Barber shops have always served as informal gathering places for the Black community, so it’s no surprise that Seattle’s African-American newspaper, The Northwest Enterprise, noted when it opened that “transients and railroad men will find the Green Dot an ideal place to spend their leisure time in Seattle.” Though a Washington Federal Bank (WaFd) building now occupies much of this corner lot, in 1909 the Rainier Heat & Power Company built the Welcome Hotel here, future home of the Green Dot, a spiffy, bright green tonsorial establishment with a secret night club in back. Sherman Spates and Ray Chavis opened the Green Dot in 1933 and by the following year they were advertising “card rooms,” and “recreation rooms.” Pianist Palmer Johnson, who played solo piano at the Green Dot in 1941, recalled that the place was too small for jam sessions, which perhaps explains its name. It also doubled as a “bookie joint” (for horse races), where trumpeter Herman Grimes worked in the daytime “and gambled all his money away,” according to Johnson. The Green Dot lasted until at least 1947, the last year its ads appeared in The Northwest Enterprise.​
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Northwest Enterprise,
November 30, 1933
South side of South Jackson Street between Sixth Avenue South and South Maynard Street, 1920s. The Green Dot probably located in the store front where the barber pole is. (Washington State Archives)
Site of the Green Dot today. The shop was probably just to the right of the far left windows of the bank.