#2299 - The Wooly Toad, Newcastle, WA - 9/23/2013

The Wooly Toad, a cigar and brandy lounge hidden up the stairs at Scott Oki's Newcastle Golf Course clubhouse, is perfect for those times you feel like sinking back in an overstuffed leather chair with a brandy, recalling war stories before discussing mergers and acquisitions after a brisk polo match, and literally looking down on the rest of the greater Bellevue-Seattle area from the crest of the area's old coal mines. It doesn't feel like it, but the club is public, and I recommend going at least once or twice a year even if you don't golf.

The Golf Club At Newcastle 15500 Six Penny Ln Newcastle, WA 98059 Phone number (425) 793-5566
Est. 1999 - Building constructed: 1999
Previous bars in this location: None
Web site: okigolf.com
Reviews: seattletimes - cascadegolfer - foleydesign - yelp

#2298 - The Calcutta Grill, Newcastle, WA - 9/23/2013

Country clubs and golf courses are an often overlooked option for just eating and drinking, and that is certainly true of Newcastle if one is in the mood for a casual but elegant setting with sweeping views of Lake Washington and its environs. The main restaurant is named for "calcutta" style wagering, not for Indian food -- it serves traditional American seafood and steaks in a semi-formal and simple way, ala, say, an Anthony's. The cocktails are pedestrian, but you're not here for culinary creativity or masterful craft cocktails, but rather for the sun, the grass, the views, and the formal service. And perhaps to daydream a bit like you're retired and living this every day.

15500 6 Penny Lane, Newcastle, WA 98059 - (425) 793-4646
Web site: okigolf.com
Reviews: yelp - tripadvisor

#2297 - Pub 44, Lynnwood, WA - 9/22/2013

Despite being in a shopping center lot, this bar used to have an interesting name ("Daverthumps") and a nautical theme to distinguish it from other bars. Currently they seem to be trying to squeeze out whatever character it once had and make it into a sort of bland karaoke/sports bar like virtually every other bar in Lynnwood. Thankfully, there are still vestiges of the old place around -- at least for now -- and it can be a friendly and lively place to watch Seahawks games.

19720 44th Ave W Lynnwood, WA 98036 - (425) 582-8808                
Previous bars in this location: Daverthumps Pub
Reviews: yelp

#2296 - Just Left, Lynnwood, WA - 9/22/2013

If I were to graph how much I liked the bars in a given town against the population of the towns, I think the amount I liked the bars would start out very high at the lowest populations, drop fairly steadily with the increase in population, and then start to head back up as it got to the largest cities in the state. If there's a bar in Mineral, Washington or Goble, Oregon, there's a very high chance that bar has lots of character.  As you get to larger and larger towns, you tend to see more and more of the banal, strip mall sorts of bars, with the same old beer corporation paraphernalia, TVs, plastic menus of fried food, a few craft beers mixed in with Bud and Bud Lite, and pull tab bins. These bars can still be fun places with the right staff and crowds, but it is exceedingly difficult to find anything in the bar itself that distinguishes it from thousands of other bars across the country, as if they were all created by some nameless, giant chain. Then, as you start to get to the few largest cities in the state, a sizable portion of bars start to become interesting again in a variety of ways, from the divey character you see in small towns to fancy craft cocktail joints and unique decors and themes to separate them from the competition.

Thus the resulting graph would probably come out looking something like this:

And that nadir in the line -- the very lowest point before heading back upward through Olympia and Everett up to Spokane, Tacoma, and Seattle -- is Lynnwood.

Lynnwood is around the 30th largest city in Washington state, with a population of about 36 thousand people. There's no charming, old downtown Lynnwood, no Lynnwood Ferry Terminal, no Hewitt Avenue or Capitol Hill, no Lynnwood Bay, and indeed no shoreline at all, despite resting just a few thousand feet from Puget Sound, with the exception of one odd little sliver for the Lynnwood Wastewater Treatment Plant. There is a small handful of historical sites and snippets of interesting drinking settings at places like Old Village Pub or Harvey's just out of town, and old timers might remember the Alpine Tavern or the Owl. But at its heart, current-day Lynnwood is highways and shopping malls, and if someone mentions the "Lynnwood Performing Arts Center" they are probably referring to Hooters.

Unfortunately for people who like a bar to have a unique personality, Just Left fits right in to this scene. People are nice enough, and I'm sure there are plenty of good times had by locals and regulars. It if you don't already know and love the place, it's just not likely to be worth much of a trip, as it will strike you as just one more of the hundreds of cookie-cutter, banal, suburban, sports bars, and it would probably take a considerable amount of drinking to see it as anything else.

