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The Return of Vessel: Folks, We Have a Location

“We’re going to do things no one’s ever done before,” says bar manager and owner Jim Romdall.

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Vessel’s new home

Photo: Google Maps

UPDATE: Okay, here’s another piece. Old Vessel owner Clark Niemeyer, who stayed aboard after co-owner Coleman Johnson quit dramatically in 2008, is returning as a partner, and will design the Olive Way space. Romdall still isn’t naming any bartenders.

When Vessel closed in December of last year, bar manager Jim Romdall was clear in his intentions to reinvent the fancy cocktail lounge at a new Seattle location.

It’s happening. In a phone call today, Romdall told me that a lease has been signed for 624 Olive Way (at Seventh Avenue) in the space that previously housed a Red Balloon Company store. The location has a storied past: It was home to the original El Gaucho—“part speakeasy and part…breakfast club,” according to El Gaucho’s website—first opened in 1953.

Romdall says the new Vessel has about twice the square footage as the old 1512 Fifth Avenue space, and will include a private dining room. Vessel’s much-remarked-upon austere interior will not be recreated at the new digs. The new bar will be “warmer,” says Romdall, “with a lot more wood and metal.”

The emphasis will remain on cocktails but there will be a “vastly expanded food program” that includes lunch. And Romdall has big promises: “We’re going to do things no one’s ever done before. When we opened five years ago we raised the bar in Seattle. We want to do that again.”

What are they going to do, exactly, that’s never been done before? Romdall, who is an owner and will manage the bar, won’t say yet. He also won’t name any partner(s), but promises he/she/they is (are) integral to the project’s originality.

Romdall is one of the first bartenders to make use of the Perlini Cocktail Carbonation System. Invented by Seattleite Evan Wallace and launched at Tales of the Cocktail this year, the Perlini system carbonates cocktails without diluting them.

Romdall says new Vessel will be open before the end of the year.

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Tags: Downtown, Bar Openings, Scoops and Exclusives

Drinking Holidays

Bastille Day Celebrations Around Seattle

Oh, happy francophiles. Food and drink specials abound next Thursday, July 14.

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On Thursday, Seattle honors French Independence by eating lots of frites.

Photo: Bastille via Facebook

Can you picture a bunch of Parisians standing around the Weber on the fourth of July eating Oscar Mayers and potato salad, stars and stripes decorating their plastic cups of macro-brewed Colorado lager?

Me neither. Only in America do we so zealously celebrate other nations’ independence days as if they were our own. It’s kind of cute, when you think about it.

Here in Seattle, we are particularly fond of Bastille Day, or La Fete Nationale as it’s called in France. What we do is crowd into French cafes and restaurants, which then feed us discounted food and plenty of alcoholic beverage.

This Thursday, July 14 is Bastille Day 2011. Here are places to party like it was your people that overpowered the famous prison in 1789, closing the doors on Louis the 16th and the whole Ancien Regime thing.

Bastille in Ballard is opening up its beer garden starting at 4:30pm on Thursday. Pints of Kronenbourg are $3 and there will be oysters, charcuterie, and wine for $5. I’ve also heard tell of a bocce ball tournament.

Meanwhile, in Pike Place Market, there is Cafe Campagne and its famously festive Bastille Day party. Five dollar food specials include garlic sausage sandwiches, brie or ham en baguette, and the cafe’s always-amazing fries with aioli.

Le Pichet’s party runs from 6pm to midnight on Thursday and will include live music from Le Quartet (7-9pm) and Bastille-Day stalwarts The Djangomatics (10pm-midnight). Again, Parisian street food is on the menu. That menu isn’t quite finalized but owner Jim Drohman says there will be sandwiches—pork shoulder and roasted pepper with sheep’s milk cheese among them—a pissaladiere, and sweet crepes. Sister restaurant Cafe Presse on the hill will operate as usual on Bastille Day—if you want the party, go downtown.

Luc in Madison Park has drink specials on Thursday: Lillet, pastis, and rose are $5 and wines from Vacqueyras in the southern Rhone are $6. Food specials include a honey-roasted duck breast, a salad Nicoise, and a strawberry shortcake.

