Statewide Neighborhood Cafe Bill Returns, Expanded to More Types of Businesses

After a bill legalizing neighborhood cafes in residential areas across Washington failed to advance last year, the bill’s sponsor Mark Klicker (R-16th, Walla Walla) is back with a new version that goes even further. House Bill 1175 would force local cities and towns to allow both restaurant cafes and corner stores in all residential areas, ending current bans that exist throughout the state on commercial uses in lower density neighborhoods.

Representative Klicker’s 2024 neighborhood cafe bill was initially well-received, sailing through the state House without a single vote in opposition. With a fairly broad definition of cafe, it would have allowed numerous types of small shops as long as they offered a “limited menu of food items” and also would have allowed alcohol sales on top of food sales. But it stalled out in the Senate, after concerns were raised by local governments. After the Senate’s Local Government Committee adopted a full rewrite of the bill that merely made it voluntary, it was never brought to a floor vote.

At the time, the Association of Washington Cities, the influential lobbying arm for city governments in Olympia, said the bill “pose[d] real concerns beyond preemption” and tried to argue that a restriction on having more than two off-street parking stalls with a cafe would “pose safety concerns near schools, day care centers, and for pets and vulnerable roadway users.”

New neighborhood cafe bill adds corner stores

While expanded to include stores — specifically, a “convenience grocery store or mini-market that provides a variety of convenience items that may include, but are not limited to, food, beverages, and household items” — the 2025 version does increase the ability for local governments to impose restrictions on how those stores and cafes operate.

While the bill includes a 500-square-foot minimum size on shops, it lets cities set the maximum limit, which could be a way to not actually allow very many commercial storefronts in practice. And it allows cities to regulate parking at neighborhood cafes, only stipulating “that the regulations are not infeasible,” with no clarification on what infeasible means.

Onerous and arbitrary parking requirements have kept small commercial spaces from being viable in neighborhoods across the U.S. for decades, but most local governments don’t seem to find these regulations infeasible to put on the books. The legislation also allows cities wide latitude to set operating hours, and are only prohibited from restricting a store or cafe from being open less than 12 hours in a row.

Local efforts to legalize neighborhood cafes

In response to calls for more amenities within walking distance of homes, several cities around the state have been taking steps to legalize neighborhood cafes and stores, acknowledging that the few examples of these local establishments that do exist are largely beloved community fixtures.

Shoreline’s newly adopted Comprehensive Plan will allow shops of all types on most of the city’s streets, with only dead-ends and culs-de-sac excluded. As a city without a distinct “downtown” neighborhood, Shoreline is set to lean into a more dispersed model of commercial activity to create a “stronger sense of place,” per the plan.

Seattle’s draft Comprehensive Plan is also set to allow corner stores, but in a bizarrely literal move, only on corner lots, stopping short of making popular cafes like Ravenna’s Seven Market (which is located mid-block) legal. New buildings that include corner stores would be have fewer ground-level setback requirements, but would still have to set back the upper floors from the lot line, which adds building costs, decreases energy efficiency, and isn’t typically found in historic examples.

Uphill battle in Senate remains

Given the elements in the new version of the bill that defer to local governments, and changes in the makeup of the state Senate, HB 1175’s chances this year appear to be good. But the fact that many state lawmakers see neighborhood cafes as something “nice to have” and not an integral element of creating more complete communities — and encouraging less driving — may still prove problematic for the bill. Senator Jesse Salomon (D-32, Shoreline) voiced this objection around last year’s bill, and is now stepping into the role of chair of the Senate’s Local Government Committee, where the bill’s fate will again lie.

“We’ve done sort of similar bills around housing, right — we know there’s a housing crisis — where we’ve disallowed cities from restricting these [types of] housing,” Salomon said last February. “What is the case to be made that we should do this for these businesses? I grew up with a neighborhood business — I thought it was great. But I think it’s also a high bar to dictate to cities what they can and can’t do.”

With widespread positive reaction to 2024’s bill, securing final passage this year should be a slam dunk, but as is always the case in Olympia, there will likely be hidden landmines for the bill to navigate. Despite the fact that no one objects to more coffee shops and bodegas in theory, actually taking the step to legalize them over the objection of local governments is a completely different question.

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