Sauced

Party Watch: End of (Belltown) Days for Local Vine Wine Bar

This Saturday: the wine will get cheap as the night goes on.

Posted by: Jessica Voelker on Jul 27, 2010 at 04:52PM 0 Comments

Enter to win this three-digit bottle for five bucks.

As you may know, The Local Vine is moving to the Trace Lofts building on Capitol Hill. (Didn’t know? Back story here. )

Nice digs. But before it makes this move, the wine bar will have a party at its current location in Belltown to commemorate its final day there. That day is Saturday, July 31.

Enticements: $5 raffle tickets to win a 1999 Dom Perignon (yowsa) and a 30 percent discount on wine all day with the promise of bigger price cuts later in the night. Plus if you spend more than $50, you get a free Local Vine t-shirt, which I’m sure your little sister will love to receive as a birthday present this year. (I’m just kidding, that’s not an appropriate present for your sibling’s birthday. Win her that Dom Perignon, man.)

The festivities kick off at 7pm.

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Tags: Wine, Parties, Wine Bars

Wine Bar Happy Hours

Five HHs to hit up for cheapy snacks and by-the-glass bargains.

Posted by: Jessica Voelker on Jul 12, 2010 at 03:06PM 8 Comments

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Belltown’s bare-bones charmer Clever Bottle hosts happy hour daily from 5 to 7pm. There are $5 wine/champagne cocktails, $3 beers on draft, $4 house reds and whites, and $4 food specials (cheese or charcuterie platter).

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As names go, Sip at the Wine Bar and Restaurant is way too long, and Sip’s happy hour is too complicated.

But there are deals to be had.

From Monday through Friday HH goes from 1pm to 6:30pm and again from 9pm to close. All wines by the glass are half price and well drinks are $5. If you are a woman, however, you get to drink at the happy hour price all night long on Thursdays.

On Saturday, HH is 4:30 to 6:30pm and again from 9 to close; and on Sunday it’s from 4:30 to close.

Additionally on Sunday, there are small plate specials for $5 all evening long. Think sirloin sliders, teriyaki skewers, a hummus platter, and garlic fries.

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Happy hour at Poco Wine Room is from 5 to 6:30pm daily. Each glass is $2 off, each bottle $8 off, and you can take what you don’t drink home.

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Bricco della Regina Anna isanother wine bar with a long and complicated name. I don’t think it’s overly familiar to just call it “Bricco,” do you?

Or we could just call it the cheap-eats wine-bar jackpot. Food specials for $3 (for bruschetta), $4 (for a bibb lettuce salad or grilled cheese with fontina), and $5 (for a panino or truffled mac and cheese).

A rotating selection of reds and whites are $5 a glass, beers and wells are $4. Early HH runs daily from 4:30-6:30pm. Late night HH is 10-11pm Monday through Thursday; 11pm-1am on Friday and Saturday.

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Grand Cru in Downtown Bellevue has a generous happy hour too—it’s all night Monday and on Tuesday through Saturday from 4 to 6pm and features $4 and $5 small plates—mushroom ricotta crepes, truffled popcorn, and Thai Dungeness crab cakes are all on offer.

To be considered truly worthy, one of the following two things must be true of a wine bar happy hour:

1. It offers good deals on good wines—half price on all by-the-glass options, for example.

2. It provides discounted but delicious snacks to pack into the mouth while sipping good wine.

It goes without saying that a wine bar HH at which both 1. and 2. are both true is a rare and astonishing thing. There are more astonishing things, I suppose, but still. It’s good.

Hungry for miniature meat sandwiches while you sniff the gassy bouquet of your riesling? Perhaps you’d like a little skewered something or truffled whatnot? You know you are, you know you do.

Here are five happy hours for you.

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Tags: Happy Hour, Wine Bars

In the Red Wine Bar is Giving Away Food on Saturday

The new Phinney Ridge wine bar will serve you free snacks and $3 wine at its soft opening this weekend.

