Located in Fremont, a hotbed of bars for a few blocks, Suite G opened last fall and was rapidly visited by us, but then I stopped writing reviews. Which is probably to the advantage of this particular bar, because the first visit was a little rough, but I've been there since with a better experience.

It's a big space, much bigger than you would expect from the frontage, which isn't large at all. Small, in fact. But after a few tables right at the front, you pass the long, broad bar and then enter into the rear space, large enough for a small show, and with plenty of area. Which is good, because Suite G is usually packed with people.

It's a pick up sort of place, like many of the Fremont bars, and it works pretty well from the looks of it. The crowd was mostly young, mostly attractive, and mostly drinking a lot on the nights I've been there.

The wait at the bar can be a bit long. At least in the first few weeks, the bartenders both didn't know, and didn't care, how to make the bar's own specialty drinks, so that they were a wildly mixed bag. I suppose nobody much checks the drink lists, because they just want to get their drink on. On later visits, we avoided the specialty drinks for just that reason, and had no problems.

The prices are what you might expect, pretty high because they know people are coming whatever they charge. Not horribly high, and there have been drink specials available, so it's not too bad.

It's not a place I'd hang out that much, but then, I'm not a 23 year old pretty person with money in my pocket. If I was, I'd be there pretty often, I suppose.

(visited in late September 2003, and again twice in winter)

It's a first. A new bar that only I visited. Oh, well. Brandon can't be everywhere.

So after a very non-drinking fall that I spent pretty much sick all the time with a series of colds I caught at work, it was nice to finally get to a new place. Kai is located just a block from my work, and I went there with my friend and our sponsor Annie to celebrate her new job, which took her away from the bookstore but only actually moved her two blocks south.

Anyway, I'd walked by Kai, and it was just the custest little place. It's a tiny store front converted into a suave little bar with food. There's barely seating for 25, and that counts the bar itself with about a third of the seats. Just two little window side tables (the windows open up and vanish on warm days), four or five more tables in the main area and eight bar seats, with the tiny kitchen in the back.

The drinks are well made, the daily drink specials are well priced with some sort of drink at 3 or fewer dollars, happy hour is good, they have PBR in pints, and the food is pretty tasty, too.

So I like Kai a lot, and I got there after work most Fridays now. I'd like to say you should go there, too, but it's very small, and if you go, I might not be able to get in. Which would make me sad. But it is a great little place.

(First visited at the end of January. Many repeat visits since.)

Matador sits on the corner of Market St. and Ballard Way in Ballard, and you would think that would be a good place to have a bar. But it hasn't been lucky for a whole string of restaurants in the past. However, I think Matador may overcome the curse.

The place is really just a big fishbowl, with every outside wall a window, and nothing far from the windows. With no real curtains or blinds, it's totally open to the street. This is nice on the Ballard Way side, because the bar is against that wall of windows, and all the nice shiny bottles sit there, just behind the glass, making it one of the lovelier window displays I've seen.

I visited the bar with my friend Alpheus who was in from out of town, along with a couple of other bars that same day, and along with my friend Katherine, one of the only people involved in the quest from very early who didn't ever sponsor us. Still no Brandon.

Matador was a nice place. There's a good sized bar half of the restaurant, which was packed the evening we went in, and has been pretty busy whenever I've walked by. The restaurant had just a single vacant table, which we grabbed, and as it was late, pretty much the whole place was the bar. We discovered they have no drink specials in their late night happy hour, but their bar food is half off, so that was nice. The nachos were decent.

However, the drink I had wasn't great. The waitress assured me it would be good (although I didn't ask) and it was...bland. Not terrible, but nothing much. As it turned out, however, it was cheaper than expected, and their well vodka was mid-shelf, so there was really nothing wrong with that at all.

There's a fireplace table in the middle of the bar, but we didn't get to sit at it. It's one of those places with fake coals and a gas grill, one presumes, built in, but it sure looks nice, and warm. Which would have been nice in January when we visited.

Matador was well worth the look in, and I might visit it again. It's a pretty good place.

(visited 1/30/4)

Another bar that I visited with my friend Alpheus, and if we were still on the quest, he would have sponsored it. Oh, why not? He bought, so he's the sponsor for this bar. Even if Brandon wasn't there. Sean was, and Kathryn, and some guy at the bar that he bought a shot for, so that's a lot of buying.

