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Bars where Pete has had a Drink (5,948 bars; 1,754 bars in Seattle) - Click titles below for Lists:


Bars where Pete has had a drink

Tuesday, March 09, 2010

What's next for Project K-Bar?

Though I have now reached the "K" in "Project K-Bar" (and no, I am not nerdy enough to question whether a K is actually 1024 bars), the project will continue apace.  The next goals are to:
  •  Have a drink in every bar in the Seattle city limits
  •  Have a drink in 1,000 different Seattle bars

From here on out, each entry in this blog for a Seattle bar will contain, in addition to the total count of bars documented, an #Snnn number indicating the count of Seattle bars.

(Graffiti from the Streamline Tavern)

Identifying and counting all (of what I would count as) bars in Seattle is problematic, but here's my general approach:
  • Download the list of all Washington state on-premises liquor licenses (available from the liquor control board here)
  • Eliminate all non-Seattle entries
  • Eliminate all places that I have already been
  • Eliminate all places that I can immediately reject as a "bar" (e.g. for some reason Walmarts have on-premises licenses)
  • Determine by visiting each remaining place or other means whether they have an actual bar (as opposed to just restaurants)
  • As I approach either goal, download the latest lists of licenses to identify new bars

I've just barely begun this effort, but here are some numbers for the sake of trivia (license info based on December 2009):
  • 216 - Number of bars I visited for the first time in 2009
  • 617 - Number of the first 1,000 bars in Project K-Bar that are/were in Seattle
  • 13,190 - On-premises liquor licenses in Washington state (5,080 off-premises licenses)
  • 7,880 - licenses in Washington state that may be bars (this still includes things like private clubs, yacht clubs, legion halls, restaurants that may serve liquor but have no actual bar, and bars that I do not count as "destination bars" such as airport bars, Appleby's, Red Robin, etc.)
  • 1,526 - licenses in Seattle that may be bars (see criteria/caveats above)

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