Seattle’s Endangered Tavern Tour: A Near-Death Experience

Doc's Pilchuck Tavern is situated on the banks of the Pilchuck River in Machias, a small Snohomish County town of about 1,000 where plodding tractors still create nine-car backups on a country road, and those impacted don't bother honking. With a gravel parking lot out front and an unassuming facade, Doc's serves only beer and wine at its carved-wood bar, but mostly just beer. The walls of the tavern's bathrooms are covered in adult-magazine centerfolds, the ladies' room a shrine to the male member. Outside, a chain-link fence separates Doc's rectangular patio from the river and a flock of large geese, and an old black cat with leopard-print eyeballs (not fur, eyeballs) enjoys a sun break on a partly drizzly Saturday afternoon.

On the patio sits a table of half a dozen leathery regulars, pissing the day away, beer by beer, joke by joke. One of these individuals is a skinny man with sky-blue eyes named Ronnie, who begins shuttling kindling over to a fire pit in the middle of the concrete area. In a couple of hours, Ronnie says, a jump jazz band will set up its instruments next to a big-screen television that is currently airing a Pac-10 football game. Ronnie claims it's about the best jump jazz band anyone will ever see, and all but insists that we stay for another pitcher or four.

Every New Year's, Doc's sponsors a polar bear swim in the river. Until his recent death, Seattle's favorite pro sports cheerleader, Bill "the Beerman" Scott, was a regular participant in the event, and would drop by Doc's whenever he could, despite the fact that he lived near the city. Ronnie's eyes well up when he talks about Scott.

Doc's is said to have been former Congressman Al Swift's favorite place on earth. Evidently, the same went for Bill the Beerman. For some people, a place like Doc's is the true American idyll.

As strictly defined, there is but one absolute in a tavern, and it's a prohibition: no hard booze. Throughout the 20th century, that was fine. Rooted in Rainier and then Red Hook, Seattle had come to be regarded as the microbrew capital of the world; its barkeeps were long content to abide by restrictive state liquor laws requiring that establishments that wished to serve hard booze also sell a significant amount of chow. At one point, the law required a 70-30 food-to-drink sales ratio, a standard that's been softened into oblivion over time.

To wit, since a relaxation of standards that began with state legislation enacted in 1997, and which has continued in recent years through subsequent Liquor Control Board maneuvers, Washington has adopted a laissez-faire approach to hard booze—and turned its back on beer. Nowhere has this tectonic shift been felt more poignantly than within the Seattle city limits, where a mere 40 taverns are still in operation, down from a tally of 161 in 1997. By contrast, the number of full liquor licenses has skyrocketed from 474 in 1997 to a current total of 830, thanks in part to a state-sanctioned loophole that defines overpriced TV dinners as "meals" and microwaves as "kitchens." In fact, whereas not too long ago a full booze license was considered a premium commodity, it's gotten so easy to obtain that a given establishment basically has to have a reason not to stock fifths of vodka behind the bar.

CHUGGING AT THE TUG

The Tug Tavern in West Seattle is one of these final 40. Aside from having a great moniker that nostalgically suggests Seattle's maritime heritage, the Tug has a clientele that remains largely a mirror of the working-class South Delridge neighborhood it calls home. On a Friday night, shortly after 11, a dozen or so patrons shoot pool, needle one another playfully, and quaff cold, cheap beer in a manner largely foreign to hipper, cocktail-slinging haunts in more northerly reaches of town.

With a sound system unshackled from the whims of a head-bobbing DJ, the Tug's patrons choose chestnuts by Stevie Ray Vaughan, Van Halen, and Journey on the tavern's classic-rock-heavy jukebox. But then things get a little weird (in a good way); someone selects "Smooth Operator" by Sade. At the bar, a slightly rumpled guy who looks to be in his late 40s contorts his body into a slinky groove with the smooth-jazz beat, whereas before he'd been playing air organ to Boston's "Long Time." When a live version of Phil Collins' "In the Air Tonight" comes on, the same guy holds his hands overhead, tapping a pair of imaginary drumsticks in time with the music before launching into an air-drum solo, à la that gorilla in the Cadbury commercial that's become something of an Internet phenomenon.