We’ve been waiting for Charley+May Co. to open up since we first reported on the new business last month. For those as curious as I, I have good news – the new gift gallery and modern design shop, located at 2225 Queen Anne Avenue N, will be opening to the public on Friday, March 4.

The store, formerly the home of Hilltop Yarn, is named after and inspired by owner Lauren Formicola’s grandparents, who she says both “had a flair for independence and life.”

The shop, according to Formicola, is made up of a collection of modern home décor and accessories for men and women. Smartly designed vases, clocks, mirrors, art, jewelry, wine vessels, candles, timepieces, wallets, iPad accessories, slab wood tables, handbags, stationary, soaps, and an owl shaped lamp are just a few of the items the shop will carry, she says.

Other items that will fill the shop windows include a bike from Ballard’s Dutch Bike Co., pieces from Seattle-based sustainable furniture company Slab Art, and other boutique shops both local and international.

If you’d like to get a sneak peek at Charley+May, swing by between 6 and 9 p.m. tonight for a preview party celebration and exhibition of oil paintings by neighborhood business owner Dan McCarthy, of McCarthy and Schiering. This will be the first exhibit of McCarthy’s work.

His love of life, wine, food and art makes McCarthy a bon-vivant, a connoisseur of fine and fun pleasures. His paintings are an expression of his driven creative energy, relationship with complex colors, movement and depth. This exhibition is a partial collection of his work and his first public showing.

Want to know more about Charley and May? From Formicola:

May Violet Mouat (Nana)

May’s life was full of independence and adventure. She was the youngest of six and early on, her father ran off with the circus. Charming, daring and funny she knew how to make do and find her own path in life.  May loved the modern era and never looked back. She dressed impeccably and drove around the suburbs of Philadelphia in a mint condition baby blue mustang.  As an entrepreneur, wife, mother, traveler, dancer and grandmother she lit up a room. Her motto was “everything turns out for the best”. She loved a lawn party  and three legged races.

Charley-Pie Geraldo Formicola (Gran Pop Downtown)

Charley was a proud Italian man who lived his life in the hardscrabble South Philly neighborhood lined with brownstones and stoops. On Sundays, he sat at the head of the family dinner table laden with seafood, spaghetti and meatballs, gnocchi, veal, cheese and bread, prepared by his wife Tessie.  Charley was known for his gray fedora, pressed white collared shirt and lit cigar. He drove a pie truck during the war, and later worked for Bond Bread Baking Co. Charley visited his favorite local saloon on the way home from work everyday.  Everyone knew Charley.

Night work on the SDOT’s Mercer Corridor Project is scheduled to begin tonight. From SDOT:

Nighttime work for Seattle Department of Transportation’s Mercer Street project will begin as early as March 3 and will continue for approximately two weeks. Up to three lanes of Mercer Street will be closed overnight at Ninth Avenue North. This closure is required for the installation of underground utilities. Night work hours will be from approximately 7 p.m. to 5 a.m.

For more project information, please see SDOT’s project Web site.

Just two and a half months after opening a second location in Green Lake, the owners of Cafe Bonjour, located at 1629 Queen Anne Ave N, have sold the Queen Anne store and consolidated into the second location.

Bonjour owner Michelle Zhang says that the cafe finished moving out on March 1. However, rather than leaving another empty storefront on Queen Anne Avenue in its wake, Cafe Bonjour will soon be replaced by a new eatery, Cafe de Lion.

Zhang says it was struggle to manage both cafes, and she is happy to be passing the reigns along to a new owner with a fresh vision for the site.

“It is too much work to run two cafes, taking too much time out of my life. And the new owners walked in and think it is the perfect location and size for their concept,” Zhang wrote Queen Anne View. “I will really miss Queen Anne too, and all the great friends I had.”

Cafe Bonjour will continue to serve up its signature crepes and home made Hungarian goulash at its Green Lake location, located at 7119 Woodlawn Ave NE.

We’ve reached out to the new owners with Cafe de Lion, and will update you about what to expect from the new cafe (and when they plan to open) soon.

Federal agents have arrested and charged a man suspected in several home invasions in Queen Anne, Belltown and Tukwila with robbery, according to a report by the Seattle PI. From the report:

A man suspected in a series of home invasions in Queen Anne and Belltown has been charged with robbery, after federal agents said he thought he was robbing a stash house filled with drugs, but really fell prey to a police sting.

According to a complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Seattle, Alai Poe Tauai and Akata Maria Lisa Smith were ready to do a “drug rip,” an often armed robbery of a drug dealer’s stash house. Their contacts told them the house had 10 kilos of cocaine and 10 pounds of methamphetamine.

But the contacts turned out to be undercover cops. On the night of set-up, Tauai showed up with a gun, which he tossed before arrested, the complaint said. Three people were arrested; both Tauai and Smith were charged with robbery.

The complaint said Tauai is a gang member suspected in home invasions in Queen Anne, Belltown and Tukwila.

The Seattle Public Library now accepts online payments for overdue fines and other fees. Library users can use a credit card, debit card or PayPal account.