Posted by: Jessica Voelker on Jun 25, 2010 at 01:10PM 0 Comments

Oh boy. I can already imagine the clog-clad Phinney Ridgers climbing onto In the Red’s couch with a cup of herbal tea and and a copy of the Utne Reader.

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Oh boy. I can already imagine the clog-clad Phinney Ridgers climbing onto In the Red’s couch with a cup of herbal tea and and a copy of the Utne Reader.

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I think that’s eggplant. Anyway, it’s one of the bruschettas you can try at the soft opening on Saturday.

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I’m going to look past the presence of dried apricots and deem this one nicely designed cheese plate.

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Hello there my long-legged friend. I see from your knee bruises you’ve been knocking up against straight-lined bars again. Can’t something be done about this problem?

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You can argue against prosciutto and melon lollypops, but let’s face it, you’ll probably lose.

Back in February, when I first spoke to Chad Campbell and Brian Folino about their new coffee-shop-and-wine-bar-all-in-one project, they hoped to open in March.

As it turns out, Campbell told me today, In the Red didn’t even get its permits until the beginning of March. Then other stuff happened. Now, however, they are for realz opening. They’ll be serving up espresso starting Monday, June 28 at 6:30am.

But on Saturday, June 26, the coffeeshop/cafe will be hosting a soft opening for neighborhood folks. You too are invited. Go by ’round 6pm and you can sample the $5 wines from the menu for the one-day-only price of $3 (draught beers will also be $3). Appetizers, meanwhile—bruschetta, cheese with dried fruit, other things—are free.

Yashar Shayan, sommelier and Seattle social-media butterfly, created the list of wines by the glass, all $5 or $8. There are three sparklers: a cava, a French rose, and Lamarca prosecco. Two Calis and three Northwesterners make up the whites; the nine reds include two Euros and an Aussie, some more Calis, a few Washingtons, and, for good measure, a pinot noir from Oregon (Montinore).

The snacks you’ll taste are the creations of consulting chef Brian Wren.

The slideshow features apps served at In the Red’s first preview last night.

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Tags: Wine, Wine Bars

New Bar Roundup

A cocktail lounge, a wine bar, a pinball pub that self-identifies as a dive, and another cocktail lounge.

Posted by: Jessica Voelker on Apr 06, 2010 at 01:29PM 0 Comments

Wizard

We begin downtown with The Diller Room, the cocktail lounge inside Stella coffee house at the corner of First and University.

The Diller Room’s happy hour scores big points for lasting from 5 to 8pm and featuring $5 snacks (including two kinds of slider—monte cristo and BLT), and $3 wells and drafts. Billing yourself as a cocktail lounge and then brandishing a Bacardi logo on your web site is dubious practice, this fact does not escape me. But the Diller Room is actually quite cool and I’m happy enough with the happy hour that I can let it go.

Moving up towards the market there is ths new-ish wine bar 106 Pine, owned by the people who brought us the neighboring Chocolate Box and managed by the very knowledgeable Shannon Borg. 106 Pine has tasting events every Thursday. Next up on April 8 from 5-7pm, a rep from Woodinville’s Cru Selections will be pouring wines from Hestia, Guardian, and Cullin Hills.

Meanwhile, Wallingford’s 45th Street has welcomed a very techie-friendly new pinball bar called The Grizzled Wizard. Happy hour here starts at 4pm and also lasts until 8pm every day—I’m seeing a trend and I’m liking what I see. Right now the GW is doing ye olde frozen-dinner-as-food-menu trick, but promises bbq and tacos in the future.

Finally, Pour House, in the area of Greenlake some people call Tangletown, opened in Mid-March and has two sections—a cocktail lounge for adults only, and an all-ages dining room for families. Pour House has a $5 food menu offered from 4 to 6pm and again from 10 to close. This menu features no less than three types of slider: hamburger, portabello mushroom, and Jamaican jerk chicken.