But on to the bar. It didn't have booze while we were on the quest, not the hard stuff, but it does now. Or if it did, it didn't have the right license for it. Whatever the case, there's lots of bottles behind the bar now, and so it does indeed count.

It's a nice neighborhood bar. Ballard Way, where the bar is, actually counts as one of the foremost bar streets in the city. Within half a dozen blocks, there are about 10 bars of various sorts, a couple of them with live music most or many nights, some very blue collar, some hipster, many with rather cheap drinks, at least one with great breakfast food. It's actually pretty damn amazing, and while I'm sure many people know about the Sunset Tavern, Hattie's Hat, or the Lock and Keel, there's a bunch of other bars, too, and it's perfect for a pub crawl.

But back on topic. The Lock and Keel. It's a good-sized bar, with tables in the front, a couple pool tables further back along with more tables, a large and long bar, friendly staff and quite decent drinks. The prices are pretty good as long as you're not buying a round of shots because things like that can really drive up your costs. They have a bar menu for food that goes reasonably late, and a fuller menu earlier, but we were there too late to take advantage. It was the night of the Superbowl when we visited, and the bar was pretty empty, what with everyone have done their drinking earlier in the day, I suspect.

The Chapelle show was on the TV, and I've never seen it before, but it was both funny and kind of offensive. A bold play to show it in the bar, and a good one.

The people in the bar were all very friendly, too. We chatted with all sorts of folks, and we weren't even trying.

It's a good spot, overall, and part of a great street, as I mentioned. Visit Ballard Way, even if it is kind of far out for many of you, and enjoy.

(visited february 1, if i'm not mistaken.)

Last night we were sitting around without much to do, and then Brandon suggested we could hit a bar or two. Or I suggested it, but it doesn't really matter. Because then we were talking about all the new bars we knew about, and which we should go to, and then we were in the car, and then, quite rapidly, we were back into quest mode. Belltown had spawned a whole new set of bars, and we drank at Shorty's, the Lava Lounge and Viceroy, and skipped over the Hideaway and Madrid 522 because of covers, and then hit one more bar I'd been to but Brandon hadn't.

And it was all just too easy and familiar. We kept laughing about it.

So I guess we're kind of back in business again.

This little joint opened up not far from my house perhaps 6 months ago, and I read about it in the paper not a couple weeks later, and have been meaning to go by, it being so close, ever since. However, it took running into my old coworker Jeneka (UBS 6/00-12/00) to get me to go.

And to get Brandon to go took the anniversary of the finale. Which we missed by a day, because Brandon was just back from out of town, and was sick, as everyone I know is now when they get back from out of town. Either we Seattle folk all have very weak consititutions, or the rest of world is becoming filthy with viruses, I'm not sure.

So Sean, Brandon and me made our walk over the four blocks to Sambar, which is attached to Le Gourmand, one of the fanciest restaurants in the city that you've never heard. It is, as mentioned, a very small bar, barely the size of a living room, with a handful of tables and an equally tiny outdoor patio area. But instead of seeming cramped, it seems intimate. It's dim, with candlelight that shines of off a few well polished bits of metal but otherwise just makes for nice lighting. The music is subtle and backgroundy, but very pleasant. The staff, comprised of pretty much two people (Jeneka, the bartender who as it turned out had taken a photography class with Brandon, and a back up cocktailer they happened to be training that night) was nice. The drinks were interesting, coming off a very odd specialty drink list. And the small crowd all looked to be enjoying themselves.

That's the good part.

Here's the bad part. The price. We didn't get well drinks, I'll admit. But the specialty drink menu starts at 8 dollars and heads right on up to 11. So I'm not sure what the well price would be, but it's probably more than 6, and maybe 7. Which is about as spendy as you'll find in the city. We also got a very tasty ginger ice cream, very strongly ginger, but it cost 9 dollars for a dish of it, and lacked in presentation. Really tasty, though. But for 9 dollars, I think a dessert should have a little bit of frou frou to it, some sort of twisted cookie, or candied ginger bits, or mint, stuff you don't need or even want but that at least makes you feel like there's a reason for 9 dollars.

So for three drinks, ice cream and tax, it was more than forty dollars. Which is a bit much for a place to hang out at. However, if you're looking for a nice place to take a date, with interesting options, and you don't mind paying for your options, this is probably a good choice. But it's not a casual drink kind of place in my book.