Library cardholders can also add funds to their account for computer printing. Credit and debit card payments are processed through PayPal, but you don’t need to have a PayPal account. The minimum payment required is $1; there is no service charge.

You can slo pay your fines and fees in person by cash, check or money order at any library branch during regular operating hours. Or you can mail a check or money order to: Attention Borrower Services, The Seattle Public Library, 1000 Fourth Ave., Seattle, WA 98104. Include your library card number with your mailed payment; they’ll mail you a receipt. Credit card payments are not accepted in person or by phone.

The Northwest’s largest annual underage battle of the bands held its third and last round of semifinals last Saturday, completing the lineup for the 2011 Sound Off! finals this weekend.

British Columbia folk-pop band The Oh Wells won the last semifinal round and will compete next Saturday with three other bands at EMP’s Sky Church.

Seattle indie-pop band Land of Pines won second place and audience favorite. But Seattle band Tomten, the runner-up from the first round of semifinals, won the wild card spot and will compete with the three semifinal winners in the finals this weekend. The wild card band was chosen by EMP’s Youth Advisory Board from the second place winners.

This is the regional competition’s 10th anniversary. A record 136 bands, composed of musicians 21 and under, entered the competition this year.

The Sound Off! 2011 finals lineup:

Northern Departure – Renton, WA (bluegrass)

Fit For Hounds – Seattle, WA (alternative)

The Oh Wells – Surrey, BC (folk pop)

Tomten – Seattle, WA (rock/pop)

Tickets are $10 for the general public and $7 for students or EMP members.

The first the second place Sound Off! bands will receive a number of professional services and promotional opportunities to give them a leg up in the music industry. Take a look at the prizes below:

First place winner will receive:
Performance at Bumbershoot 2011
Live on-air performance on 107.7 The End’s The Young and the Restless
KORG Gear
Recording Academy Consultation
PLUS MUCH MORE!

Second place winner will receive:
Performance at Northwest Folklife Festival 2011
KORG Gear
Recording Academy Consultation
PLUS MUCH MORE!

It’s been one year since Zaw pizza opened up on the hill, and to celebrate the bake-at-home pizzeria is launching a new month-long campaign called Zaw School Days at its Queen Anne location. Starting today, on every Tuesday and Wednesday all month long Zaw will donate $5 to your school or PTA funding efforts for every order $20 and up.

“We’ve been honored to be a foodie fixture in the Queen Anne community for almost an entire year! We thought: “What better way to celebrate than to find a unique way to give back to the schools in the Queen Anne community!” Zaw said in a statement about the program. “It’s our way of saying, “thanks for being a great neighbor and allowing us to be a part of the great Queen Anne community!”

The FAA has informed Senator Patty Murray’s staff that there will be no changes in the floor of the airspace located over Magnolia, Queen Anne and Ballard.

Well over one hundred people showed up at a Magnolia Community Club meeting last November to express concern about the proposed change that would have lowered the floor from 3000 feet to 2000 feet above sea level. That would have resulted in larger planes flying lower and with more frequency over Magnolia and parts of Queen Anne and Ballard.

The FAA stated that after considering all the public input it re-evaluated its proposal and determined no significant net gains in safety or efficiency that would justify the various negative impacts resulting from lowering the floor of the Class Bravo airspace.

The Magnolia Community Club collected and forwarded 77 pages of petitions to the FAA  in opposition to the proposal.  King County councilmember Larry Phillips along with Representative Jim McDermott and Senator Patty Murray each wrote to the FAA opposing the change.

According to a media release from the Magnolia Community Club today: Community leaders are extremely pleased, not only with the FAA’s substantive decision, but also with its demonstrated willingness to work with affected communities and respond to their concerns. The successful resolution of this issue is due to the hard work over a long period of time by many volunteers within the community who gave up their free time to attend meetings, collect signatures and contact both the FAA and our elected officials. All involved must be thanked for their efforts and professionalism. There is little doubt that the value of our community input was enhanced by the professional manner by which those involved responded to and interacted with the FAA and our elected officials.

Menswear store Oslo’s is the latest retailer on the hill to shut its doors, closing up shop quietly over this past weekend.

The store, located at 1519 Queen Anne Ave N, already had paper in the windows when I swung by this morning. On Sunday Oslo’s owners posted the following message on the store’s Facebook page:

OSLO’s A Men’s Store has closed. Your ongoing support and patronage enriched our lives over the past 5 years.

The owners also published this video, a montage of memories from the store and the neighborhood over the last five years, inviting a flood of responses from neighbors and patrons who are sad to see the retailer go.

“I’m particularly saddened by Oslo’s because it had *such* great clothes; the staff was 100% super; John was a great neighborhood supporter with charity fund-raisers, silent auction items for schools, and on and on,” patron Bryan Rutberg wrote in to Queen Anne View.

Oslo’s will be holding a liquidation sale this Saturday, March 5 and Sunday, March 6 beginning at 10 a.m. The store plans to sell everything, including its remaining inventory and fixtures and furniture from the store. Check the Oslo’s Facebook page for more information.