This low-key place doesn't try too hard, isn't too pricey and might just be your new favorite hangout.
In the city that Seattle’s become, a place to eat and drink that’s simple, well-priced and just all-around nice is getting increasingly hard to find. A new place that feels like an old friend is especially rare, while overthought restaurant and bar “concepts” are a dime a dozen (and expensive when you’re there). What about the concept of somewhere very pleasant to just hang out?
The new bar called Bad Bishop works like magic — the kind of magic you get when you subtract the hype, forget about the marketing and merely make something you think people will like. The shoebox-shaped Pioneer Square space looks plainly great: high ceilings, exposed brick, a gentle curve of a reassuringly substantial wooden bar. Keaton Cooper and Jesse Spring, a couple of local restaurant industry guys who both worked at JarrBar, fixed it up themselves on a shoestring, adding a little wallpaper and a modicum of sedate gray wainscoting, respecting the era of the place without getting excessively olde-timey about it. There aren’t any trunks or taxidermy or stacks of hardback books, just an adorably compact manual typewriter on a high shelf, a painting of a Rainier beer bottle going for a run on a Pacific Northwest beach and a Canadian Club neon sign glowing in a corner.
Candles flicker. Friends talk. Jazz plays on a turntable, because Cooper and Spring like jazz and like records. If an Oscar Peterson track starts skipping, playing the same tinkling few bars over and over, it might take a few minutes for someone to address it, turning the world at Bad Bishop the tiniest bit surreal — has time become a loop? If so, you’re happy it happened here.
The liquor selection is not extensive — those who’ll be miffed that there’s no Grey Goose should stay away. A short cocktail list includes a classic hot toddy, made with Four Roses bourbon, honey, ginger, lemon and bitters, costing $8 and served in a thrift-store mug (maybe “Auto Gauge Warehouse: Dependability Since 1981!”). The Vespah ($12), made with Żubrówka bison grass vodka, gin, La Quintinye Vermouth Royal and Bittermens Boston Bittahs, is a pretty pale-pink-tinged amber, with a whisper of honeyed sweetness and cinnamon-Christmas. For odder options, you can try the chai daiquiri or a peppery vodka drink called the Blind Swine ($11, $12). Wines are rotating, oddball and only four in number — extend your trust, and end up with something like a deeply colored Calabrian rosé that’s both fruity and astringent. Bad Bishop’s version of happy hour is called Shift Drinks: $6 wells, $6 house wines and a Rainier tallboy plus a well shot for $7. Shift Drinks are in effect all the time.
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Everything on Bad Bishop’s concise food menu costs $10. A well-seared, smokey-tasting, flat-pattied little burger tastes like a favorite fast-food one; it’s not big, but it comes with a mountain of crispy shoestring fries. The macaroni is spiral-shaped cavatappi, and the cheese is cheddar, Taleggio and Gruyere — the former might want a bit more of all of the latter, but still, it’s altogether quite satisfying. Blackened Brussels sprouts do their best totchos impersonation, succeeding in tasting anti-healthy with lots of creamy comeback sauce, pops of pickled onions and spicy Mama Lil’s peppers. There’s a hand-dipped corn dog, a bacon-and-egg sandwich and a salad, too, if you must. The food at Bad Bishop is not going to win any James Beard awards, and that’s completely fine — it’s just there for you when you need it, and tasty, too.
And yes, you can play chess at Bad Bishop, if you’re in the mood.
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Bad Bishop Bar, 704 First Ave., Seattle; 206-623-3440, facebook.com/badbishopbar; 21-and-over only