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Bars where Pete has had a Drink (5,608 bars; 1,754 bars in Seattle) - Click titles below for Lists:
Bars where Pete has had a drink
Friday, October 07, 2005
Rocksport Bar and Grill, Seattle
A prototypical boring sports bar, whose saving grace for me was that they serve some of the tastiest salsa I've ever had.
4209 Southwest Alaska St, Seattle, WA 98116-4524 - (206) 935-5838
Est. 1995 - Closed 2012
rocksport.net - facebook - yelp
Sneakers, Seattle
Danz and Fullenwider ran a 110-seat deli sandwich shop called EATs, in the space that would later become part of the current Jazz Alley. With input from their wives, they greatly expanded the sports theme, adding a chalk board where they collected the autographs of athletes, a collection of star athlete's shoes, and -- driven by the challenge of a space "about as wide as 2 bowling lanes" -- an unheard of number of TVs, so that fans could watch games (the very limited selection before cable) from anywhere in the joint. They opened as "Sneakers" April 23, 1981.
50 days later, the Major League Baseball strike was announced, and would eventually cost 38% of the regular season schedule. Far before all the modern condos were added to the area, the new business struggled, and eventually welcomed Dick Oldham in as a third partner -- and added even more TVs. A couple years later, Fullenwider and Danz would sell their portions to Oldham. The bar continued to actively collect an idiosyncratic set of memorabilia and autographs from local players/patrons and players from around the country. Sneakers was often listed as one of the best sports bars in the nation.
When lineman Reggie McKenzie was traded to the Seahawks, he flew in a chef to teach the Sneakers crew how to make spicy chicken wings like they did back in Buffalo, NY (hence, "Buffalo Wings"). A bit later this would lead to a contest that involved a few more Seahawks players. As one owner describes it, "Back then as a marketing scheme we offered all you could eat wings on Wednesday for $12 I believe. A bunch of Seahawks tried to beat the record of the day. Joe Nash and Jacob Green would come in together, Jacob ate 73 once which was pretty good but the real stud was an average size guy that worked down 1st Ave at Sears, now Starbucks HQ, he was about 5’10” 160lbs and ate 147 of our Buffalo Wings, I think he broke the old record by about 60 wings, if I had not seen it, I wouldn’t have believed it." (Jim Fullenwider, personal correspondence).
But I'll always remember Sneakers for a much more personal reason. In January of 1996, I got an unusual opportunity to sell some of the stock I had in our private company. Four years before that, my wife's breast cancer had begun metasticizing into other parts of her body. She'd outlived the estimates, but we knew she was dying. The stock sale gave us a considerable amount of money, the ability to pay off mounting credit card debts, and the chance for me to tell LeRoux "We can do anything you want to do." This was after the miracle 1995 Mariners season and the first thing she said was, "Let's buy season tickets!"
We did, and in '96 we went to every game she felt well enough to attend. And after almost all of those games, we'd head over to Sneakers for drinks and to play the NTN satellite trivia game. Sneakers would fill quickly after the games, and LeRoux's legs didn't work too well by then. So I'd sneak out to the Kingdome runway to watch the last out, then dash over and save us a seat, and she'd come trudging over after watching the end of the game from our seats.
We had a lot of fun. We got to recognize all the Kingdome vendors and other regulars who would often play trivia after the ballgames. Of course this included Ed the Tuba Guy, whom all the regulars could imitate, including his regular outburst of "I disagree!" whenever he missed a question (which was often). "Tuba," my wife once shouted at him, "You don't have your tuba!" "He explained that they didn't let him bring it into the restaurant, and a passing waiter remarked, "Well thank God for small favors." "I disagree!" said Ed.
This kind of pleasant banter and distraction is especially welcome when you could use some breaks from more depressing realities. I can't tell you how much I loved those nights and those silly trivia games. But in mid July LeRoux went into the hospital and then the hospice, where she had to follow the Mariners on the radio. On the morning of August 25th, a hospice volunteer woke me from the chair next to her bed where I'd sleep and informed me, "Sir, Cheryl has died."
October 12th of that year was the last day before Sneakers closed (eventually to be purchased by new owners and renamed "Sluggers.") I went down, played trivia again, and dropped a note to Dick, the owner, about how much the place meant to Cheryl and me. Dick came over to talk to me and invited me to a private closing party the next day. I attended of course, and Dick bought my dinner, read a letter from Mayor Rice and the note from me, and finally had Ed play inside the restaurant. And before the night was over Dick gave me two glass mugs with the Sneakers logo on them, which I now keep, as I always will, in a cabinet with the most prized glassware I own.
(I am grateful to James Fullenwider for corrections and additions to a previous version.)
