When Ms. Helen’s Soul Bistro owner Jessi Henton brings her family’s Southern cooking back to Seattle’s Central District this fall, she’ll be dishing up liver and onions, gumbo, catfish, black-eyed peas, and all the other dishes that her mama Helen was known for. To Henton, the restaurant will stand for good home cooking, community, and a return to her family’s Central District roots.
“I’m going to bring back the smells and the comfort,” Henton says.
Henton is among a growing number of Black businesses, artists, and residents finding new homes in Central Area developments. Projects such as Midtown Square at 23rd and Union, the Liberty Bank Building at 24th and Union, and the Jackson Apartments at 24th and Jackson aim to help the Black community reclaim a neighborhood it once considered its own. A combination of gentrification and redlining over decades transformed the…
