For a Starbucks, the coffee shop on the corner of 23rd Avenue and Jackson Street in the Central District has spawned a lot of discourse.

When it opened in 1997, it was the product of a lot of behind-the-scenes efforts by neighborhood boosters and civic leaders who were hunting for more investment in the historically Black neighborhood and hoped a Starbucks could bring prestige and a community hub to an underserved area. But it also became a symbol of gentrification. In the years that followed, Black residents were pushed out as the Central District became a more expensive place to live. The Starbucks was a “community store” that donated part of its profits to local nonprofits; it was also a bustling place that reflected the diversity of the neighborhood. On any given day you might see Garfield High School students stopping by before school (or cutting class), Ethiopian guys sipping drinks at the outdoor tables, local shift workers grabbing a coffee on their break, and all kinds of people sitting and talking. 

Starbucks closed the store in 2022, citing crime and safety concerns, a decision that seemed to tap into wider narratives about Seattle in general—and the Central District in particular—being dangerous. An effort to place a Black-owned coffee shop in the space fizzled, with city officials and the business owner both blaming the other for the non-opening. So for four years, the building with the music note over its door has sat vacant. 

That changed in September, when Coffee TAB occupied the space, to more fanfare and press coverage than you might expect from a fairly bare-bones cafe. Coffee TAB serves the typical lineup of espresso-based drinks and pastries; what makes it special is that it’s a nonprofit coffee shop and workforce development program. It hires young people who have struggled with homelessness or faced other barriers to employment and trains them as “apprentices.” In eight to 12 weeks, Coffee TAB founder Johnathan Tran says, these apprentices get a crash course in how to work at a cafe, learning everything from how to deep-clean the shop to how to make latte art. Some of the 25 apprentices who have gone through the program since 2023 have continued working with Coffee TAB as baristas, while others have looked for work elsewhere. Either way, they leave with CoffeeTAB on their resumes and a recommendation in their back pockets. 

The apprentices are typically referred to Coffee TAB by nonprofits that operate youth shelters or work with foster kids, Tran says. “Oftentimes what we see with foster students when they age out of [foster care], they are left with no resources,” he says. Coffee TAB aims to provide them with work experience and training—not just in how to make coffee, but how to live in the world. Tran singles out one apprentice who, “when I first met them, was super shy, didn’t look me in the eyes, couldn’t shake my hand. And now this person is just a light in our cafes,” he says. “They rose through the ranks from apprentice to barista and are now a shift leader and currently on the management track.”

Tran identifies with these young people because he used to be one. His parents, who never married, were both refugees from the Vietnam War. “I grew up with a single-mom household,” he says. “My mom worked multiple jobs, wasn’t very around, and even when she was around, there wasn’t any guidance or development or mentorship to help me figure out how to be a functional adult.” She kicked him out when he was still an adolescent, and he spent time couch-surfing and living on the streets. This was in Minnesota, and when it got cold he had to find someplace safe and warm—sometimes school, and sometimes cafes. “It was coffee shops that became my safe space.”

He worked as a barista and later studied theology at Azusa Pacific, a Christian university in California. He was living in Salt Lake City when he visited Seattle and saw youth struggling the same way he had. “Because I’ve experienced that myself, I wanted to do something about it.” He moved here and started Coffee TAB in 2022. 

TAB stands for “tabernacle,” which typically refers to a box where the ceremonial bread and wine used in Christian churches are stored, but also to a portable tent shrine used by the Israelites in the biblical book of Exodus. The word comes from Latin and Hebrew words meaning “tent” or “dwelling place,” and it’s this meaning that Tran hopes to conjure up. “We are trying to create a place where we can foster dwelling and a place where people can meet,” he says.

Coffee TAB had already opened two cafes—in Pioneer Square and Belltown—when Fulcrum and La Marzocco, who supply Coffee TAB with beans and espresso equipment, respectively, reached out to Tran to say that the Central District space would be a good opportunity for a third coffee shop. “I didn’t really have that desire to start a third cafe so quickly,” he says. “But two things jumped to my mind. One was the fact that we do have a growing waitlist, and a third cafe would be able to help get students through the program in a more efficient way. And two, knowing the history of the space, the fact that this used to be a third space, a community focal point, and now it’s vacant and borderline forgotten.”

It’s no longer vacant. You can get a coffee once more on the corner of 23rd and Jackson. If you’ve been around this neighborhood for the past 30 years, that feels right.