FREDDY’S DEAD, OR IS IT?: The Broadway Market Fred Meyer store is now gone, except for a vestigial pharmacy department. (The last time the site was remodeled, when Broadway Market was built on what had been a freestanding Fred Meyer, the pharmacy remained open in a portable building.)

In the side-entrance window, a Liquor Board application sign lists Fred Meyer as applying for a grocery beer-wine license at the site. We’d previously been led to believe Kroger (parent of both Freddy’s and QFC) would simply move and enlarge its existing QFC into the Broadway Market building. The application notice implies an alternate plan, to fill the building with an expanded Freddy’s that includes a grocery department. I’d like that much better.

…we still haven’t been told what caused the mysterious late-night fire that destroyed the Hillcrest deli-mart on East Olive Way. I wouldn’t be surprised, though, to hear that the building might be razed and condos might be put up in its place.

(UPDATE: Since this item was first posted, I’ve been informed that the Hillcrest’s owners may very well rebuild and reopen.)

The Hillcrest, a former pre-supermarket-era Safeway, had a full food selection at decent prices, and had the best convenience-store fried chicken and jojos in all Seattle. I miss it, and hope it comes back.

IN OTHER NEWS, the Museum of History and Industry quietly announced it would like to lease out the 117,000 square feet of exhibition-office space it owns near the Convention Center, which had been used for the temporary downtown library these past two years. The statement implies MOHAI’s raised nowhere near enough money to move in there itself.