4308 198th St SW, Lynnwood, WA 98036 - (425) 776-7379
Est. 2001? - Building constructed: 1975
Previous bars in this location: Outabounz Sports Pub
Web site: Justleftpub.com
Reviews: yelp - beeradvocate

#2295 #1173 - Witness, Seattle - 9/19/2013

I'm not a fan of grits, sweet tea, beignets, or chicken and waffles, but I usually find something I love at southern cuisine restaurants, whether they are traditional or fancied up, like the plates at Witness, on Broadway. Here it was the Bacon and Peaches (Yakima peaches, bacon, sage, smoked balsamic) and Pork and Beans (cider braised pork belly, Corona beans). And the cocktails were excellent, starting with the Witness Cocktail (Blanton's bourbon, Benedictine, Carpano Antica, hickory smoked cherry). Vicki the bartender did a fine job helping me identify the exact drinks and food items to fit my tastes.

Witness is the creation of Greg Holcomb, who has worked for several years on Capitol Hill, at Olive Way speakeasy Knee High Stocking Co. and Chez Gaudy. His southern style menu was created by chef Jesse Elliot from Tom Douglas's Cuoco. The interior evokes a small church of the old south, with white clapboard walls, backlit stained-glass windows, wooden pews, and even a sermon from Holcomb at 10pm Saturday nights. "The church pew seats came from a 102-year-old church in North Carolina (a Craiglist purchase, says Holcomb, and packing and shipping cost way more than the pews themselves). The bar is made from another set of century-old pews, these from a warehouse in Snohomish." (seattlemet).

From cocktails to food to service to decor and vibe of the place, this is a church I can believe in.

410 Broadway E, Seattle, WA 98102 - (206) 669-3853
Est. Aug 22, 2013 - Building constructed: 1931
Previous bars in this location: None known
Web site: witnessbar.com - facebook
Articles ranked: seattlemet - seattlemag - seattletimes - thestranger - onceuponabite - yelp - capitolhillseattle

#2294 #1172 - Itadakimasu, Seattle - 9/17/2013

Itadakimasu ("I humbly receive this meal," a phrase used by Japanese dinner guests to thank their hosts), is a small Hawaiian/Japanese/Korean restaurant in the U District. The bar is very small, the cocktails are not particularly enticing, but the people there are nice and the beef bulgogi is excellent.

4743 Brooklyn Ave NE, Seattle, WA 98105 - (206) 659-0722
Est. Nov 29, 2012 - Building constructed: 1966
Previous bars in this location: None known
Web site: facebook
Reviews: wonderandrisk - dailyuw - yelp - yahoo

#2293 - Goble Tavern, Rainier, OR - 9/15/2013

Goble Tavern, Rainier, OR

The Goble Tavern is pretty much all that's left of the town of Goble, Oregon, named after trapper Daniel Blue Goble's donation lands claim in 1852, and once bustling center of a train ferry across the Columbia to Kalama, WA, where up to six trains a day stopped on the way to Seattle, and wood-burning steamboats pulled alongshore to refuel. In the lumber boom days around the turn of the century, many of the hundreds of loggers working in the area would pour into town on the weekend and dance at the Red Men Lodge Hall. The Goble Tavern, sitting about 150 feet west of the Columbia, just before the big river starts to curve westward, about halfway between Portland and Astoria, dates its founding to 1926. Of course at this point it would not have been a licensed tavern, as prohibition ended only in 1933, but it does appear to have become a bar shortly thereafter.

Goble Tavern in the 1930s (from tavern Facebook page)

The place had a substantial remodel completed in 2008, which was probably good for business, though I personally would have preferred the version that was a bit more ramshackle -- or "a shithole," in the vernacular of a bartender at the WigWam down the highway, with low ceilings, a 7-inch drop off in the old floor, and more than its share of old rockers and drugs. Lenny, the bartender we chatted with, preferred it then. But it's still a great place, with lots of historical links and gewgaws, and an emphasis on music.  People claim that Hank Williams once played here in the 40s, and that a teenage Willie Nelson hung around the area when his mother was a bartender here. A check of Willie's wikipedia page does indeed note that as a teen he hitchhiked his way from San Diego to Portland because his mother, who had left the family shortly after his birth, was living in the area. Willie got a job at KVAN in Vancouver and cut his first record from there.

Goble Tavern, before remodeling (Chris Updegrave photo)

Music is still a big part of the tavern, with guitars and various other instruments hanging on the walls, a stage for live music (where Lenny sometimes joins in on harmonica), an ever larger performance area in the sizable patio area out back, and an annual "Goble Warming" festival each August. They preserved a few warps from the old floor and cut out and hung a mural painted on the old wall, one of several done by an old local artist in exchange for his booze. The parking lot includes an a rotting wood boat and antique tractor, and occasionally has to be cleared of a tree dropped by local beavers. They have a full bar with some good beer choices, and a menu of pretty typical bar food -- burgers, fish and chips, and various fried foods. It was nice stopping by on a lazy afternoon drive up Highway 30, but I'd also love to swing by some Saturday night when the music is playing and the place is hopping, and hope to even make it for Goble Warming.

Goble Tavern, Flood of 1948 (photo in bar)

Goble Tavern, cut-out section of mural painted on old wall

70255 U.S. 30, Rainier, OR 97048 - (503) 556-4090
Est. year - Building constructed: year
Previous bars in this location:
Web site: gobletavern.com - facebook
Reviews: portlandtribune - letitpour - yelp - tripadvisor