Walk into Butter Notes Cafe on a weekend afternoon and you will find lattes, croffles, and crepes. Walk in a few hours later and the same room, at 902 N. Broadway in North Everett, becomes an intimate jazz club, complete with an upright piano and a compact drum kit tucked into a space that seats up to 35 people.
Owner Sean Dokko is the one behind the transformation. According to Oregon Public Broadcasting, Dokko took over the coffee shop from his parents, who bought the struggling business in 2023, and he has since remodeled the space and set it up specifically for live music. Dokko, the oldest son in a Korean-American family, previously spent 14 years working as a software engineer before leaving tech altogether, a shift detailed by The Daily Herald. He has described the decision to take over the cafe as an emotional, gut-driven call rather than a calculated business move, per OPB's reporting.
Dokko began studying jazz piano in 2019, and it was that pursuit that eventually reshaped the cafe's identity. He attended classes and jam sessions at Jazz Night School, a South Seattle nonprofit that, per the same OPB account, connected him with the majority of his musical friends and helped turn Butter Notes into what OPB describes as a cultural hub in Northeast Everett.
From Espresso Machine to Stage
The daytime menu leans into a hybrid concept built around croffles — a croissant-waffle mashup topped with things like salmon lox, ube, and strawberry Nutella — alongside specialty crepes and lattes, according to Butter Notes Cafe's own menu. By night, the same 1,800-square-foot room, which Peerspace lists as available for private workshops and gatherings, clears space for musicians instead of pastry cases. Dokko added sound paneling and arranged movable tables so the venue could pull double duty without feeling like an afterthought.
That dual identity has paid off in turnout. Butter Notes filled every available seat during a mid-July jazz event, OPB reported, when music began at 8 p.m. and drew a crowd that spilled the café's daytime quiet into a packed nightlife scene. Curtis Luke, quoted in OPB's coverage, said the cafe combines a coffeehouse with live jazz in a way that feels distinct from anything else nearby. Gray Pries, a barista at Butter Notes, told OPB that the venue's welcoming environment helps people connect with one another.
A New Jazz Foothold Beyond Hewitt Avenue
Everett's live music scene has long clustered around rock, indie, and punk venues along Hewitt Avenue, according to Live in Everett. Butter Notes' arrival in North Everett marks a notable expansion of that footprint into jazz, introducing a genre that had not previously had a dedicated home in the city. Everett itself is the county seat and largest city in Snohomish County, sitting 25 miles north of Seattle with a population topping 110,000, per the U.S. Census Bureau.
The cafe's musical programming leans heavily on regional nonprofit partnerships. In July, Butter Notes hosted a performance by Jazz Night School student musicians as part of the “Jazz About Town” series, a summer concert fundraiser supporting the nonprofit's tuition assistance program, The Daily Herald reported. Founded in 2008 by Erik Hanson, Jazz Night School serves around 200 adult students per quarter and is currently raising money for a permanent Columbia City facility that would include music classrooms, the historic L.E.M.S. Black-owned bookstore, and 85 units of affordable housing, according to KNKX Public Radio.
David Ackerman played drums with the Jazz Night School group during their mid-July appearance, and on June 21 the group Society Red performed at the cafe as well, per OPB. Seattle-based musician John Hansen, who teaches jazz piano, has also been tied to the venue's growing roster of performers.
The Nonprofit Model Behind the Music
Keeping musicians paid is where JazzClubsNW comes in. The organization, founded by Danny Kolke, operates as a member-supported 501(c)(3) nonprofit built to ensure jazz venues can compensate performers fairly without relying solely on food and drink sales, KNKX reported. Kolke has said he formed the nonprofit model after realizing that food sales alone could not sustain frequent live performances. JazzClubsNW fundraises specifically to keep musician pay reliable, and it now supports Butter Notes as one of its venues.
Kolke himself is scheduled to perform live jazz at Butter Notes at 8 p.m. on August 15. JazzClubsNW also produces several annual community jazz events across Western Washington, including the Everett Jazz Walk, the Edmonds Jazz Walk, and the long-running North Bend Jazz Walk, each of which temporarily turns ordinary storefronts into music stages, according to JazzClubsNW.
More Than a Music Venue
Butter Notes hosts a weekly jazz jam from 6 to 8 p.m., and its calendar extends well beyond music. The cafe also hosts community groups throughout the week, including a Tuesday-evening fiber arts gathering, the Snoco LGBTQI Meetup, and an 18-year-old local craft circle, all managed through the cafe's own open event calendar. Vinyl records by Ornette Coleman and Chick Corea line the space, a visual nod to the genre now sharing the room with croissants and cold brew.
Dokko has said he is working to diversify the cafe's revenue streams by leaning into this mix of coffee, dessert, and live jazz rather than depending on any single business line. Whether that hybrid approach can sustain itself long-term in a mid-sized market like Everett, compared with larger jazz scenes in Seattle, remains an open question for the cafe's future.