Michael Mina’s Downtown sensation RN74 is currently running a Twitter promotion to get people amped on its Bastille Day celebration. If you tweet the following: “#BastilleDay party @rn74seattle on July 14 with awesome food and drink specials” you are eligible to win a free wine dinner. If you just want to go to the party, well, I hear there are going to be “awesome food and drink specials.”

Finally, ViaVita Café and Wine Bar in Bellevue is celebrating with a five-course meal—pate de lapin, coq au vin, etc. That’s $55, a $20 wine pairing is also available. Call 425-449-8917 to reserve.

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Tags: Bellevue, Downtown, Wine, Pike Place Market, Street Food, Food Events and Festivals, Ballard, Bastille Day, Downtown Seattle Restaurants

Happy Hour

Happy Hour News: Three HHs to Consider

Four dollar bites at Smith, the newish app menu at the Sorrento, and a $6 prawn cocktail (!) at a steakhouse chain downtown.

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Pisco sour at Smith.

1. After Dan Savage offered up the opinion on Friday’s SLOG that Smith should be listed among Food and Wine’s Top 100 American Bars based on its pisco sour alone, I thought: “This I gotta try.” Then I did.

The drink was totally respectable though it was a little more diluted than what’s optimal and could have been a bit more limey, for sure. That makes me sound like a jerk but remember, this was the grounds by which we were supposed to be selecting one of the Top Bars in America. And remember too that America is a very large country with an awful lots of bars. That said, it’s highly likely that most of those bars could not make a pisco sour anywhere near as pleasant as Smith’s.

While I was there, I noticed the happy hour menu of $4 bites served between 4 and 6pm. I don’t know about you, but these are exactly the sort of HH snacks I’m hoping to see on a menu: zucchini and English pea fritters with tzatziki, fried chickpeas with cumin and sea salt, radishes with homemade butter and baguette, marinated olives, and ricotta and white cherry crostini. It was too late to try them with my p-sour, but if they taste as good as they sound, I may have to second Savage’s nomination.

2. A few months back, the Hunt Club at the Sorrento changed its chef once more. With new dishes came a new happy hour menu available in the restaurant and the Fireside Room next door. HH is daily from 4 to 6pm and 10pm to close. Wines by the glass are half off, bottled beers are $3.50 and there’s a 30 percent discount on apps. I have tried the whole menu at this point and was most happy with the prime rib sliders—which are bigger than what’s typically considered a slider, piled high with slices of steak and rendered crunchy with a scattering of fried shallots. Those come three to a plate. The fried polenta is less delicious.

3. Finally, word comes today that the Capital Grille has changed up its happy hour. It’s from 3 to 6pm on weekdays in the restaurant’s lounge and features $6 wines by the glass, a $6 vodka cocktail, and $6 snacks: mini tenderloin sandwiches, calamari with peppers, prawn cocktail, miniature Lobster and dungeness crab burgers, and other things. A $6 prawn cocktail? This is something that will require investigation.

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Tags: Happy Hour, Downtown, Cocktails, Capitol Hill, First Hill

Happy Hour

Happy Hour In Seattle: Cheese Plate Edition

Five Seattle spots for getting stinky (in the best possible way) at HH.

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The cheese of La Mancha

Cheese is a food that makes you want it so bad, it has been compared—by scientists, no less—to morphine and heroin. In fact there was a heroin-based drug going around Texas a few years back that mixed the deadly narcotic with over-the-counter cold medicine. That drug’s street name? Cheese.

But unlike hard drugs, cheese is easy to consume in moderation. Especially during happy hour, when smaller sized samplings of the world’s best dairy products are doled out at a discount. Here are some of Seattle’s notable HH cheese platters. Consume with caution.

Tucked into a few narrow rooms of a Madrona bungalow, with white-washed walls and a chalkboard menu and the cutest owners—a very young couple who wouldn’t know pretension if it smacked them across the face with the last issue of Wine SpectatorBottlehouse is a total charmer. During a daily happy hour from 5 to 7pm, cheeses are $3.50 per ounce or $10 for three. On offer: fleur d’aunis, a lovely semi-soft with a distinctive nutty flavor; a Gouda-style goat cheese; and the decadent Pierre Robert triple-creme.

