‘This is inevitable:’ Spike mourns the end of The Little Red Hen
Jul 12, 2025, 6:00 AM
Seattle's Little Red Hen is feared to be closing at the end of July. (Photo courtesy of the Little Red Hen)
(Photo courtesy of the Little Red Hen)
The Little Red Hen country music bar and dance hall, home to good times, live country music, and cold beer, appears to be closing at the end of July.
The country bar has been in operation since 1933, and nestled within Seattle’s Green Lake neighborhood since 1968.
“I think it’s more than just a business, closing The Little Red Hen in the Green Lake area,” KIRO host Spike O’Neill said. “It has been, in recent months, in a dispute with their new property owner. A company bought the building in which The Little Red Hen exists and the new property, the LLC that owns The Little Red Hen’s property now, which is RLD Group LLC, has asked The Little Red Hen to sign a new lease agreement. The Little Red Hen has had a month-to-month lease agreement for years.”
According to RLD Group, the bar did not have a valid lease even before they took the building over in 2022. The landlord claimed the bar was allowed to stay on a month-to-month basis in good faith, but The Little Red Hen’s manager disputed that claim, arguing that the new property owners tried to raise the rent.
While growing up in Baltimore, Spike’s parents owned a neighborhood tavern, and he couldn’t stress enough the importance of a community watering hole at the end of a hard day’s work.
“The value it brought to, not just from the business perspective, but from a cultural perspective and a quality-of-life perspective to our neighborhood,” Spike said. “Hey, pub is short for public house after all.”
While the landlord has previously stated they want to work out an agreement still, the landlord told the bar owner to leave by the end of July.
“Should we mourn, and is it proper to mourn as a lot of these smaller establishments are going away here in the area and just being replaced by the lowest common denominator; these big national chains that can afford to have a location that doesn’t operate necessarily as well because the other stores will pick up the slack for them,” KIRO fill-in host Greg Tomlin said. “Whereas, if you’re a mom-and-pop shop, so to speak, you have to make it work. You’ve got to meet the bottom line month over month, or you could be out of business.
“It’s sad to see, because it does sort of fundamentally change certain areas, and it’s a bummer,” Tomlin added. “But again, I don’t know what the solution to a story like this is. It’s sad.”
The end of The Little Red Hen started with a dumpster disagreement
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Tensions between the property owners and the bar boiled over due to a matter involving the bar’s dumpster. The neighboring Wooden City Tavern has been paying the majority of The Little Red Hen’s trash fees for the past five years in exchange for using the dumpster, The Seattle Times reported. But RDL Group terminated this deal after taking over the property. The owner of The Little Red Hen estimated this change would cost the business $40,000 annually.
“With The Little Red Hen, I would say that this is growth. This is evolution. This is inevitable,” Spike said. “And while I love the value of a dive bar in your neighborhood and what it brings, from a lifestyle perspective and the community for the clients, a third place that so many people feel toward The Little Red Hen, growth is growth. And when a developer like the RLD Group makes a decision to, boy, I’m trying not to get too far ahead of my skis here, but you mentioned the dumpster agreement that started this whole cavalcade of ending this.”
Listen to the full conversation here.
Listen to “The Jake and Spike Show” weekdays from noon to 3 p.m. on KIRO Newsradio 97.3 FM. Subscribe to the podcast here.
