#1003 #S620 - Palace Kitchen, Seattle - (OOO)

Another place I've been to many times (the bar, not just the restaurant), but somehow missed on my list.  The Palace Kitchen is, of course, a Tom Douglas place, which means the cocktails are not up to the level of the food, but that's a very high bar (everyone in Seattle already knows about the food at Douglas's places, so no comments necessary on that front).  The bar is pretty much the basics, but it tests your self-discipline with those dang bowls of pistachios sitting around the bar.

2030 5th Ave., Seattle, WA 98121- (206) 448-2001
tomdouglas.com - yelp

#1002 #S619 - Marie Callenders, Seattle - (OOO)

I decided to belatedly add this because Marie's does have a whole separate room for the bar and people clearly go there just for the bar (most dependably one big guy in a hockey shirt who appears to go there every single day). For several years this was a fairly regular haunt for myself and several co-workers at a small software company due to its location (we referred to it as "Murray's," since "Marie's" is not a fit name for a bar). If it's not the most conveniently located bar for you, I really can't think of any other reasons you would go.

9538 1st Ave NE., Seattle, WA 98115 - (206) 526-5785
yelp

#1001 #S618 - Rat & Raven, Seattle - 3/7/2010

The new owners of this space have made some very nice remodeling changes and made a good effort to change the vibe for the better.  It used to be the Emmigrant, supposedly an Irish bar, which was big and boring and suffered enormously by comparison with the Galway Arms right across the street.  The Galway is small and lively, overflowing with interesting people, and remains a bar of considerably more character.  But thanks to the new ownership (expanding from Clever Dunne's on Capitol Hill), the Rat and Raven is now at least a pleasant change of pace.

The R&R now includes a very nice, open, upstairs area, and hosts people playing not only pool and darts, but also shuffleboard, Scrabble and Texas Holdem.  The drinks are unfancy, as you'd expect in the a university district, and the crowd, if not as interesting as across the street, is tad more pleasant than the previous one.


5260 University Way Northeast Seattle, WA 98105 - (206) 524-3166
Est. 2009 - Building constructed: 1926
Previous bars at this location: Irish Emigrant, Century Bar/Cafe/Tavern (Boom Boom Room)
ratandraven
seattleweekly

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)

#1000! - Visions Lounge, Seattle - 3/5/2010

Visions Lounge closed in 2012 and was replaced by RView.

Project K-Bar is about hitting all bars, not just great bars -- and the K-Bar final four event was all about a group rolling into unexpected places.  In that way, the Visions Lounge was fairly representative.  To be fair, our group of 20-some strange-looking people arrived en masse just as they were closing.  On the other hand, the fact that they were closing before midnight on a Friday night pretty much tells you everything you need to know about how interesting the bar is.

The main attraction of Vision Lounge is not a regular clientele of optimologists, but rather the large set of windows looking out from the 28th floors onto... well, not much.  You have a great view of I-5, and you can kinda see the Space Needle, and kinda see Elliot Bay between two buildings, and you can definitely see one of the less attractive angles of downtown buildings.  Columbia Tower Club it is not.  More realistically, given the boring decor, uninteresting drinks, and sorry reputation of the food, the main attraction is that you are staying in the hotel and don't have to walk all of a couple blocks to get to much better bars (poor tourists can be pitied that no one told them that Sip is just around the corner).

Nevertheless, with some heavy cajoling we convinced the grumpy bartender to stay open an extra 20 minutes to experience the dubious joy of being the 1,000th bar on Project K-Bar.  For pictures of the momentous event, plus the visits to bars #997, #998, and #999 and the bus ride in between, see here, and here and here, and (if you have a facebook account) here.


515 Madison St., Seattle, WA 98104 (28th floor of the Renaissance Hotel) - (206) 583-0300
marriott.com - thestranger - seattle met - yelp - citysearch
(Photos by Kym A. & Larry J.)

#999 - The Barrel Tavern, Burien, WA - 3/5/2010

Update: The Barrel Tavern closed in 2015, was briefly replaced by an Indian restaurant, then the building was razed in October 2018.

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The Barrel is a semi-divey bar built in an old 1963 XXX Root Beer Drive-in in Top Hat, the neighborhood between Burien and White Center (there's a nice summary of the history in the B-TownBlog). So it's the big barrel facade that really grabs you.

The menu and drinks are the basics. The Barrel has blues nights and biker crowds, so I think our group arrived at one of its down moments, and I'm interested to see what the crowd is like when it is more full of regulars and less full of K-Bar not-so-secret agents. (Picture is a Larry J. photo of one of the regulars reacting to our group.)

The Barrel Tavern, Burien/White Center, WA
(Photo from whitecenternow.com)

Technical Note: Despite most places listing this with a Seattle address, it doesn't technically count as a Seattle bar, as my best efforts to place it relative to the crazy Seattle southern city limits line puts it a tad south of the city.









11051 1st Avenue S., Burien, WA 98168 - (206) 244-7390

Closed 2015 - Building constructed 1963

Previous bars in this location: None known
thebarreltavern.com - b-townblog - city-data - seattle weekly - yelp

#998 - Mac's Triangle Pub, Seattle - 3/5/2010

This is one of four "Triangles" I have been to in Seattle, along with the old Triangle Pub in Pioneer Square, the Ould Triangle in Greenwood, and the Triangle Tavern (sometimes "Triangle Lounge") in Fremont, now closed.

This Triangle was the highlight of the of the K-Bar final four event.  The space is nice, the bartender was great, the patrons were varied and having a highly entertaining karaoke night.  (You can see a video of one of our party singing -- after another member getting serenaded for an ersatz birthday -- here).  The Triangle is also the only bar I can remember ever visiting that has a dedicated Men's Room (i.e. not unisex bathroom) that does not a have a urinal.

(Larry J. photo)
9454 Delridge Way SW., Seattle, WA 98106 - (206) 763-0714
facebook - seattle weekly - yelp - urbanspoon