I like to pop into Fonte from time to time after work and order up the $6 cheese plate during the daily HH from 5 to 6:30pm. It’s chef’s choice but often includes one of my favorite cheeses, tomme de savoie, plus a healthy hunk of funky blue. It comes with a few slices of bread and, for garnish, golden raisins, cranberries, Marcona almonds, and two mild peppers.

Toulouse Petit has seven cheeses on the HH menu from France, Switzerland, and, in the case of saveur du maquis, Corsica. Saveur du maquis is a sheep’s milk cheese with a rind coated in herbs like rosemary and juniper along with maquis, an aromatic plant indigenous to the storied island where it is manufactured. Amazing. These cheeses are three for $7.50 or five for $12 during happy hour.

I have a theory that the powers that be at Maximilien assign servers to the happy hour shift upstairs as punishment for serving the potage in the wrong bowl or something. In any case they are often in a bad mood, acting every bit the surly French waiters of legend. Such abuse is endured in order to get a nibble of the assiette de fromages, a selection of French cheese arranged on a platter like numbers on a clock face. This generous treat is just $7 during happy hour—5 to 7pm on weekdays and Saturdays from 8 to 10pm.

When I lived in Spain I was tasked, by the university I “attended,” to read Don Quijote in Spanish. That took me nearly all of my six-month stay there (long book, foreign language, cocktails to drink) but when I did hand in my final paper—which I’m sure was a fascinating read indeed—some friends took me to La Mancha to celebrate. I came back to Madrid with a tiny ceramic windmill and a big barny hunk of Manchego. The sweet memory of that cheese I relive at Lecosho, where Manchego is drizzled with honey, accessorized by Marconas, and sold for $7 during HH. Spring for a demi-baguette of Columbia City bread for $3 more.

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Tags: Happy Hour, Lower Queen Anne, Downtown, Madrona, Cheese, Seattle Happy Hours

Drinkboy’s Robert Hess at Suite 410 Cocktail Lounge; Dusted Valley at Poco Wine Room

This Thursday, January 20: Two drinking events for your consideration.

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Robert Hess stops by Suite 410 on Thursday.

Remember Suite 410 on Stewart Street? It reopened last summer under new ownership, and there are some good people there trying to do some good stuff there. Could I be more specific? Yes, but I want to encourage you to go over there and talk to the bartenders. They’ll win you over.

On Thursday, January 20, Seattle’s own Robert Hess—a true cocktail luminary and the guy behind DrinkBoy and other boozy projects—stops by. You can pick up a signed copy of his book, The Essential Bartender’s Guide, for $10 and talk to him about how to make your mixed drinks much better.

The event is free, includes light appetizers, and begins at 6pm.

Also this Thursday, Poco Wine Room is hosting a tasting with one of my favorite Washington wineries, Dusted Valley Vintners. That costs $10 and lasts from 6 to 9pm. Dusted Valley owner Chad Johnson will be there to pour and chat.

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Tags: Downtown, Cocktails, Capitol Hill, Wine Tastings, Drinking Events, Free Food, Seattle Drinking Scene

Behind the Bar

Five Questions for the Bartender: Michael Kostin

“It is never a good idea to throw anything at a bartender,” cautions the man behind the stick at Naga Lounge.

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Michael Kostin on the job.

Photo: Ari Shapiro of Dauber Art Photography

Michael Kostin’s first restaurant job—which he secured at age 16—was as a dishwasher at a Bellevue restaurant. The next year he joined the navy and became a nuclear chemist on a submarine stationed out of Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.

“Even while I was in the Navy, I worked part time in restaurants and bars,” says Kostin. " I got out in 1995, and decided to stay in Hawaii."

Kostin became a fulltime bartender in 2000; in ’06 he moved back to Washington to be closer to family. He now lives in Bellevue and splits his shifts between Naga Lounge and Taste in the Seattle Art Museum.

Here are five questions for him.

What is the most underrated spirit?

