This is excellence.
Est. 2010 - Closed 2012
Subsequently Underwood Stables, 2012-2014
Web site: horsescutshop.com
Articles: stackeddmagazine - cozyland - flickr
Saturday, June 18, 2011
#1385 #S843 - Horses Cut Shop, Seattle - 3/5/2011
This is excellence.
Est. 2010 - Closed 2012
Subsequently Underwood Stables, 2012-2014
Web site: horsescutshop.com
Articles: stackeddmagazine - cozyland - flickr
Friday, June 17, 2011
#1384 #S842 - Empire Pub, Seattle - 3/5/2011
The Empire Tavern, named for its old location on Empire Way (before it was changed to Martin Luther King Jr. Way), is a classic neighborhood dive. It's been in the current location for about four years, but has a fine collection of old geezers. The walls are filled with Nascar paraphernalia and completed jigsaw puzzles featuring eagles, turkeys, Mt. Rushmore and Thomas Kincade-like cottages. It's a good place to wear your dirty baseball cap and have a beer and some microwave popcorn.
Est. 1948 or earlier, at 5701 Empire Way (later Martin Luther King Jr Way), forced to move due to Sound Transit construction - Closed 2011 or 2012
Previous bars at this location: None known
Subsequent bars at this location: Souvanny's Restaurant and Lounge
yelp
Thursday, June 16, 2011
#1382 #S840 - Island Soul, Seattle - 3/5/2011
seattletimes - seattle weekly - yelp
Sunday, June 05, 2011
#1381 #S839 - Crepe Cafe and Wine Bar - 3/3/2011
Est. 2005
crepesandwine.com - facebook - thestranger - yelp
#1380 #S838 - A Caprice Kitchen, Seattle - 2/24/2011
Update: Caprice Kitchen closed July 9, 2011
There is actually a bar here, and it's a quite pleasant place to have a glass of wine (although it is not open late -- closing by 9pm -- and it is not open Mondays and Tuesdays). However the focus is clearly on the food and people seem to especially enjoy the weekend brunch. It is small and fairly intimate, and feels like some little roadside farm cafe where a fine chef moved after getting sick of the city. There is an emphasis on sustainable, organic, local, and seasonal (hence the "caprice") ingredients. I've seen some mixed reviews of the food but all the items I have had have been uniformly yummy.
1418 NW 70th St, Seattle, WA 98117 - (206) 371-2886
Est. 2008
capricekitchen.com - thestranger - seattleweekly - yelp
There is actually a bar here, and it's a quite pleasant place to have a glass of wine (although it is not open late -- closing by 9pm -- and it is not open Mondays and Tuesdays). However the focus is clearly on the food and people seem to especially enjoy the weekend brunch. It is small and fairly intimate, and feels like some little roadside farm cafe where a fine chef moved after getting sick of the city. There is an emphasis on sustainable, organic, local, and seasonal (hence the "caprice") ingredients. I've seen some mixed reviews of the food but all the items I have had have been uniformly yummy.
Est. 2008
capricekitchen.com - thestranger - seattleweekly - yelp
Saturday, June 04, 2011
#1379 #S837 - Tidbit, Seattle - 2/22/2011
Tidbit has some very good (Spanish and Italian) food, some interesting cocktails, and a pretty amazing happy hour with good wines and $1 (!) well drinks (4-6 and 9-close Tues-Fri). I tried the "Esta-te" (gin, rum, Triple Sec, vodka, Chinotto, lime, and lemon) and the "Peach Sangria-tini" (Absolut Peach, tempranillo, Triple Sec, orange juice, muddled oranges, limes, lemons).
Est. 2007 - Building constructed: 1996
tidbitbistro.com - closure - seattletimes - thestranger - yelp
#1378 #S836 - Chen's Village, Seattle - 2/20/2011
This is a classic old American Chinese place with a lounge attached. The lounge portion is integrated into the mirrored wall restaurant slightly more here than the typical darkened room in the back or side of the Chinese place.
