Now this is a great repurposing of a building — beloved family-owned drugstore to all-volunteer roller rink.
Here’s how that happened. The popular Skate King roller rink went out of business in 2015. That meant, until this summer, there were no indoor roller skating options on the Eastside. But as of July 1, disco balls and toe stops were back at work across Lake Washington as the nonprofit Rock and Roll Roller Rink opened its doors in Issaquah.
The new rink is housed in a former Bartell Drugs store at 5700 E Lake Sammamish Parkway SE, and according to reports in The Issaquah Spotlight and other media, the operation was built up from an occasional weekend rental space at Pickering Barn to the now permanent rink in the old store space by three passionate, committed skating lovers. Rink co-founder Alysa Webb used to work at the old Skate Kind, while fellow co-founders Irene Pasternack and Ed Mills teach through the Seattle-based skating group Skate Journeys…