Cachaca is a very misunderstood and underutilized spirit in most bars, if they have it at all. Brandies—brandy, cognac, Armagnac, and pisco —are underrated as well.

What’s your favorite Seattle bar (other than Naga and Taste)?

At the risk of being cliche, I have to say Zig Zag. Zig Zag is the reason I made the crossover from being a high-volume bartender to becoming a craft bartender.

I spent many nights sitting in front of Murray’s well watching him work and asking him questions about the drinks he was making and the spirits he was using to make them. The staff at Zig Zag is a big part of the reason I was able to earn a bartending position at Naga.

Other Seattle bars that I like: Little Red Bistro, Liberty, Rob Roy, Sambar, Moshi Moshi, Spur, Tavern Law/Needle and Thread, and Vessel (before it closed).

What drink do you order at that bar?

I tend to pick a base spirit and have the bartenders just make me something, or I go with a bartender’s choice.

What’s the worst thing you’ve ever seen someone do in a bar?

The worst thing I have ever seen someone do in a bar is throw a beer bottle or a glass at a bartender “to get their attention”. It is never a good idea to throw anything at a bartender for any reason, and it is the quickest way to get cut off and thrown out of a bar.

Name three reasons you live in Seattle.

The cocktail and food scene. Although I loved living in Hawaii, I knew I had to leave to further my bartending career beyond the high-volume bartending I was doing. Seattle has a thriving and vibrant cocktail and food scene. Plus, being in Seattle puts me in close proximity to other great cocktail and food cities like Portland, Vancouver BC, San Francisco, and Los Angeles.

I am a city person. I lived in Olympia for four years when I moved to Washington, it was too small of a town for me.

The sense of community among the craft bartenders of Seattle. I can’t put into words how great it feels to be accepted into the bartending community of Seattle. It is something I have not experienced before among bartenders.

Visit Michael Kostin all day Saturday and Monday at Naga Cocktail Lounge, and during occasional fill-in shifts on Wednesdays. He works brunch at Taste in the Seattle Art Museum on Sundays, and is also there Tuesday for lunch.

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Tags: Bellevue, Downtown, Behind the bar, Five Questions for the Bartender, Seattle Bartenders, Cachaca, Brandy

Better Boozing 2011

Glenlivet Tasting: Five Single Malts And Snacks for $30

Sign up for scotch school next Monday at the Alexis.

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The Bookstore Bar at the Alexis hosts a scotch tasting on Monday, January 17.

From time to time the Alexis Hotel hosts vertical scotch tastings led by a brand ambassador from one of the major scotch companies. The price is $30; this buys you a chance to sample five scotches plus snacks, which tend towards the ample.

On Monday, January 17—Martin Luther King Day—Rick Edwards of Glenlivet will do the honors, pouring five single malts aged between 12 and 21 years. Prepare to leave the tasting with a mild buzz and a rudimentary understanding of Scotland’s whiskey-making regions and processes.

The two-hour tasting begins at 7pm, call the Bookstore Bar to reserve.

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Tags: Downtown, Tastings and Classes, Scotch

Happy Hour Of the Week

Happy Hour Of The Week: Lecosho

Matt Janke’s Harbor Steps happy hour is a hit.

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The bar gets pretty packed during early HH at Lecosho.

HOURS: Mon-Fri 3-6pm. Sun-Thurs 10pm-1am. Friday-Sat 11pm-1am.
PRICES: $4 Select Wines. $3 Drafts. $5 Cocktails. Food $3-$14.

Matt Janke (creator of Matt’s in the Market, now under different ownership) opened Lecosho this fall on a shadowy landing midway down the Harbor Steps.

I’ll admit, I worried.

The recession has not been kind to Downtown Seattle, and the Harbor Steps don’t seem to offer much in the way of restaurant-friendly street traffic. Unless you’re a Crossfit client who pays a lady to make you run up and down stairs during your lunch hour, the Steps are for coming and going, not coming and staying. The sushi restaurant that preceded Lecosho, for instance, was a mess—often 9/10ths vacant even during the midday rush and emanating a vibe of decay (not a good look for a place trafficking in raw fish).

