Downtown Bellevue's office workers and lunch-goers are getting a new Mediterranean and Middle Eastern café on NE 8th Street.

Sabine Café and Bar plans to open its second location in mid-July at The Eight, the 25-story office tower at 10666 NE 8th St., according to the Downtown Bellevue Network, which reported the timeline on July 2.

The roughly 3,000-square-foot restaurant will occupy ground-floor retail space in the $476 million Skanska-developed tower, where Pokémon Company International leases 16 floors. About 50 indoor seats, outdoor plaza seating, private dining areas, and a lobby grab-and-go counter will serve the building's office workers and NE 8th Street foot traffic.

"We've been so pleased by the reception of Sabine in Ballard and are thrilled by the opportunity to introduce the restaurant to the Eastside," general manager and operating partner Kathryn Meyer said in an earlier announcement.

Who's behind it

Sabine first opened in Seattle's Ballard neighborhood in 2020 at 5307 Ballard Ave. NW. It operates as an all-day café with house-baked pastries, brunch, and grab-and-go items, plus a dinner service Tuesday through Saturday evenings.

Executive chef and operating partner Jacob Dunkelberger developed the menu, which draws on Mediterranean and Middle Eastern flavors using seasonal ingredients from Pacific Northwest farms and foragers. The Bellevue location will also feature a coffee program using Caffè Vita espresso.

Sabine is part of Yes Parade Restaurant Group, founded in 2008 by James Weimann and Deming Maclise. The group operates 10 restaurants across the Pacific Northwest and Denver, including Rhein Haus, Poquitos, and Stoneburner. The Bellevue café marks its first Eastside location.

The building and the corridor

The Eight sits at the corner of NE 8th Street and 108th Avenue NE and includes 540,000 square feet of office space and 11,000 square feet of ground-floor retail. Mallet Design Build is handling Sabine's buildout.

The café fills part of a retail corridor that is gaining tenants as the tower's offices fill up. Pokémon signed the largest Puget Sound office lease in nearly three years when it committed to 374,046 square feet in January 2024.

What's next

No exact opening date has been announced. Sabine posted open interviews for front- and back-of-house positions at the Bellevue location on June 26, signaling that hiring is well underway ahead of the mid-July target.