four.
The themes of diversity and eclecticism definitely reverberate here among entertainers and customers alike.
“I love that we can have girls in their 20s sitting shoulder to shoulder with guys in their 60s,” Lundgren says. “We have hipsters, doctors from the hospital across the street, and mothers going out for a cocktail. On Sunday, a group of people from a nearby senior center come to listen to Ruby Bishop over dinner.”
The menu at Vito’s is distinctly Italian and the food is excellent, fresh and well presented. I had the pan-seared scallops with pancetta, garlic, spinach and tomatoes. The drinks are exceptional. Prices are reasonable, with most entrees under $20. The wine list can satisfy the casual sipper or the snobby quaffer looking to drop a C-note.
Owners Lundgren and Scott have been friends since college and became business partners shortly after. Lundgren, a Bellevue native, studied sculpture and furniture design and has a degree in architecture from Southern California Institute of Architecture. After earning the degree, he returned to Seattle and worked on his own art projects while employed as a stained-glass designer. Scott, originally a Chicagoan, earned degrees in English literature and theater at the University of Washington and stayed in Seattle to work at film-making.
Being active in the local arts community back in the early 1990s, the friends got together to create an art gallery called Vital 5 Productions and staged social events in the roomy loft space they leased in the south Lake Union area. (It has since been demolished.) Hundreds of people flocked to their parties and events. The gallery sparked their idea to eventually open a bar that showcased local art.
Thus was born The Hideout bar, which the two artist/businessmen opened in 2005. What began as a wild concept – an art gallery that also was a bar – was more successful than they had imagined. Located a few blocks away from Vito’s, The Hideout has high walls that are lined frame-to-frame with edgy paintings from obscure Seattle artists. It is known as a quiet place (rarely music) with comfortable seating and top-notch mixed drinks where an eclectic group of people, including artists, get together to chat. In short, this tongue-in-cheek experiment became a business model for the two creative entrepreneurs: alcohol sales fund artistic endeavors.
“We’ve sold more art in the bar than we ever did in the art gallery,” Lundgren said, an eyebrow raised.
After the bar idea took off, the opportunity to purchase and renovate Vito’s came up. It seemed like an opportunity that they couldn’t let slip away. It was the history of the place that exerted a pull on Lundgren.
“My attraction to the building was its cultural history,” Lundgren says. “So much has happened there over the years. It could easily have been erased or have become a fast-food restaurant. We couldn’t let that happen.”
Originally opened in 1953, Vito’s was an Italian restaurant and lounge that attracted a diverse crowd of Seattleites including professionals, politicians, priests (it’s near St. James Cathedral), and organized-crime figures. Framed collages of old photos found in the basement recall the good old days there.
Into the 1970s and beyond, the bar traveled through a series of ill-fated iterations. It was eventually abandoned in 2008 after a gang-related murder took place there. Afterwards, when the space was dormant, Lundgren and Scott made a proposal to the building’s owner to breathe life back into Vito’s. Their plan won out over the other bidders.
“After having success with our bar, we were ready to do it again and take it bigger,” Lundgren says. “Every month we get better at what we do. We’ve just warmed up our engines and we’re in it for the long haul.”