Oh me of little faith. Matt’s under Janke was about as bustling as a restaurant can be, and with Lecosho he has created something similarly magnetic. Just try to get a seat for happy hour on any given evening around 5pm. It isn’t easy.

“Food we like,” is the motto here. But it’s food everybody likes—even kids, whom Lecosho is big enough, noisy enough, and relaxed enough to accommodate comfortably. Decor is simple—dark wood, light walls—but not so austerely plain as to elicit that bone-rattling chill you get at restaurants that take their food a touch too seriously, a chill known to run through nearby establishments both existent and defunct.

But about that happy hour. Early HH is served from 3 to 6pm daily to those seated on stools along its long, mirrored (watch yourself eat!) bar and a smattering of tables near the front. It includes, among its many little wonders, Chef Mike Easton’s espresso-rubbed short ribs with picked beets ($7). The bartender will wisely suggest pairing those with spaetzle ($5) that has been fatted up with brown butter and sprinkled in pecorino romano. These, along with a glass of the house red ($4), are all you need on a wet winter Tuesday to make life seem like a good thing once more.

The steamed clams in a chili beer broth could maybe use a little more heat, but still make for a rich, warming match with an order of Columbia City baguette that comes with butter and an olive relish ($3). Lecosho’s salads tend towards the substantial, and a soft-boiled egg lends satisfying protein to the house greens ($5) on the HH menu. If you like your salads lightly dressed let your server know, otherwise expect a liberal dose.

Great values, good views, everything done smartly. That’s Lecosho, now offering one of the best happy hours in town.

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Tags: Downtown, Happy Hour of the Week

Vessel Closes at Fifth Avenue Location….Plans For a New Bar Are Under Way

The Downtown cocktail lounge will serve its last drink on Thursday, December 23.

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Vessel closes.

Downtown cocktail lounge Vessel, the Fifth Avenue bar often admired and discussed on this blog, will serve its last cocktail on Thursday, December 23.

“Long story short: lease issues,” wrote Jim Romdall, bar manager, on his Facebook page. Romdall gathered friends and colleagues of the bar together on Sunday, December 19th to share the news. “We are very close to securing a new space to reopen with, and the new concept is very exciting.”

Over the past few years, Vessel has been the training site for some of the city’s best and brightest bartenders.

I am very excited to learn what’s on the horizon. I’ll speak to Romdall as soon as possible and update with details.

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Tags: Downtown, Closings, Vessel, Bar Openings

The Best of the Drinky Halloween Happenings

Two adult events where you can get spooked on spirits (and a little Halloween math).

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This is Kim Kardashian dressed up as Wonder Woman. She doesn’t drink.

Let’s face facts. If you’re old enough to be in a bar, you’re old enough to know that Halloween is a holiday that can be hard to pull off.

For the great majority of us, the Halloween math works like this.

Human older than 23 + lots and lots of drinks + costume=massive cringefest.

There are exceptions. Some people are just awesome, and do the whole drunken, dressed-as-a-nun deal with roguishly charming aplomb. It’s true. It’s also true that some people subsist on Lucky Strikes and pork-and-Klonopin sandwiches but live until they are 85. Statistically speaking, you and I are unlikely to be among those people. So we are left with a choice. We can either dress up and watch our drinking (admittedly, the healthier and safer choice anyway), or we can have a few cocktails in our street clothes and just avoid the Halloween pitfalls altogether. If you’re awesome and you can pull off all three, more power to you. Just please don’t drive.

Okay, PSA over. Here are two Halloween happenings that seem pretty fun.

Belltown’s Spur is planning an iconic Halloween party—you come dressed as your favorite icon to compete for prizes. All-night happy hour includes drink specials from spirit sponsors to sweeten the deal. This party starts at 7pm on Sunday, October 31 and ends at 1:30am. The prizes haven’t been announced yet.

Boka created two Halloween cocktail specials. You can order them, along with food, during the free scary movie series at the adjoining Hotel 1000. There is a spiced pumpkin martini, some people like those. But the one that sounds potentially tasty to me is the Ghostly Cocktail. Its Pernod, St. Germain, white rum, white cranberry juice, and lemon sour.

