r/eastside

Ate at my favorite Indian restaurant in Bellevue, the server showed me the tablet for payment and literally said the words "20%".

I'm wondering if this is coming from the restaurant management or that particular server? If there's tip pressure on servers I can imagine maybe the owner is keeping a cut. Alternatively the server was being obnoxious with the pressure to increase their own earnings.

I'm inclined to not go there anymore but the food is amazing. Anyone else have a similar experience? It's a sit-down, not very fancy but not ultra casual either.

It was NOT Banaras but another restaurant with similar pricing/sit down aesthetic.

So tired of drives who are inattentive, selfish, or just not driving, at the very least, the speed limit. And what's with the braking when there is nobody in front of you, when you're already driving under the speed limit? Get off your phones and pay attention. You're managing a piece of equipment going at least 60mph, along with others doing the same. You could give us the rest of us basic courtesy and pay attention.

Hi! Looking for opinions from Eastside parents of young children!

I grew up around Issaquah in the ’90s/early 2000s and had what felt like an idyllic childhood on Squak Mountain. There were tons of kids my age in the neighborhood, and we all went to school together. We’d bike to each other’s houses, play on sports teams together, trick-or-treat together, and our families would regularly congregate for backyard bbqs, etc. There was a really strong sense of community and belonging.

Now I’m considering moving back with my two young kids (1 and 3), and I’m wondering where that kind of neighborhood still exists on the Eastside (if at all!)

We’re primarily considering Issaquah, but also Kirkland, which we find a little more appealing for restaurants/amenities/etc. Budget is up to ~$1.6M for a 4-bedroom, and proximity to Seattle matters since we both work downtown.

I’ve heard that high home prices have changed the demographics of some Eastside neighborhoods and that fewer young families are moving in, but I’d love to hear from people actually living there.

Where are young families congregating these days? Are there specific neighborhoods where kids still play together, families know their neighbors, and there’s a strong community feel? Basically, where can my kids have something resembling the Eastside childhood I had in the ’90s?

Would especially love to hear from people with young kids in Issaquah, Kirkland, Sammamish, etc.! We love MI but it’s a bit out of budget for us.

A private Bellevue club runs a junior tennis program that sells mislabeled classes, refills itself with beginners, and routes every complaint back to the staff it concerns. Coaches earn their income from adult member teams, so member grievances outrank children's welfare. The program trains 0–1% of the competitive juniors its top tier claims to serve. One case shows what the structure permits: adults carried a political dispute into the program and aimed it at a child, and no one inside the club stopped them.

The Staff

Stephanie Koetje: Junior Tennis Director. RSPA Elite Professional. Elected RSPA Pacific Northwest representative for Northwest Washington.

Brian Nash: Tennis Director. RSPA Elite Professional. RSPA Pacific Northwest Division 2023 Professional of the Year. Supervises the tennis department.

Scott Petersen: Teaching pro. Coaches adult USTA teams at the club.

Zuzana Brogdon: Tennis office administrator.

The Business Model

Mislabeled classes. The Gold tier is marketed as intermediate to advanced and varsity caliber. Players in the Gold tier perform at an advanced beginner level. When parents question progress, Koetje gives warm and convincing talks and moves their kids up a tier. The instruction does not change. By the time a family moves up, the parents are already visiting other tennis centers.

Labels as marketing. The club keeps the tier labels to market a holistic program. The labels signal progress where no progress exists. The program's club tennis team fields advanced beginner middle schoolers rather than juniors who compete for local high schools and in tournaments.

Premium rates. The program charges premium rates to advanced beginners in classes labeled Gold and Silver. The program cannot give the Gold and Silver tiers away to the competitive juniors who actually meet the published class descriptions.

Market Share: 0–1% of the Program's Own Target Market

Over 100 tournament and varsity level juniors play across local high schools and USTA circuits. The program trains 0–1 of them, a 0–1% share of its own target market. Enrollment is open to non-members, so access is not the reason. 25 of those competitive juniors hold memberships at the same club. Some place at the state high school tournament. They train at other facilities and practice with each other in hitting groups on the club's own courts, bypassing the club's program entirely. The club's most advanced junior group left the club entirely in 2025.

Beginner backfill. Program revenue does not depend on competitive players. Beginners ages 5 to 7 keep enrollment totals steady, and their parents cannot yet judge instruction. Informed families leave around ages 12 to 13 and never return. Enrollment totals look healthy because new beginners keep replacing the families able to see the gap between labels and coaching.

