Downtown Redmond will soon see the opening of two businesses that will be new to the city, but not new to the Northwest.
Come September, Seattle staples Top Pot Doughnuts and Rudy’s Barbershop will be opening stores in the Red 160 building on Cleveland Street. The two new businesses will be located next door to each other with Top Pot at 16015 Cleveland St. and Rudy’s at 16095 Cleveland St.
This will be the first Redmond location for both businesses.
“It’s exciting,” said Mark Klebeck, who cofounded Top Pot with his brother Michael.
Klebeck said their business had been very successful in the Seattle area and they received a fair amount of Eastside customers coming into their shops so they opened locations in Bellevue with a possible Redmond location in mind.
“It’s always been on our radar,” he said, adding that it was just a matter of finding the right space and situation.
The Redmond Top Pot will be the company’s 12th storefront — all of which are in the Puget Sound area.
Klebeck said opening their new store alongside Rudy’s, which also started in Seattle, was a good opportunity for them.
“They’re a great company,” he said.
Klebeck said the new Redmond location doesn’t have a specific opening date yet, but it will probably in the first or second week of September.
Vy Le, chief executive officer of Rudy’s, said they chose to open a Redmond location, which will open on Sept. 15, because of their customers. Many of Rudy’s customers at the Bellevue location live or work in Redmond so it was a natural growth for their company, she said.
“(Redmond is) a community we wanted to be a part of for a long time,” Le said.
The Redmond Rudy’s will be the company’s eighth store in Washington, with a ninth location set to open in West Seattle in January 2013. Altogether, there are 18 Rudy’s locations nationwide in Western Washington, Portland, Ore., Los Angeles and New York, including the upcoming West Seattle shop and a second shop in New York.
Like Klebeck, Le said they are excited about their new Redmond neighbors as well.
“(Top Pot’s) priorities and culture are very similar to ours in that they invest in locations with the intent of community involvement,” she said. “We’re both local small business that have been successful due to the support of the communities we are in.”
Both Le and Klebeck said they hope their businesses will become gathering places with regulars for the Redmond community.
“We’re looking forward to hopefully being a staple for many patrons and Redmond residents,” Klebeck said, adding that he hopes Top Pot, Rudy’s and other new business to come will bring diversity to the downtown.
On Rudy’s role in the Redmond community, Le added, “Like all of our locations, we provide the community a shell to make it their own community center. A gathering place that will eventually, over a couple of months, days have its own identity within the Rudy’s community.”
This vision of a barbershop-slash-community center is one thing Rudy’s founders wanted to create back in 1993 to set them apart from the typical barbershop or hair salon, according to the company’s website.
Likewise, Klebeck said he and his brother wanted to do something different from all the other coffee shops and cafes in Seattle.
“So we decided to do doughnuts,” he said.