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Tags: Downtown, Cocktails, Pike Place Market, Wallingford, Wine Bars, Dives, Greenlake

It’s Monday, It’s All-Night Happy Hour at Gainsbourg

Wells for $3, PBR for $1.50….

Posted by: Jessica Voelker on Mar 22, 2010 at 03:24PM 0 Comments

Happy times at Gainsbourg. Photo: Jenny Jimenez

If you live up there in Greenwood, you know Gainsbourg, and may even know about its Monday evening policy: happy hour all night long. Well drinks are $3, fancier cocktails are discounted $2, PBR sells for $1.50, and there is $1 discount on all food and wine. There is also a sidewalk patio outside and, typically, good music inside.

If you don’t live up there in Greenwood, go check out Gainsbourg tonight. It’s a real-deal neighborhood bar, and you will have fun there.

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Tags: Happy Hour, Wine Bars, Greenwood

Happy Hour Spotlight: Jerzy’s Wine Bar in Redmond

Croque monsieur sliders. What else is there to say, really?

Posted by: Jessica Voelker on Mar 11, 2010 at 10:32AM 1 Comments

Headed out to Redmond yesterday and what did I happen upon while lost amongst the strip malls of Redmond Way? Jerzy’s Wine Bar and Bistro, a little wine-bar-in-a-house nestled improbably, adorably between shopping centers. Spotting it, I did a dangerous left turn into a nearby parking lot and crept over to investigate.

As I skulked around the red shingled house to a sweet little patio area near the entrance, a goatee’d man pulled up on a bicycle and we got to chatting. There was a language barrier, but I gathered he was an employee, and soon enough the owner came out and joined us. I was soon invited inside, where I found a cozy little barroom with bottle-lined shelves and curlicue ironwork and one blue wall and a lot of other randomness that all somehow added up to something good, to somewhere you’d want to spend a little time.

Happy hour at Jerzy’s runs Monday through Saturday from 5 to 7pm (the bar is closed Sundays). There are $5 reds and white, five different types of bruschetta, croque monsieur sliders, and various “tapas” (olives and whatnot). Jerzy’s also has a very nice lunch deal: soup or salad, entrée, and a glass of wine for $8.

My Redmond go-to happy hour has always been the Matador, but now I think I might be hitting up Jerzy’s. Croque monsieur sliders? Come on now. Wonder what other HH gems are hiding out there in Microsoft land….

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Tags: Happy Hour, Lunch, Wine Bars, Redmond

Happy Hour Changes at Grand Cru and Fonte

New HH wines and foods Downtown and in Bellevue.

Posted by: Jessica Voelker on Mar 04, 2010 at 08:47AM 0 Comments

Happy hour at Grand Cru wine bar in Bellevue is all night long on Mondays. Tuesday through Saturday it runs from 4 to 6pm, luring Eastsiders with half-price wines by the glass and half-price foods from the dinner menu.

The wine bar has added four new dishes to the HH menu: Thai-style Dungeness crab cakes, red curry steamed Penn Cove mussels, a salmon pate, and a Tuscan white bean dip. There are also snackies like feta dip and a crostini trio, prices range from $3 to about $8.

Downtown, Fonte’s happy hour has changed as well. The coffee shop/wine bar used to offer “sommelier’s choice” wines—one red, one white—for $3, now it is charging half price for the entire wine list. This is a great development, in my humble opinion, this chance to try a lot of new wines at a discount. All draft beers are now $3 during HH, and some of the prices on food have changed too: The spicy lamb sliders, always a solid choice at Fonte, are now $5 instead of $3. That was a little too good to last, I suppose.

The HH runs Fridays and Saturdays from 5 to 6:30pm and again from 9 to 10pm, and Sunday through Thursday from 5 to 6:30pm and 8 to 9pm. That’s a little tricky to remember, but you can always get one of those happy hour iPhone/Android apps designed by competing local alt weeklies. The question is: which one?

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Tags: Happy Hour, Bellevue, Downtown, Wine, Wine Bars