Bar-Bar: The People's Pub / The Stepping Stone

In my case, this was more like a walk home from the pub, since I was already in the 'Lard having spent much of the day helping my Mom pack for her upcoming move.

Met Wil at the park, then walked over to the People's Pub -- a German-themed pub on Ballard Avenue. The front door was open and th sign was out, but the pub was empty except for a guy watching the Mariners game on a silent television. 

We bellied up to the bar, peeked at the menu, and waited a couple of minutes until our batman returned. The beer selection wasn't huge, but included some interesting German beers on tap, along with some local craft beers and a cider. 

Even more interesting was the food menu, with German specialties including kasespaetzle (So good! So cheesy!) and very nice pretzels. 

We liked this very quiet spot, their food, and their beer / cider selection. 

Then we went for round two at The Stepping Stone, an interesting little local. There was no room at the bar, but se settled into one of the three booths. It was nice to see that the clientele were older people (60+) all talking pretty quietly. 

The menu offered sandwiches and snacks, including a "Sloppy Sven", an homage to the old Viking bar. We decided to try the nachos... but shortly after ordering them, we realized they didn't have a kitchen, and the bartender was making them in a paper basket in a microwave behind the bar. Hmm. When they arrived they were just okay... tons of salsa and sour cream, not quite enough cheese, and stale chips. Not good value for $7; but I should have noticed that NO ONE in the bar had food of any sort. 

Highligh of the bar was the decor; a collection of thrift store finds including velvet paintings, sad clowns, paint by number animals, and this beauty:

We decided that -- bad art aside -- that thiss was the first disappointment in our project. I suppose we should feel happy about that. 

The People's Pub

5429 Ballard Ave NW

Seattle, WA

http://www.peoplespub.com/site/home

The Stepping Stone

5903 24th Ave NW

Seattle, WA

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A new project ...

A couple of weeks ago, when trying to decide where to go for a walk, I did a little Google Mapping. Somewhat arbitrarily choosing a 3-mile radius from Camp Wil-Sun, I searched for bars. Then taverns. Then pubs. Then breweries. And suddenly we had a list of more than 100 bars within that three miles, give or take a few hundred yards.

This blog is designed to capture our "A Walk to the Pub" project -- where we're walking to, and what we things.

We're not beer aficionados, nor are we particularly serious barflies. But we like having a destination at the end of our walk ... so this seems to make sense.

Rooftop Brewing

For our second Walk to the Pub, we ventured across the Ballard Bridge to Rooftop Brewing. First and foremost, it is unpleasant to walk across the Ballard Bridge -- a narrow walkway, traffic streaming by,  bikes zooming up behind ... etc.

And then, of course, trying to figure out where pedestrians are supposed to go without walking in the road ... well, we did some serious cross-dirt trekking, climbed over a road barrier, and dashed across a blind curve. Whee.

But then we found Rooftop Brewing ... which was RAMMED because they were having a special event linking a comic book called "Stargazer" with their beer called "Stargazer"... we waited quite a while to get our pints, then made our way to the outdoor deck and found a small space to perch where we could stand in the sun. Food truck outside, lots of folks and dogs crowded into the space. It felt like the perfect spot to go on a weekend afternoon...

I was completely intrigued by this well-used patio heater; the warping and the colors ...

Verdict: I'd try Rooftop Brewing again, but wish we could magically cross the Ballard Bridge...  but then again, we wouldn't be walking ...

Rooftop Brewing
1220 W Nickerson Street
Seattle, WA 98119
http://rooftopbrewco.com

Park Pub

We decided that we should focus on pubs that we had never visited, so started with a trip to the Park Pub on a quiet Monday night.

The walk was nice -- we didn't go straight up the hill to Phinney Ridge, but instead meandered through the 'hood.

The pub was about half full, with groups of people talking quietly. We found a table in a corner, ordered a couple of pints as well as a black bean burger. The menu wasn't huge -- burgers and salads, mainly -- but the food was well presented and tasty. We also noticed that there's a good-looking brunch menu as well. One drawback, as far as we're concerned: they're "family friendly" ... but that's what some folks want, so there you go.

The staff was friendly, checking in on us with just the right frequency. Odd customer story: we witnessed a group of adults who all seemed to be trying not to pay their share of a tab.... ("well, *I* didn't order the fries ..."; "umm, were you going to chip in for my burger since you had half?"; etc.) and leaving very little tip.

The walls of the inside of the women's restroom featured a collection of old Life magazine covers, I was particularly fond of this one:

(can you imagine? "Prettiest U.S. Schoolteacher")

I'm not sure we should be EATING during our these walks ... I think we should establish that we have a drink and possibly share an appetizer ... but we have a long way to go.


The Park Pub
6114 Phinney Ave N
Seattle, WA 98103
http://theparkpub.com

Let's go take a walk ...

We like to go for walks. Wandering around the neighborhood in the early evening, maybe running an errand on foot, maybe walking to the lookout, maybe walking to the record shop ...

Having a destination -- a purpose -- always makes the walks seem more, well, more useful. But we don't really need to walk to the record store more than once a week, sometimes we don't want to just meander, and sometimes the 4 miles to the lookout and back just seems too much. 

So we decided to combine the two... by planning a walk to a pub. But which pub? I sat down with Google maps centered on our house and searched for "pub" within a roughly 3-mile radius as the crow flies from Camp Wil-Sun. Sure, we had been to a lot of them. But we hadn't been to even more of them. Add in "bar" and "brewery" and "tavern" and "taproom" and suddenly, we had a LOT of locations. Even after editing out places that are restaurants first but have a bar inside, we still had over one hundred locations. Within three miles, give or take a few hundred yards. Of our house. 

Clearly, this was a project to be reckoned with. 

And if there's a project, there must be a blog. So here it is. This blog will capture our "A Walk to the Pub" project -- where we have walked to, and what we thought about what we found there.

Look, we're not beer aficionados, nor are we particularly serious barflies. But we like having a destination at the end of our walk ... so this seems to make sense.