No matter how you divide the laurels, Cyclops has succeeded for 17 years. It's survived an increasingly competitive local dining scene, assorted industry "flavors of the month," and the demolition of its original building.

That was the legendary SCUD (Subterranean Cooperative of Urban Dreamers) on Western and Wall, where Cyclops's precursor Free Mars opened in 1984. Kaukola and Hawkley took it over in 1990, as a funky hangout for Belltown's artsy crowd.

Now it's an island of funk amid First Avenue's mega-nightclubs and posh dinner spots. It shares the old Glaser Building on First and Wall with the Kuhlman fashion boutique and the Ace Hotel. The following are excerpts from an interview on Sept. 24, when Hawkley took a break from kitchen prep work. Kaukola was on the premises, but chose to remain buried in payroll accounting.

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"I've been in this business 17 years, not counting the year we took off and the year we spent looking for a new place and fixing it up. This building used to be the Seattle Peniel Mission. It was a total wreck. The kitchen was a disaster area. It was full of cockroaches; it took a month to fumigate it.

I'm an artist. That's my true love; making art not running a restaurant. But that's what i'm doing. It's been good to us.

Gina is the real one who started all this. I was reluctant to get into all this at first, but she convinced me.

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"We started back in the old place with all the now-rock stars. Soundgarden, all those guys were hanging out. And Pearl Jam before they were Pearl Jam, when they were starting Mookie Blaylock. One day they showed up with this California surfer dude and they said, 'This is Ed; he's going to try singing with us.' They came in every day for lunch.

[Sub Pop Records founders] Jonathan [Poneman] and Bruce [Pavitt] were in there every week or so, bringing bands in. It was a big band haven. [Musician-producer] Steve Fisk lived next door, so he was in there a lot. Celebritywise, Allen Ginsberg was in there. And Boy George came in. He was yelling, 'I want milkshakes, I want strawberry.' Gina yelled, 'Everybody calm down.'

Jennifer Jason Leigh was in when she was makiing one of her movies. Some of the Almodovar women came in.

Back in those days, 'Belltown' was just four or five square blocks. It was a lot rougher. Nobody wanted to go to Belltown; nobody wanted to call it Belltown. Now it's become synonymous with upscale pretension.

At this location we've had the same celebrities. Some of the same band people come in. Eddie [Vedder] was here with Sean Penn. Robyn Hitchcock comes in every day for like a week or so. That's nice; he's very pleasant. Nirvana, of course, would come into the old place. Krist [Novoselic] still comes in here when he's in town. David Byrne was in for breakfast when he did his pier show.

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"We've put our black velvet collection back up on the walls. That's from the old place. We cleaned them up, and added a few new ones.

All the rest of the art in here is made by local artists acquired by us. I made some of it. It's all our collection.

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The Belltown dining scene is now divided into three factions. There's the upscale diners spending lots of money. Then there's the group that goes to the new trendy martini bars where all the plates are small and one price Then there's the places like ours in the midrange, where we sell appetizers but we have entrees, we keep the prices low, we sell a lot of burgers and fries, cafe food. We put that veggie burger on the menu, and man people are eating them up. We now sell one veggie burger for every two regular burgers.

People are wanting hearty comfort food, not so pretentious. That's where our market is now.

It's transformed from the old place. It's now known as a bar first, but the bar transformed it its been a whole new experience doing it.

Now a lot of people don't come down here anymore, because they think Belltown's all over and done with. But there are still pockets of great style. We've tried to maintain our status as a neighborhood bar, to keep it fun and accepting to everyone. That's our philosophy.

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"The night Strand Helpers [a mid-1980s nonprofit feeding program] burned down, I was at the Two Bells. I came down to get my car and saw the streets roped off with caution tape for several blocks. The Fire Department was just getting there. They got out of their trucks real lackasaisical, yawning.

They just stood back and watched it burn That's when I thought Belltown was in for a big change. They're gonna start tearing down all the old stuff. That's what they did there [at the Strand site].

They put up condos, and started changing First Avenue into a restaurant row. The media, the mayor, they all hyped up Belltown as next great neighborhood. Developers started building all those condos with no design review; so all the crappy condos go up.

Then all the restaurants move in. The rents go up; all the mom-and-pop places have to shut down; then there's no parking.

They enticed these people here with all the activity; all the clubs and bars and restaurants. Then they move in and they complain about the noise and say they want a nice quiet neighborhood.

The other big issue down here is they want to call it a neighborhood, but there are no neighborhood facilities-no grocery stores, no parks for children, the hardware store is gone, the retail space is expensive and prohibitive. Nothing's open at night except bars and restaurants.

There's no book store. There's one record store. On a weeknight it's dead down here; there's nothing to do except drink.

The people in the condos-I don't know where they go. They come down and walk their dogs and go back.

We need to get something going on down here that brings people together, to remind people there are things to do besides eat and drink. You need more.... A street fair or some kind of Belltown community activities that bring the neighbors together.

We did that wine tasting a couple years ago in that parking lot next to Belltown Bistro. It was hoity-toity and upscale; it turned out to be a one-time thing.

The other big issue the lack of police engforcement. When there are problems, it's hard to get anyone down here. There's not enough patrols There's still quite a few 'street people'-beggars, drug users, etc. Some of them don't bother you, but there's some that get in your face. They harass your customers on the patio. There was one who was spitting on people When you try to get the police to come do something about, it you get pigeonholed as a problem spot. You get billed as a place where there's trouble.

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