538 1st Ave S, Seattle, WA 98104
Est. April 23, 1981 - Closed Oct 12, 1996 - Building constructed: 1903
Previous bars in this location: Stanley's Tickertape
Subsequent bars in this location: Slugger's
The Mai-Kai, Ft. Lauderdale - 10/7/2005
The fabulous grand-daddy of all tiki bars.
maikai.com - critikis
(more photos)
Friday, July 15, 2005
Monday, May 23, 2005
Saturday, April 23, 2005
Cowgirls Inc., Seattle
Sunday, June 27, 2004
The Jasmine Tree - 6/27/2004
Saturday, June 26, 2004
The Alibi, Portland - 6/26/2004
The building here is said to go back to the 1880s, when it was the "Chat-n-Nibble, a stop for horse and buggies along a dirt road called "the interstate." This would later become either Patton or Maryland Avenue (these were renamed Interstate Avenue in 1917). After prohibition it was a tiny tavern called "Max Alibi, which was owned by a Mr. Peterson and quite successful for several years. In 1947 Peterson sold it to Roy Ell, who turned it into a tiki bar, emulating the experiences he had enjoyed in Hawaii. Over the years Ell expanded the place, engulfing a private home behind the tavern and a Texaco station next door to expand parking, as well as adding a restaurant section in the 50s and additional tiki touches, including the large, blacklight, hula girl bas-relief mural and Witco-style railings in the 70s.
Ell leased the business out in the 80s with the stipulation that the decor not be altered, and eventually sold the place to Larry and Karla White in 1992. The Whites again refurbished the interior and rooftop sign in 2005, taking care to consult local tiki aficionados and preserve the vintage tiki style, despite no longer being required to do so. Larry White passed away in early 2013.
If you are a tiki fan, the Alibi is not likely to win your affections through their overly sweet drinks, the fairly standard bar food menu, nor the drunken karaoke singers. But it is exceedingly rare to see such a long-lived institution so devoted to its tiki decor, especially one that feels so unremittingly like a bar, without concessions to the restaurant area or sunlight. You enter through a thatch hut (mostly likely acquired from the old Kon Tiki) and, as your eyes adjust to the soft glowing lamps and fish tanks in the dark, you're never sure what lies around the corner. It is this stark transition from the bright, suburban America outside -- more pronounced than you were ever experience at, say, a Trader Vic's -- which makes this one of my favorite tiki bars in the country. Especially with the closing of places such as Rosemead's Bahooka, I feel an abiding debt to Roy Ell, Larry White, the Portland area folks who helped clean it up and preserve it, and even the karaoke singers.
(Exoticat photo) |
4024 N Interstate Ave, Portland, OR 97227 - (503) 287-5335
Est. 1947
Previous bars in this location: Max Alibi
Web site: alibiportland.com
Articles prioritized: critiki - roadtrippers - tikiroom - thelope - portland mercury - wweek - oregonlive - pdxbars - yelp - barfly
Friday, December 13, 2002
Saturday, May 04, 2002
The Baranof, Seattle (Greenwood) - 5/4/2002
The Baranof, Seattle, WA The bartender in the right foreground is Dotti, who also bartended at the Rendezvous and the 74th Street Tavern. "She was a legend" |
Marie's Cafe and the Greenwood Room (Photo courtesy of Gerald Nielsen) |
Today, the Baranof bartenders are diverse in gender and age, whereas several years ago they seemed to be exclusively elderly women (I once heard a patron explaining to one what goes in a Martini). Since replacing the Bill Murray style cover acts with karaoke, the Baranof is much more populated by younger people and hipsters, which may compromise the pure divey-ness, but add a different element of fun. The Baranof remains a classic old school diner in front, and one of the city's best dive bars, as well as one of its more popular karaoke destinations.
Here are a few anecdotes about the Greenwood Room and early Baranof that I've collected from folks who worked there and/or drank there:
The fellow to my right is Doug. Doug claims to have been hired and fired by the Baranof 29 times over the past 30 years (starting when it was still Marie's). |
Wednesday, January 10, 2001
Sunday, December 17, 2000
Saturday, October 28, 2000
Wednesday, October 11, 2000
Friday, July 21, 2000
Sunday, December 05, 1999
The Rickshaw - 12/5/1999
Est. July 7, 1976 - Building constructed 1950
web site: therickshaw.net - facebook
reviews: thestranger - surlygourmand - thestranger - yelp
Sunday, October 31, 1999
Monday, May 10, 1999
Friday, January 01, 1982
The Java Jive - Tacoma (Nalley Valley) - 1982
Floyd seemed to play mostly 70s television themes, mixed in with Beatles covers and local high school fight songs. He played with a sort of rocking motion, and on this night was accompanied by the drummer "Steve and his Sexy Sticks," who would sometimes sing the guitar parts of the songs. When Bobby took a break between sets, he dine on spaghetti with fried onion rings mixed in.
Mary, the friend who first took me there, was underage, but had been there many times before, and assured us she would have no problem getting in. As the waitress went around our table, getting to Mary last, Mary simply told her, "You already checked mine," and the waitress walked off satisfied.
The Jive is nestled in the "Nalley Valley" industrial area of Tacoma, approx. 50 miles from Seattle. The restaurant was built in 1927, and purchased by Bob in 1955 and converted into a music club. It is said to have been a speakeasy at some point before that. Before they made in big, The Wailers played there several times, and The Ventures played as basically the house band. Harold Lloyd, Clara Bow, and Bing Crosby are all said to have hung out there during the early years.
The Jive narrowly escaped a fire in 1998, and when inspectors found a load of code violations in 2007 and the Jive was threatened with closure, neighbors and contractors volunteered to do the work necessary to keep the doors open.
It is just an epic bar.
Est. 1955 - Building constructed: 1927
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