Threatened departures outrank real ones. The coaches act on adult members who threaten to leave and never do. The same coaches cannot account for the junior families who leave the program every year and actually go.

The Closed Loop

Complaints about the junior program go to the same tennis office whose staff are the subject of the complaints. Nash confirmed that Koetje and the coaching staff would sit in any review of a complaint about their own conduct. No one outside the tennis office reviews how tennis staff treat children.

Accounts about families leave the tennis office, circulate among members, and return to the office as "member concerns." The tennis office then treats its own echo as evidence.

Supervision runs backward. Nash once promised a parent his child would be kept safe. Petersen overrode the promise in front of him, and Nash said nothing.

One Rule for Coaches, Another for Parents

Coaches talk freely about families to other parents. Parents who talk to one another about the junior program get reported. Koetje reported a parent to management for speaking in the lobby with a second parent. The second parent had already withdrawn her daughter and was the one describing the program's problems.

Club management answered the written concerns it had requested by offering the reporting parent an exit. Management reviewed no staff.

Credentials Without Oversight

Two of the four staff hold the RSPA Elite credential, the association's highest designation. Koetje holds the division's elected seat. Nash holds the division's 2023 Professional of the Year award. The RSPA reviewed Koetje's conduct using information supplied by her own employer and stated no reasons. A professional body cannot regulate its own board members and award winners. Parents who read an Elite credential as an assurance are relying on a standard nobody enforces.

What the Structure Allowed

A club member who informally advised the coaches belonged to a political network that had lost a 2021 school board race and a King County Superior Court case. The member never disclosed that dispute to the coaches. He told them his family felt disrespected by "some Asian households." His wife's USTA team, coached by Petersen, threatened for two years to leave the club unless the coaches acted against an Asian family. None of them ever left.

The coaches acted anyway, against the family's daughter. Petersen announced a staff wide refusal to coach a child he had never coached. Koetje kept the child off a program trip the family never signed up for and told other parents in her class. Koetje also told parents the child's mother was not really a piano teacher.

Brogdon held no role in the trip and had no child in the program. Brogdon booked herself and her mother on the program trip at the group travel discount for a personal vacation, while working to exclude a child whose family never signed up.

Koetje and Nash heard the "Asian households" statement and corrected nothing.

No staff member ever cited anything the child did. Every mechanism above made the targeting possible: the closed loop kept it unreviewed, the double standard silenced the parent, and the credentials gave it cover.

Why Parents Should Know

Families who run into the junior program's mechanism leave quietly, so the next family enrolls with no warning. A junior program built on high churn, beginner backfill, closed loop complaint handling, inverted enforcement incentives that protects coaches rather than kids, aims the same tools at the next family.

If your weekend travels involve I-405, we’ve got two areas you’ll want to know about: lane reductions in Tukwila that could affect trips to SEA Airport and an interchange closure in Kirkland.

TUKWILA: SOUTHBOUND I-405 LANE REDUCTIONS AND HOV RAMP CLOSURE

Up to two lanes of southbound I-405 in Tukwila will close from 7 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 3, to 1:30 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 4.

The southbound I-405 HOV off-ramp to northbound I-5 will also close.

Crews will be paving the roadway as part of the I-405/Renton to Bellevue Widening and Express Toll Lanes Project.

If you're heading to SEA Airport during this window, this is NOT the weekend to cut it close. Expect congestion on southbound I-405 and give yourself extra time to get to the airport.

KIRKLAND: NE 85TH STREET INTERCHANGE CLOSURE

Farther north, the northbound and southbound I-405 on- and off-ramps at NE 85th Street (Exit 18) will close from 10 p.m. Friday, Oct. 2, to 5 a.m. Monday, Oct. 5.

NE 85th Street will also close between Sixth Street and 120th Avenue NE.

Crews will use the closure to pave NE 85th Street as part of the I-405/NE 85th Street Interchange and Inline BRT Station Project.

Signed detours will be in place.

Detour route for Northeast 85th Street/Interstate 405 intersection closure (Sixth St to 120th Ave NE).

THE WEEKEND TAKEAWAY

Whether you're catching a flight, traveling through Kirkland or just using I-405 for your usual weekend plans, check your route before you leave, use our app and real-time travel map and give yourself extra time.