Taha Ebrahimi, professional tree nerd and author of Trees of Seattle: An Illustrated Walking Guide, sent a DM to our friend group chat on Wednesday morning.
“You guys!!! Vacilando is closing this Saturday!!!!! 😭😭😭😢”
Ebrahimi included a link to Capitol Hill Blog’s story from the night before, which reported that the crumbling century-old building, which houses Bar Vacilando, Rione XIII, and Rubenstein Bagels, has been forced into vacancy due to ongoing structural and financial issues. The other shops closed immediately; Vacilando shuttered on Saturday, September 26.
My response, after “God fucking damn it,” was:
“What will become of the empress tree?”
Bar Vacilando was lovely for many reasons, including its high ceilings, clean lines, herb-dusted fries with dippy garlic-curry aioli, and lightweight cherry tomato-infused martinis. But the jewel in its crown is doubtlessly the tiny patio’s 20-foot Paulownia tomentosa, aka the empress tree. The patio is conceptually inseparable from this sprawling and flamboyant tree, which grows from the brick foundation of the building next door, forming a leafy umbrella over the tables and blooming into a riot of fragrant purple trumpets in the spring. If you’ve never seen it, it has a sibling at the Seattle Japanese Garden in the Washington Park Arboretum. It’s like something out of a video game or an Ambien dream. To see it at its most splashy and ostentatious, one must visit an empress tree in late springtime.
So, when the bar goes, will the tree go?
Ebrahimi said she had the same thought. A Stranger 2026 Genius Award nominee who’s been deemed Seattle’s Coolest Tree Expert, she estimates there are only about 30 empress trees in the city. “There’s one just a couple of blocks from [Vacilando], so part of me wonders if this one is a rogue tree that’s related.”
She adds that it’s one of the world’s fastest growing trees—growing up to 15 feet a year—and that in its native China, aristocratic families traditionally planted one when a baby girl was born so that it would mature alongside her and be ready to harvest when the family needed wood for a marriage dowry chest.
We began hatching a plan to try to save the empress, should the building face demolition. But where could it go? A container is a nonstarter—the empress tree grows so fast that it would become rootbound within weeks. It needs to live in the ground. Another issue: All signs point to empress trees not really tolerating their roots being disturbed. Its height and heft would be major obstacles to transplanting it as well. Maybe an arborist should be called? Could it survive a major pruning in order to bust it outta there? Carefully? If she can be moved, the empress tree at Vacilando ostensibly needs to live somewhere similar to a restaurant patio, where she grows from soil but drops her seeds over concrete.
To complicate matters, Washington state has had its little eyeball on this type of tree. The empress tree is really good at making more of itself, and it’s considered invasive in the Southwest and Eastern United States as such. Although it’s not officially considered a noxious weed here in Washington, it’s on the monitor list. Not a great situation for an imminently homeless tree.
Terrified that this beloved empress will be left behind to get crunched up along with the building, I fired off an email to Bar Vacilando’s parent company, Black Bottle Group, to ask what’s in the works here. Their response didn’t answer my question, except it actually did, without saying so.
“Thank you so much for coming to Vacilando over the years, and for caring about the beloved tree. When we took the space over 10 years ago, it was a single sprout issuing out of the brick, about two feet high. We’ve pruned it every year, it must have some water source, it has an incredible life force that has given us nourishment in every way that only Nature can. Thank you for your kind words. We are so grateful.”
Oh no. This is the Lynchian atmospheric whooshing of emails. Something bad is about to happen in this movie.
The next afternoon, I fled to the bar to ask questions in person. Stranger photo director and queer regenerative farm cofounder Billie Winter met me there. The tree looked bigger and more fabulous than ever, and we gazed up at its majesty.
“The property owner is a ghost,” our very busy server said when asked what the fate of the tree might be, adding that it’s technically part of the building next door—currently home to Grandad’s Barber Shop—and not the one that housed Vacilando. “No one knows. Someone will probably take care of it, though!”
Big not-my-problem energy. I would feel the same way if it were my second-to-last day of my job with maybe no notice.
Per Capitol Hill Blog, the barber shop building that the empress tree grows out of is not on the chopping block, just the one to the south. It’s easy to imagine the empress getting damaged in the process, of course. Both buildings are owned by somewhat-renowned local architect Gerald Kumata, who is 83 years old and seemingly not readily contactable. Perhaps a literal ghost as well.
I thought back to the sage words of Taha Ebrahimi. “Get a photo of the source tree,” she’d texted earlier. “I’m certain it’s the source! It’s only two blocks to the east on 17th just north of Harrison! It had to have blown over to Vacilando.”
It was there. It was massive and fully mature, at least double the height of Vacilando’s tree. And it had TONS of seed pods. Most were cracked open and empty, but I jumped into the sky and managed to grab hold of a branch with more pods on it and pull it down. Billie had brought a little jar to collect the dusty, insect-wing-like seeds that remained in the walnut-like shells. In they went. I accidentally broke the branch, but it had a green shoot on there, which Ebrahimi said we could hypothetically propagate. “It will grow like gangbusters,” she wrote. “If you can cut a green shoot off, grow it in a vase until it grows roots!” I wrapped a wet paper towel around the base and stuck the whole thing in a Ziploc.
A passerby asked if we were foraging for food, and we excitedly rambled at them about the empress tree at Bar Vacilando and how we’re pretty sure we found the mother tree. They wanted to follow @treeswithtaha on the socials and we told them how.
At press time, we don’t have any real answers. Taha Ebrahimi is thrilled to hear that she was probably right and it was a rogue empress after all. Farmer Billie has a slew of seeds from the mother tree and, I’m sure, can germinate them easily. The green shoot is in a pickle jar of water in my kitchen window. I’m trying to figure out how to same-day-ship some root hormone to get it started. We can rebuild.
Still, it’d be nice to save that poor patio empress. It seems crass to think that whomever is in charge of redeveloping and/or leveling the building in question would just destroy this elegant fashion icon without thinking. But I suppose we shouldn’t put it past some real estate developers, among the Disney-villainest characters in the land, to kill a pretty tree for being in the way.
I accept that I am not in control of the fate of the Vacilando Empress, but look. If something bad is in the pipeline for her and someone hears about it, please let me know @megvanhuygen and I’ll figure it out. Hell, I’ll reconstruct Bar Vacilando’s patio in my backyard if I have to, frame by frame. Whatever needs to be done. This tree is loved by so very many. We’ll all make it happen.
