Luau Throws Avocado on BLTs, Gets Happy for Six Hours

$5 piña coladas and mai tais elevate the experience of drinking away the day indoors.

Consider the BLT: so spartan, so delicious, so unafraid to feature fatty strips of taboo. Now consider how one might improve upon such a lofty achievement: specifically, by adding avocado. The squishy green fruit (or is it a nut?) plays a perfect supporting role—the Scottie Pippen to the bacon’s Michael Jordan, the Sammy to its Sinatra. And where might you find a sublime BLTA? Luau Polynesian Lounge, home to both “Salvador’s Special BLTA” ($5) and “Seattle’s Longest Happy Hour.” From noon to six every damn day, after the lanai is hosed down and the blinds are drawn up to smear sun across the bamboo bar, $5 piña coladas and mai tais elevate the experience of drinking away the day indoors from something drunken vagabonds do to something you could see yourself doing regularly. Still hungover from the prior night’s damage? Try the $6.95 Locomoco, an island-inspired, everything-and-the-kitchen-cupboard mash-up of eggs, rice, hamburger, and gravy. If nursing your rum cocktail still leaves you bored out of your mind, Tony or Thomas can fire up any number of frat-pack DVDs on the plasma screen above the kitchen. While that’s all good, the real reason to visit Luau during the day is to gaze upon the Polaroids assembled on the corkboard near the lanai entrance. There, you will see rare photos of “the Garys,” Busey and Payton, in varying states of inebriation.