Before it became Chen's in 2005, this was the Lee Chee Garden, and before that it hosted a tiki bar. It was the Tiki Hut -- with "exotic beverages" served in the Shell Room lounge -- by 1962 and into the 70s (at one point also know as "Hope's Hut"). In the 80s it was the Blue Hawaiian Restaurant (still featuring the Shell Room) until becomeing Lee Chee in the late 80s.
Rick Anderson writes of more recent days, "The bar tends to attract cops, editors, and other riffraff." But the only riffraff in the whole place on the Sunday afternoon we dropped in were ourselves. It serves pretty much the type of Chinese food and cocktails that you would expect.Update: Around 2015 I started working in a space just a couple blocks from Chen's. Since the photo here was taken, the I and the L had also fallen off the front facade, and hence it was referred to as what sounded like "Chen's Lodge." A few years later, more letters were missing, and I resolved to liberate one of them for myself and the office within the next few days. I was too late though -- two days later 100% of the characters out front, including the numbers of the address, were all gone.
 |
| Chen's Village, Seattle, WA |
This wasn't entirely unexpected -- Chen's had been literally falling apart for several years. In addition to the letters on the facade, ceiling tiles, garden planter railings, the clock in the bar, and other various parts of the premises were all missing pieces, with no apparent effort to repair or even stem the tide of outflowing chunks of the restaurant. They also stopped investing in frivolities like heating the building, and on cold days the server would arrive at your table with a big puffy coat on underneath her apron. The food was still fine though, but most the orders now appeared to be take-out.
Update: The day after Christmas 2018, the "Vanishing Seattle" Facebook group, and perhaps other outlets, began to spread the news that Chen's would be closing for good that Friday. We stopped in for a nightcap, joining a few regulars who were grumpy that they couldn't get their customary seat at the bar. "No, I'm not scooting," one said, when a friend tried to join the couple to his right. This was the same fellow who told the person next to him earlier that he didn't know the price of vodka, because "I don't drink vodka -- I'm not a white woman on a diet." In between these exchanges, with "Jeopardy" on the television, they argued about the Punic wars and Greek islands.
Scuttlebutt has it that the building is not, as one would suspect, due to be razed soon. "Apparently it’s not being demo’d - the lease has been taken over by a local chef & it’ll be turned into a commercial kitchen" (Vanishing Seattle). It's an oddly shaped space in an oddly placed point in time and location, as the massive tide of development driving by Amazon et. al. just a mile or so to the east has yet to really roll up the narrow shelf of "Interbay," stretching from downtown to Ballard between Elliot Bay and Queen Anne hill. One hopes that the new management makes better progress on remodeling than the lingering mess that used to be The Shanty Cafe just up the street.
Est. 2005 - Closed Dec 28, 2018 - Building constructed: 1936
Previous bars at this location: The Tiki Hut, Hope's Hut, Blue Hawaii, Lee Chee Garden
newchensvillage.com - publicola - seattleweekly - rick anderson - yelp - tikicentral (tiki hut period)
Monday, May 30, 2011
#1377 #S835 - Rudy's Place, Seattle - 2/20/2011
Est. Jan 2006
facebook - seattle pi - yelp
#1376 #S834 - Egan's Ballard Jam House, Seattle - 2/19/2011
Est. 2006
ballardjamhouse.com - yelp
#1375 #S833 - Ballard Ave Pub, Seattle - 2/19/2011
There are lots of pubs on Ballard Avenue, but Ballard Avenue Pub is not one of them. It's on Market, in the former location of Mon Petit Shoes, where you might end up if you drove north on Ballard Ave and didn't stop when you ran out off street. So they're kinda hard to search for (as pubs that are actually on Ballard Ave tend to come up higher), and they don't have a web site -- indeed they have posted in comments of a local blog that they probably won't have one in the future. (They also apparently didn't have the appropriate business licenses.)
So they obviously don't feel a pressing need to market themselves, and the decor echoes this, seeming rather soul-less, with the exception of the recovered-wood bar counter top. They do have a quite good selection of beers. So I suppose we'll see if that is enough.
