"Seattle nice" isn't really nice, it's polite?which is a lot different than nice. To wit, how many bar patios can be found in the city with adjoining picnic tables that force imbibing strangers to actually interact with one another? One, by our count?and it can be found in sleepy Wedgwood, across from the neighborhood fire station. While The Fiddler's Inn has changed management a time or two over the years, it's still the bar where Grateful Dead bootlegs are likeliest to be playing when you walk in, with an ambience to match. Its garden patio is narrow but wastes no space, with unfamiliar beer connoisseurs shoulder-to-shoulder with one another, complimenting each other's dogs and swapping tips on which of the Fid's funky pizzas is the one to order. The service, while friendly, isn't the swiftest. Anywhere else, that'd be a pockmark. But at the Fid, it just gives you more time to turn a stranger into a friend.?Mike Seely