(visited 3/23/4)

After the Ould Triangle ribbing concerning our review of Molly Maguire's, I was renewed in my interest in sampling their Irish Breakfast. I had read that they had one on Sunday, and as I love such a morning meal, I got Brandon to go out with me just a couple days later, the very next Sunday, to sample the breakfast.

And it was good. Oh, so very good. I didn't have a drink, so I don't think this is even terribly relavent to the site, but in fairness to Molly's I had to post this. Delightful in every aspect, the Irish breakfast should be had by all those who eat meat. For the rest of you, well, you're missing out with your foolish vegetarian/vegan ways. Me, I'm going back.

So it happens like this: it's a boring night; Brandon, me and Sean sitting around; and we decide to hit some bars. A very familiar feeling, but one that hasn't happened in a good number of months. Sean opts not to join, so it's just Brandon and me. And after we wander the streets looking for a bar we know the location of, but can't actually find, we arrive on 2nd in Belltown, and there's Shorty's.

They used to just have Beer and Pinball, but some months ago, they got liquor to go with their Beer and Pinball. Which is nice, because while I like Beer and Pinball, booze makes just about anything better.

Shorty's in a deep bar, one wall of which is lined first by video games, then tables made of old pinball machines, while the other side is a few tables and the bar. It was packed, vastly packed, with a hipster/punk crowd, far more full than I've seen it on the other days when I've just wandered by the tavern it used to be while going to some more priveledged bar nearby.

The bartenders were kept hopping, and so it took a long time to get our drinks, because they had to do some clean up in the middle of making them. The vodka tonic I ordered had 7-Up instead of tonic, and had barely been introduced to any vodka at all, so that it was pretty much just a 7-Up. From a place filled with punky hipsters, I'd think they would have to have strong drinks, but they didn't at all. Perhaps they've had their liquor license for too short a time to really hit their stride.

In back, where we wandered after getting our sodas, there is the pinball room, which features the geektacular goodness of a Lord of the Rings pinball game that we watched one of the players tilt to get back to ball 1 while keeping his score from ball 3. Poor machine.

We finished the "drinks" quickly and left the place to move on to another bar hopefully more familiar with the uses of alcohol. I'll mention the drink was 3.50, but that's a lot to pay for 7-Up, so skip it, and just stick with Beer. Or go to one of the dozens of other bars within walking distance, any of which will give you a stronger drink. Any.

(visited 4/9/4)

This one feels very much like a do over, because we actually did drink here during the quest, but they didn't have spirits at the time. Beer, however, doesn't count, so we returned after leaving Shorty's and noticing a cocktail sign in the window of the Lava Lounge.

It's the same as it was before, a dim brown spot, with booths and tables on the left side and the bar on the right. The bar is more impressive now, if only because of the alcohol, but other than that it didn't seem much different. There is a little music center at the end of the bar, where there was a DJ playing music that was reasonably background volumed. The place was pretty crowded, so that we ended up sitting in the back at an elevated table with a few stools around it, amidst the low effort tropical island decor of the place.

The bartender was friendly, cute if you like the girl gender and good with silent communication, since it was pretty loud with all the people and the music filling in for any missing noise. She was also fast, and possessed of a generous pouring technique. My drink was much more happy making than that at Shorty's, and not just because it actually had tonic instead of 7-Up. Drinks, at 4 dollars, were at the lower end of the Belltown price range, and left me well satisfied.

It was a nice place to visit when we were on the quest, a good wind down spot with a few friends after Pioneer Square, and it's a pretty good joint now that it has the booze, too, although I think it lost some of that wind-down feel when it added to the beer. There's a very limited bit of outdoor seating in the front, which will be nicer as the weather gets nicer, and gives another reason to visit. Which is something that should be done.

(visited 4/9/4)

Nostalgia surrounds this very new bar. But I'm not certain if most of the clientele got it. Viceroy is an apparently very hot new bar, since it was totally jammed with customers and doing a mess of business. There's no signage on the outside to indicate what the place might be, just the obvious marks of a bar--a patio with a short enclosure and loud people with drinks, and the sounds of merriment from inside. There was a guy checking ID and a rather large bodyguard fellow, so they must get a lot of people going by. Not that there was anything the least bit rowdy inside, the crowd being most young professional types.

The decor is the nostalgia bit. The place is done up like a den from the seventies. There's the walls of books, none of them new, and including the obligatory stack of National Geographics; there's the reel-to-reel player and the old hi-fi; there's the rough brick wall pattern behind the bar, familiar to anyone who has seen a fireplace designed in the seventies; and there's the pleather padded walls in a diamond pattern, all in black with brass rivets the size of a quarter. The whole place screams class, circa 1977. And most of the customers looked to have been born about then, or a bit later, so they probably don't get it.