Est. Feb 12, 2011
seattlebeernews
Sunday, May 15, 2011
#1374 #S832 - Golden Beetle, Seattle - 2/19/2011
An excellent new Eastern Mediterranean restaurant from Maria Hines, the chef/owner of Tilth with a fine bar featuring Andy McClellan from Lola and Marley Tomic-Beard from Spur. From an enticing cocktail menu, I chose "One Good Conundrum" (Old Overholt rye, Cynar, house orange bitters, and Scrappy's celery bitters) and then got a little Turkish with a "Lion's Milk Swizzle" (Efe Raki, lemon, orange-flower honey, and orange flower water) -- both quite fine. I will be coming back for the cocktails, food, and ambiance.
Est. Feb 2011
golden-beetle.com - thestranger - seattleweekly - myballard - yelp
#1373 #S831 - Sole Repair, Seattle - 2/16/2011
solerepairshop.com - facebook - yelp
#1372 #S830 - Fonte Cafe and Wine Bar, Seattle - 2/14/2011
Whether to count this as a bar is a borderline call for me, but since they put "wine bar" right in the name, I guess I will. It's not a bad place, but it's rather mall-like and I didn't see anything here that would make me ever select it again from the many choices in downtown and Belltown.
1321 1st Ave, Seattle, WA 98101 - (206) 777-6193
fontecoffee.com - yelp - seattletimes
fontecoffee.com - yelp - seattletimes
#1371 #S829 - Locöl Barley and Wine, Seattle - 2/13/2011
locolseattle.com - westseattleblog - seattleweekly - yelp
Sunday, April 24, 2011
#1370 #S828 - Blue C Sushi, Seattle - 2/12/2011
The bar at the Fremont Blue C isn't open most of the time, and it's upstairs and out of reach of the kaiten belt cycling the food. But we had a nice couple nightcaps and pleasant conversation on this night with the manager Drew from Boston.
Est. 2003 - Closed Aug 2017
bluecsushi.com - seattletimes - thestranger - yelp
#1369 #S827 - White Rabbit, Seattle - 2/12/2011
I've only been there in the afternoon with few people around, so I'll want to go when the music is going to get a feel for the crowd and vibe. But the folks working there are nice and the decor has a bit more personality than when it was ToST.
They specialize in coffee drinks, but I went for the Mad Hatter Manhattan (Honey Reserve bourbon, sweet vermouth, and bitters).
Est. Feb 10, 2011 - Closed Dec 31, 2013 - Building constructed: 1928
Previous bars in this location: ToST
fremontwhiterabbit.com - facebook
seattlemusicinsider - seattleweekly fc - seattleweekly - fremontuniverse - yelp
#1368 - Raven's Nest, Redmond, WA - 2/11/2011
Black Raven Brewing Company taproom
14679 NE 95th St, Redmond, WA 98052 - (425) 881-3020
blackravenbrewing.com - yelp
14679 NE 95th St, Redmond, WA 98052 - (425) 881-3020
blackravenbrewing.com - yelp
#1367 #S826 - Acquabar, Seattle - 2/9/2011
This was the soft opening of the new bar of the space of the old Kelly's, which Mike Seeley described it as easily the most intimidating bar in Seattle -- and the neighbors were not a bit sad to see it go. Acquabar has expanded the space into the location of the neighboring dog care business, and added an Asian lunch buffet.
None of the neighbors who had to deal with the rough crowd have shed tears over the loss of Kelly's, but the new place doesn't seem to have any personality whatsoever. Here's hoping it evolves into something that has as much personality as Kelly's, if not the same dysfunctional personality type.
Est. Feb 9, 2011 - Building constructed: 1925
Previous bars at this location: Liberty Tavern, Kelly's
acquabar.com - yelp
#1366 - John Howie Steak, Seattle - 2/8/2011
Yes, it's a pricey steakhouse in the Bravern, but it's also got quite affordable lunch choices and a pretty decent selection of cocktails at the bar. I had a Peruvian Saint (classic Pisco Sour ingredients with St. Germaine elderflower twist, egg white, and bitters).
11111 NE 8th Street, Suite 125, Bellevue, WA 98004 - (425) 440-0880
johnhowiesteak.com - seattleweekly - seattletimes - yelp
11111 NE 8th Street, Suite 125, Bellevue, WA 98004 - (425) 440-0880
johnhowiesteak.com - seattleweekly - seattletimes - yelp
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