Old 520 tollbooth now in second career

With all the talk about re-establishing tolls on the Highway 520 bridge, it might be time for a coffee break at Tollbooth Espresso.

The Juanita espresso stand will not only provide a java jolt, it's also a reminder of the days nearly 30 years ago when motorists had to pony up change to cross Lake Washington. The stand is actually a 1963-vintage tollbooth that once stood sentry at the east end of the 520 bridge.

"They [customers] always ask, 'Aren't they going to need it back soon?' " said Lisa Carlson, barista at the stand at 12116 Juanita Drive N.E. As the state considers putting tolls back on the bridge, lots of her regulars are talking.

"They ask if I know how much the tolls are going to be," added Carlson, but not even the state Legislature knows that.

The state is studying the potential of re-establishing tolls to pay for a six-lane replacement bridge. Gov. Christine Gregoire and the Legislature say they'll make decisions on a bridge design and tolls next year.

Tollbooth Espresso's earlier life is evident by a "520" insignia commemorating its former spot on Highway 520 in Medina. A small plaque on the booth bears the dates of August 1963 to June 1979, when tolls were charged.

The colors and signs are new since July 2007, although the plaque was already there when Deborah Sandstrom, an entrepreneurial-minded 2003 University of Washington graduate, was looking for a business and found the espresso stand for sale.

Before she bought it, said Sandstrom, it had been at the same location about 10 years, but was painted brown and called 3 Bears Espresso, and was nearly invisible to passing motorists. Previous owners said the booth had been bought at a surplus-property auction years earlier for $500.

Sandstrom painted the booth bright red, added lights and new signs, went to an organic menu, and found business boomed.

"A lot of people remember going through it when they were little," she said. Customers, she said, commonly drop tips in a jar with a joke: "Here's my toll."

New tolling proposals call for fancy technology to collect tolls, rather than dropping money in someone's hand, so it's unlikely the state will need the booth back.

The Highway 520 tollbooths certainly saw their share of tolls when the bridge opened 45 years ago. The booths collected enough money to pay off the $24.7 million construction cost 20 years early.

The booths also were the scene of one of the most memorable scandals in state history, when six toll collectors were charged with stealing some $280,768 in August 1975.

Investigators from the fraud division of the King County prosecutor's office put together the case, lying in bushes on the north side of the booths with cameras — once getting sprayed by a highway insecticide crew — and filming how the toll collectors raked off toll money.

Collectors worked the swindle by taking in 35-cent tolls from drivers but ringing them up as 19 ½-cent commuter tolls, pocketing the difference.

The last tolls were charged on June 23, 1979.

Peyton Whitely: 206-464-2259 or pwhitely@seattletimes.com