However, it actually looks really nice. With dim mood lighting, a few plants and sprawling bits of backless furniture, there's a great ambiance to the bar.

The drinks were 5 dollars, not unexpected in a new hot bar, and were about strong enough to justify it. The crowd was talkative, active and enjoying themselves, almost everyone in groups of four or more, and everyone drinking and living it up.

It's a nice little place that will feel eerily familiar if you're of a certain age, and there's nothing wrong with that. Viceroy should have a really good year. I just don't know if it'll go any further than that. So stop in before you miss your chance, cause it's not your average bar.

(visited 4/9/4)

Another Friday brought another round of bars. We were thinking three, but then we were joined, midway, by the inestimable Clara, and suddenly the night was continuous. And yet still early.

Brandon and I started at Cayenne, the bar in the new Silver Cloud Inn at the south end of Broadway, which actually featured a first in all the bars we've been to. Then we went to Chapel, the most sacriligeous bar we've been to, and met up with Clara there and had some food. A trip to Mamounia, which was once Cobalt Blue and .Ing, brought us to the expected three, but we weren't near done. So we ventured to the Full Circle, formerly the Sea Wolf, and site of our interview with Melanie McFarland. From there, it was back to Ballard to take me home, but not before stopping in at Oaxaca, a delightful Mexican bar.

I should note that for once, I wasn't the guy knocking down drinks. Clara and Brandon both did it without me even helping.

And Clara picked up a sponsorship, bless her American by way of England self. Plus she has a motorcycle now, which kind of rules.

All this, and we were done before midnight. How effecient.

Located in the new Silver Cloud Inn at the south end of Broadway, Cayenne is not what I expected from Silver Cloud. There used to be one such hotel right near my home, years ago, and it was so staid and boring that it lacked any sort of bar facility. Instead, one ends up with Cayenne, which isn't either staid or boring.

The restaurant and bar areas of the space kind of blur together. This must be intentional, because the hostess table is back, immediately, by the bar. There's about a dozen bar seats, and then just behind them, a narrow counter with more seats on either side, and then booths. To get to any other seating, the hostesses have to lead you through this morass of bar-like seating to the further seating areas. I'm certain there's some actual point of distinction, since it's a hotel restaurant, and must be ready to have kids in the place, but if there was, it wasn't very clearly marked.

Anyway, we sat at the bar, which is underlit, made of some sort of bubbly plastic substance, and has various square patches of color that provide for interesting light. There are large cubbies behind the bar for the various types of booze, each one on display, but the displays are not terribly impressive--about six or eight of each type of booze, none of them "featured" by having a majority, and none of the choices so amazing that they deserve to have their own display or anything. It's interesting to look at, kind of artful, but if you give more than a cursory glance, kind of disappointing.

We ordered our wells, when the bartender who was both rather busy and easily distracted could be called to serve us, and they came quickly. Not very good drinks, my vodka tonic for some reason provided with a mint leaf. I suspect it was an aberration, but I can't be certain. We sat and drank for a bit, watched a bit of the game, discussed the next bar to go to, and suddenly there was another round in front of us.

This is a first in all the bars we've been to. The bartender, without asking whether we wanted another round, and without meaning at all to comp us drinks, just served us more. Normally, I wouldn't much complain, because it's a good thing to have more booze. But we had more bars to hit, and we didn't want another mediocre drink from the place.

However, after some discussion, we realized we were both too cowardly to actually point out the error, our cowardice supported by our fondness for more booze. So we drank, and the drinks were both of the stronger and better category, so I guess no complaints in the long run. But it was very presumptous.

The drinks were 4 bucks, not bad for a place that was new and happening (and it was, the crowd was young and well off. I won't say hip, because they weren't. It seems like a get dressed up and start your drinking kind of place.) The second drink was well worth it. They have happy hour specials on both food and drinks, and the food (what little I saw from a distance) doesn't look bad.

It's also now the furthest south spot for a drink on Broadway until you get way out there, like Michael's Pizza.

But there's not too much reason to go back. The Garage is just a block away, after all, and you can get pool, bowling, and outside seating there.

