Hungry for news? Welcome to our Friday Feed, where we run through all the local food and restaurant news this week—and maybe help you figure out where to eat this weekend.

Dramatic Exits

Buh-bye to the brown bread: National chain the Cheesecake Factory announced that its downtown Seattle location will close on May 4. Local media got dramatic, with The Seattle Times considering it worthy of a “Breaking News” designation. Don’t worry too much, though: Chain restaurants are like hydras, when one dies, two new ones spring up to replace it, as you’ll see below.

Celebrity chef says sayonara: Soft-spoken, smart, and quick to laugh, Seattle chef Shota Nakajima found a national audience as a finalist (and fan favorite) on Bravo’s Top Chef. After five tough years, he announced the permanent closure of his Capitol Hill restaurant, Taku. But not without a few last events to say goodbye (that are already sold out).

Adios, amigo: Former Westward chef Will Gordon announced that his vibey Stone Way Tex-Mex bar, Tio Baby’s will serve its last salsas on April 5. While vague, Gordon’s comment on the closing feels deeply descriptive of what’s happening right now in Seattle: “In this current moment in time, this restaurant landscape doesn't really have a space for our bar in the way we would want to run it.” He leaves the door open for a future Tio Baby’s, but says for now, he’ll be trying to build a lifestyle that feels sustainable and spend more time with his dog.

Exciting Openings

Train-worthy: It’s not often that a Tacoma restaurant seems worthy of listing in Seattle food news, but Grann soft-opened this week with the makings of something special. En Rama chef Reginald Jacob Howell teamed up with pitmaster Denzel Johnson to take over the Table space on Sixth Avenue with a menu of Indian-Southern barbecue—kale curry Caesar, masala mac and cheese, and smoked beef biryani.

Paris in Pioneer Square: Former L’Experience Paris chef Orphée Fouano had to push back the opening date of Mirabelle by Orphée, his Pioneer Square Parisian Café, because his French flour hasn’t made it through customs, reports Eater Seattle. The First Avenue café now plans to start serving its pastries and sandwiches on March 20.

Cali-style: The Rancho Bravo space that became a Teto’s Cantina will now be a third Mexican restaurant, this time Burritos California, a local group with a few other locations. Per Capitol Hill Seattle, it has 24-hour ambitions for the one-time KFC building across from Cal Anderson Park.

Less Exciting Openings

Chains lost the battle with the closing of The Cheesecake Factory, but they will always win the war.

Screen Time: If you need a new place to look at your little screen while also watching a really big screen, the new chain now open in a 24,000-square-foot space next door to Climate Pledge Arena has you covered. (How big is that? Exactly the same size as that Cheesecake Factory that just closed.) Tom’s Watch Bar is a chain of sports bars founded by a cofounder of Smashburger, which is a relatively good fast-food chain that we don’t have here in Seattle. Among the hundreds of screens, all playing sports all the time, are stadium-sized screens. A second Seattle location is already in the works for the former Quality Athletics space in Pioneer Square.

Proper projectiles: This week, Puget Sound Business Journal reported that a British darts pub chain called Flight Club will take over the 7,200-square-foot space that once held Flying Fish. The article says to expect “tech-based darts and an upscale 1800s-style British pub atmosphere.” These two things seem at odds with each other, and I don’t actually know what British pubs were like in the 1800s, but I can’t imagine the beer was very good.

Oh, BTW, here’s what you missed last week.