Skyway Coffee Stand Owner Fights King County To Open Shop

SKYWAY, WA — Twelve hours a day, seven days a week, Nevzat Cankaya runs the tiny green espresso shack in empty parking lot in the Skyway area.

His namesake stand, Nezvat's Espresso, stands as beacon for locals. It's the only option for coffee in this hilltop neighborhood between Seattle and Renton, and one of the few dining options around. Each morning, Cankaya's regulars line up at his stand in their cars, some come on foot.

For the last 22 years, he's watched Skyway’s main drag decline, even as Puget Sound has boomed. Pizza joints and the hardware store vanished, and the bustling neighborhood grocery store that used to sit behind his coffee shack is now a church. His business took a serious hit.

Last year, Cankaya bought a building across the street from his espresso stand with plans to open a sit-down coffee spot. The building used to be a fast-food restaurant, which means it has a drive-thru window. That's a crucial part of his business plan and the one thing that could stand in his way.

Even before Cankaya shelled out $325,000 for the building, A King County Councilman warned him of the “uphill battle” ahead thanks to a 20-year-old zoning rule that bans drive-thru windows in Skyway.

But he pushed forward anyway. He has the support of faithful customers, many who say a coffee shop with a drive-thru would be a blessing for the area.

"For years people have wanted a place [in Skyway] to sit down and eat. And this would be a catalyst," said Sonja Bowden, a Skyway resident who started a petition to support Cankaya's coffee shop plan.

Cankaya’s American dream

Cankaya came to Seattle in 1993 at age 28. He was newly married when he left behind his hometown in Turkey for the U.S., and the transition was difficult.

He worked at a drugstore, took a job selling Oriental rugs only to be left unemployed when the carpet shop closed. He got divorced. But by a stroke of synchronicity, an acquaintance offered to let him lease a little drive-up espresso shack.

It was a big risk, but he took it. Two years later, in 1995, the Starbucks coffee-craze had started to take the world by storm. Cankaya quickly realized that coffee had become king, and his little drive-up espresso shack had an advantage.

"Starbucks wasn’t doing drive-thru," he said of the mid-1990s.

After a few years, Cankaya wanted to upgrade the shack. That was the first time he ran into King County’s no-drive thru rule. Cankaya was forced to man a mobile espresso cart while the fate of his business in political limbo.

Former King County Council member Dwight Pelz saved the day, helping to push through a zoning variance that allowed Cankaya to build the new stand.

Cankaya says he bought the building across the street because he figured he would be able to get a zoning variance again. He wondered why anyone would stand in the way of a well-liked businessman from opening a coffee shop in the center of a struggling part of town.

'Uphill' against King County

Pelz left the King County Council in 2006 to run the state Democratic Party. Now Skyway is King County Councilman Larry Gossett's territory.

In 2015, Gossett suggested Cankaya hire a zoning attorney because getting around the drive-thru ban would be difficult.

“He sounded very pessimistic,” Cankaya remembers of that 2015 meeting. “He just said it’s going to be an uphill battle.”

Cankaya saw that as a glimmer of hope and bought the building anyway.

Gossett told Patch that Skyway’s friendly coffee shack owner may have set himself up for failure.

“Even though he heard [about the zoning restriction], he went forth and purchased the property anyway,” Gossett said.

When word of Cankaya’s zoning dilemma spread through the neighborhood earlier this year, Bowden's petition urged Gossett to back the coffee house plan.

“Amend the Comp Plan to allow Nevzat Cankaya to open an indoor coffeehouse in Skyway,” Bowden titled the petition. Last week, more than 1,200 people had signed it.

Bowden called Gossett “uncaring and unfeeling” toward Skyway’s plight. At July’s West Hill Town Hall meeting, some residents heckled Gossett for potentially standing in the way of Cankaya’s coffeehouse plan.

About a month after that meeting, Gossett introduced legislation in the Transportation, Economy and Environment Committee that would amend the zoning to allow Cankaya to open his drive-thru.

That might sound like a victory, but the proposal still requires support by a majority of the King County Council.

That vote is slated for Monday. After a public hearing, the Council is expected to vote on a zoning ordinance to lift the drive-thru ban.

Cankaya says he’s holding on to hope that he will clear this zoning hurdle and move forward with his plan to open his new coffee shop by summer.

“My fate,” Skyway’s friendly neighborhood coffee guy said, “will be decided.”

Images via Neal McNamara/Patch.com