(visited 4/16/4)

Bars in neat locations rule. There aren't many of them in Seattle, but Chapel, a newish bar, certainly qualifies. It's located in a recently closed funeral home, in (you guessed it) the chapel. Which means that inside it's a big vaulted room, with a balcony that used to be, one presumed, the choir loft. The place echoes with conversation, and as it is pretty much always full, it means you can barely hear yourself at the best of times.

Upon entering, you will note a holy water fount. Which is, in keeping with the mood, filled with Chapel matches. A lovely touch, and one that I greatly approve of. Of course, the owners/managers are all going to hell, but then, we'll all be there with them, and at least there will be a cool bar.

Beyond the hell-inducing fount are tables, all of them small, and the bar, which is the very opposite of small. It's nearly five feet high. There are stools which, unlike normal bar stools, even normal height people have to work to get up onto. That's because you're nearly four feet off the floor in these bad boys. And there's no real supports for your feet, so they just dangle out in space. Which is at first rather annoying, but later, a couple of cocktails will take the edge off.

And that's where happy hour comes in. At Chapel, it's from 5 to 8, and you can get any of their "martinis" for 4 bucks. As they regularly cost 6 to 8 dollars, that's a good buy. And, they're good. The Vanilla was especially favored by our little band, which was Brandon, me and, eventually, Clara.

She lives now just a few blocks away from the bar, and so we called, she came out, and thus started a rather long and fun night of bar hopping. But before all that, there is still Chapel to be dealt with.

Sitting on our high posts, it was hard to get the attention of the bar staff (see the aforementioned massive background noise) but they were fast once you got them. Drinks were strong, and in the case of the martinis, well made and thought out. The food is quite good, almost entirely organic and fancy, but still with many meat options, and tasty enough to make you ignore that it's better for you than most of what you eat.

At eight, the lights are dimmed so that it become a big dark cavern with lingering sunlight flitting in from the doors. It was at about this point that we left, gathering matches as we went, and headed down the big stairs. Which are kind of like high schools stairs due to their size and concrete solidity, and also due to the lack of smoking in Chapel (despite the matches) so that smokers were leaning on the balustrades outside, chatting on their cell phones, and effectively advertising that there is a bar here, since it's kind of innocuous otherwise.

Happy hour is a good time at Chapel.

(visited 4/16/4)

It's been .Ing. It's been Cobalt Blue. The latest incarnation of this somewhat cursed spot is Mamounia, which is a Moroccan restaurant. Not that you could tell from outside, because every window is heavily curtained. We weren't even sure it was open, or what the hell it was, except that it had an open sign, and I had seen an ad for the restaurant in the paper earlier in the day while looking for bars to go to.

Did I mention that the ad had said nothing about having a bar? So we didn't know if there was one? But eventually, I prodded Brandon into heading in to find out, and the bar is just to the right of the door, the same place it was for .Ing and Cobalt Blue. Of course.

There wasn't enough room at the bar for three people, because it was pretty full. The former main seating area of the previous bars was now a red-backed (because of all the curtains) area of couches and low tables, where intimate Moraccan dining could occur. Although mostly it looked like drinking, while a (blond, white) belly dancer worked her stuff. The waitress (mousy blond, white) was working hard to keep up with people. The bartender (brunette, white) had her hands full with the bar crowd. The host (Moroccan, and the only one we saw) kind of stood around and did some greeting, but didn't seem to do much to help the overworked staff.

We sat toward the back area, where once there were many low seats in both .Ing and Cobalt blue, but now there's just an extension of the couches and tables motif. It took forever for the waitress to get to us (see above) while the host just ignored us and looked at the belly dancer, who told us that we needed to clap for her. Not in the "let's get some clapping started" kind of way, but in the "hey assholes, here's where you clap at my greatness" kind of way. I didn't like her much. She was okay as a belly dancer, but I've seen much better.

The drinks weren't much to think of. The Moroccan music that played after the belly dancer departed (for all the world just like a stripper leaving stage, which I'm suspecting she was) wasn't very good. But the atmosphere was well set up, with the curtains blocking out the outside world completely. And everyone who worked there was at least dressed in fanciful Middle Eastern garb, whatever their lack of ethnicity.

The check took a while to arrive as well. The drinks weren't cheap, but I guess they weren't too expensive. The food is what intrigues me, and I may go back for that, but based on track record, I should go fast, because Mamounia is not in a good spot.

It may also be spelled Mahmounia, I'm not certain.

(visited 4/16/4)