Where to Go >>

• Best Gay Bar Because It Isn't Just a Gay Bar
  Bottleneck Lounge
  One night out of three, a gay guy can walk into the BottleNeck Lounge and be greeted by a dozen once-overs from prospective dates. But that's the extent of the bar's allegiance to the rainbow community. True, the BottleNeck's owned by a pair of lesbians, but you can never predict who's going to... More >>
• Best Underage Music Venue for Those With Overage Friends
  El Corazon
  The ability to see exquisite live music should not be hindered by age. Fortunately for us, El Corazon provides an excellent venue for the under-21 set, bringing out a rockin' combination of both local and touring acts. It still mostly caters to an all-ages crowd despite the fact that it has a... More >>
• Best Place to Catch Brand-New Local Bands
  Sunset Tavern
  Not long ago, I saw some little band at The Sunset called the Cave Singers. I knew nothing about them except that Derek from Pretty Girls Make Graves was in it. It was, I believe, their second show. Plenty of clubs around town play host to local bands playing their first, second, or third shows.... More >>
• Best Non-Alcoholic Happy Hour
  St. Mark's Episcopal Cathedral
  You just saw a guy with a briefcase and a girl with dreads and about 15 tattoos walk into a 77-year-old church together. "WTF?" you might be thinking. But if it's Sunday night at 9:30, you should walk in too, because it's time for Compline at St. Mark's on Capitol Hill. Wearing old sweats? So... More >>
• Best Place to Feel Like You're in Midtown Manhattan
  Sheraton Seattle Hotel
  Pleasing as it is, Seattle's skyline lacks the sense of scale that the world's biggest cities offer: that feeling that you're surrounded, from earth to sky, by human life and engineering. For a fleeting weekend, however, I felt like that in Seattle. I was staying in a high-up room at the... More >>
• Best Multiplex
  Alderwood 16
  I used to be one of those snot-nosed Seattleites who turned his nose up at suburban multiplexes, preferring the sore-assed "authenticity" of the Guild 45ths of the world instead. Then I caught a matinee at Alderwood 16 in Lynnwood on the way back from a sexy, sexy weekend in La Conner. I left... More >>
• Best Place to Avoid Friends, Family, and Rain
  Christian Science Reading Room
  Just looking for a few minutes of quiet downtown, perhaps with the latest international news from The Christian Science Monitor? No need to visit the spaceship/library situation and take an elevator. Kick back in one of the easy chairs in the Christian Science Reading Room. The staff is always... More >>
• Best Place to Bump Into a Deadliest Catch Cast member
  The Sloop
  Oh, sure, you could stalk Sig Hansen and the crew of the Northwestern in haunts in and around Ballard, but that's sort of creepy. Showing up at The Sloop, however, won't make you look like such a slobbering fanboy. It's a known fact that Hansen likes to cavort with the venerable Market Street... More >>
• Best Reason to Drive 405
  Open Satellite
  I know, I know, the price of gas. And the fact that you will no doubt get lost trying to find this still-new gallery, tucked into the first floor of a tall, many-windowed Bellevue apartment building, is also a drawback. Still, it's worth the drive to get yourself to Open Satellite, which has... More >>
• Best Karaoke for the Depilatorily Challenged
  The Cuff
  One performer offers, via "Nights on Broadway," a very mean, very funny impression of a Gibb. Another, his body seemingly composed entirely of circles—just like beginner art-instruction books tell you—tears up "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going." And another remarks offhand of... More >>
• Best Place to Have a Ronaldo/Eddie Murphy Moment (1 Comment)
  Copper Gate
  Why is it that a public who demands apologies from stars who buy blowjobs from street prostitutes gives a pass to the ones who claim ignorance when they're caught with tranny hookers? "How was I supposed to know she had a penis?" both the American comedian and the Brazilian soccer star have... More >>
• Best Midweek Dance Party
  War Room
  Screw that techno bullshit—when it comes to a good dance party, there's only one kind of music that can get pretty much any club jumping, and that, my friends, is not the crappy Destiny's Child song I just alluded to. I'm talking about old-school hip-hop. I'm talking Public Enemy, I'm... More >>
• Best Place to Invoke the Beats
  ToST Lounge
  Forget every other open-mike night you've ever been to. Who needs 'em, what with all the bad acoustic-guitar players and worse poetry, when we've got the Seattle Poetry Slam? Every Wednesday night, some of the city's most promising wordsmiths congregate onstage at ToST to show off their skills... More >>
• Best Place To Feel Ashamed
  Theater Off Jackson
  When you first picked up that chintzy journal with the (easily-picked) lock in sixth grade, you probably never dreamed that one day you might be reading aloud from it to a guffawing audience of your peers. But that's what happens at the Salon of Shame, where performers read their adolescent... More >>
• Best New Gallery/Bar
  Grey Gallery & Lounge
  With all the multipurpose gallery spaces opening in Seattle, it's great to see one that doesn't seem to be conflicted about straddling roles. Capitol Hill's Grey Gallery & Lounge is run by longtime bartender Erik Guttridge, who's got his feet firmly planted in the art scene. With opening... More >>
• Best Public Boudoir
  Bedroom inside Western Bridge
  Built as a literal "artist residence," the bedroom inside Western Bridge has become an extra exhibition space, one where people love to linger. The white down comforter on the bed is the perfect blank foil for the clever asymmetrical nightstands on either side (one possesses a glowing tabletop),... More >>
• Best Pedestrian-Hindering Public Art
  Akio Takamori's Young Woman, Girl, Mother and Child
  You'll have to go around several big-headed porcelain folk to get to your organic arugula and imported cheeses at the downtown Whole Foods Market. At the door to the grocery store, Akio Takamori's Young Woman, Girl, Mother and Child are impediments and symbols of welcome, though the glances they... More >>
• Best Art Project With An End Date On It
  The Hideout
  This sultry, low-lit hangout is populated by artists plotting their next projects at the polished mahogany bar. Situated in a nondescript strip on Boren Avenue, The Hideout is a swank, unfussy, much-loved bar, the invention of Vital 5 Productions' Greg Lundgren. Between two long walls covered... More >>
• Best Spot for a Mental Escape
  Henry Art Gallery
  A color-changing, open-ceilinged oblong room, a light buzz of traffic from 15th Avenue, instruction from the Seattle Insight Meditation society—it all makes James Turrell's Skyspace at the Henry the perfect spot to find inner serenity. This gorgeously minimalist space, with wooden benches... More >>
• Best Venue for Hearing All Sides of Seattle Jazz
  Egan's Ballard Jam House
  Seattle's jazz scene can, at times, seem a bit stuck in its ways. Is it my imagination, or is Greta Matassa performing six nights out of the week at Tula's? And when, oh, when will Taj Mahal play Jazz Alley again—it's been almost a month already! Thankfully, Egan's Ballard Jam House is... More >>
• Best Street-Corner Opera
  The Royal Crest
  If you've spent much time in Belltown, you know you'll encounter all manner of characters there, some of whom prefer hanging out in a supine position, others who like to conduct business transactions of a somewhat furtive and mysterious nature. This presents a particular problem for residents of... More >>