When Seattle’s Best Coffee vacated Pike Place Market last month, a prime piece of real estate was suddenly up for grabs for the first time since 1984. 

Filling that space: Rachel’s Ginger Beer. Owner Rachel Marshall (one of our 50 most influential Seattleites, by the way) says that by July 1 she will reopen the space as “a combination of soda fountain and bar.” Sure, tourists will be all over this, but it’s pretty exciting news for locals, too. 

By day, five taps will dispense different produce-driven flavors of her signature ginger beer (blueberry is an old favorite, though apple and kale is a popular newcomer). “We can get our hands on all kinds of awesome produce from farmers all the time,” says Marshall. She’s also excited to be partnering with Cupcake Royale’s Jody Hall to serve up ginger beer floats made with her line of ice creams. 

By night, the Rachel’s Ginger Beer outpost will serve up Moscow mules and other ginger beer–focused cocktails on tap. Marshall has visions of a machine churning up a frozen cocktail made with strawberry ginger beer and tequila. There will be non-gingery libations, too, says Marshall. “It’s not by any means a craft cocktail bar, but if you want a Manhattan? Sure.” 

Downtown office workers can stop in for ginger beer growler fills, and Marshall is also working on a line of ginger syrups that are shelf stable and hence a more travel-friendly Market souvenir than, say, a frozen salmon.

For those of you who miss the red neon coffee cup sign that hung outside Seattle's Best, Marshall promises some sort of illuminated replacement—she's still working on the design, and wrapping her brain around the fact that she is about to own a business that's part of the Market neonscape.