Why old-timers call 61st “Cat’s Whiskers Road.”

In the 1930s, when Bothell Way was still called Victory Boulevard, a 24-hour roadside café opened on the south side of the road at 61st Avenue NE. It was called the Cat’s Whiskers, and when the highway was widened the café moved to the north side of the road and kept right on serving.

The café’s owner, Jim Jury, was brought an orphaned cougar cub by hunter Bill Maul. Jury named him Felix and kept him behind the café, where he became a neighborhood celebrity. The café had a cat, the road up the hill ran right past it, and locals started calling 61st “Cat’s Whiskers Road.” The nickname outlived the café and Felix both, and it survives officially in nearby Cat Whisker Creek.

The café building was razed in the mid-1970s, but the corner never lost its reputation as a gathering place. In 1966 a new building had gone up on 61st Avenue NE, and the first bar to pour there was the Lake Forest Inn. Lakepointe Bar & Grill followed with a dozen years of neighborhood nights. In 2015 the Savage Moose opened its doors and kept the corner what it has been for the better part of a century: welcoming, unpolished, and unmistakably Kenmore.