On October 29 the movie is The Shining, or Saturday, October 30 it’s Psycho, and on Sunday, October 31 it’s Halloween. Showtimes are 7pm and 9 pm.

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Tags: Downtown, Belltown, Movies, Halloween

Vessel Turns Four, Throws a Party

Bartending alums return to the downtown lounge this Monday to make you drinks.

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Vessel bartending alums reconvene at the downtown lounge this Monday.

Vessel is only four years old, but its significance to recent Seattle cocktail history cannot be overstated.

Vessel lured Jamie Boudreau down from Canada—he soon became our city’s most recognized bartender, not counting Murray. (We may not always appreciate, here in town, how famous Boudreau is. I’ve seen his name and recipes on cocktail blogs from all over the country, but I think I really got it when I was at Tales of the Cocktail in New Orleans and two young bartenders spotted him walking by. “Is that Jamie Boudreau?” one whispered, awestruck. And then they, like, gawked at him. It was pretty ridiculous, but also impressive.)

Other Vessel alums include Zane Harris and Anu Apte, who moved on to open Rob Roy in Belltown, giving cocktails lovers a new spot to sip good drinks. Andrew Bohrer, who makes much written-about drinks at Mistralkitchen, brought the Japanese ice-carving techniques he learned in Japan to Vessel before moving to Naga Lounge in Bellevue and putting that bar on the crafty concoctions map. Keith Waldbauer, who now co-owns Liberty Bar on Capitol Hill, also did time at the downtown lounge.

On Monday, October 25, all of these bartenders will reunite at Vessel with manager Jim Romdall to mix drinks in celebration of the lounge’s fourth anniversary. And you are invited.

The party begins at 6pm.

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Tags: Downtown, Cocktails, Seattle Bartenders, Drinking Events, Vessel

Happy Hour

Happy Hour of the Week: Sullivan’s Steakhouse

At the bar in Sullivan’s Steakhouse, you kind of can’t help but get comfortable.

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Smoked salmon flatbread from Sullivan’s bar menu.

It’s happy hour at the lounge inside Sullivan’s Steakhouse, and I feel like I’ve teleported to Chicago. The long bar is all shiny wood and mirrors; it’s packed with people smiling at each other, talking more loudly than Seattleites usually do. The women have blonde highlights and rosy cheeks and they’re wearing muted-tone separates from Banana Republic. Any gaps in conversation are caulked with the jaunty jazz standards someone is playing on a baby grand, and perky servers come bearing dense wines served in glass fishbowls balanced on skinny stems.

Sullivan’s is a chain restaurant—it shares a parent company with Del Frisco’s, a well-known fleet of steakhouses that spans the country—but it doesn’t have the Truman Show quality that its downtown chain brethren tend to have. The service is friendly but not creepily so, the food does the trick, and the booths are cozy. It’s fun to drink there. Sullivan’s is like some dude your college-age cousin brings to the family reunion, a guy who looks kind of fratty but turns out to be hilarious and winningly attentive towards the old folks. You punch this guy lightly on the shoulder after a few beers, the words “You’re all right, Sully” implied in the gesture of mock truculence. This pleases your young cousin.

But warm fuzzy feelings aside, remembering Sullivan’s happy hour specials is dang near impossible. That’s because they change every day of the week. Only one thing remains consistent: if it’s happy hour, then two items from the bar menu—blue cheese chips and blue cheese meatballs—are $5. Below I attempt to explain the rest.

The late-night happy hour happens every day from 10pm to 2am. In addition to the chips and the meatballs, the following things are $5: draft beers, well drinks, and select sushi rolls.

The early HH runs from 3pm to 7pm on weekdays. Do I need to say again that blue cheese chips and meatballs are $5? They are. On Mondays well drinks are also $5, on Tuesday it’s $6 for select wine, champagne, and champagne cocktails. On Wednesday draft beers are $5, and on Friday specialty martinis are $5.

But Thursday is the day to go, because there’s live music and HH runs all night. Most of the items on the bar menu—including the hamburger—are $5, as are specialty martinis and house wines. This too pleases your young cousin.

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Tags: Happy Hour, Downtown, Happy Hour of the Week

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