Stop three on The Traveller Bar’s much-hyped national tour is Seattle. But does this city need another speak-easy?
Like some rock band, The Traveller Bar arrived at the Hotel 1000 downtown last Friday with much anticipation. A crew was at the ready to prepare this speakeasy-inspired bar for its Seattle debut, the third stop on its 19-city tour.
It’s all set up now. And to hear the crew tell it, it’s a minor miracle that staffers were able to unload the furniture and parts off the freight truck at 5 a.m. and assemble them in time to open at 4 p.m. The pop-up bar will be open for business in the hotel’s lounge until July 28.
The Traveller Bar comes with much hype and maintenance. Its nationwide tour began because a bunch of creative types from the New York-based Loews Hotels and Resorts decided to showcase craft cocktails. But this being the high-end Loews lodging chain, a special craft-cocktail list just wouldn’t do.
The bar is made out of an old elevator car, to be transported and assembled at each stop, 24 hotels in all. It’s like a booth in a trade show but with craft cocktails.
The four-seat, zinc-top bar with a metal-mesh wall is shelved with an old cash register, other antiques and some of the world’s rarest cocktail books: first editions from bartending pioneers Jerry Thomas and Harry Johnson, as well as other luminaries. That rare collection is worth more than $10,000.
And the inspiration for the eight-drink menu comes from those books. The drinks were well-balanced, from a daiquiri that had a pleasant tartness, not too sweet, to a refreshing Gin Fix (with lemon juice, simple syrup and raspberries) that’s ideal for the hot summer.
The service was even better; the two gentlemen behind the bar made eye contact with every customer, remembered their first names and even bought a round for early arrivals.
If asked, they can expound on the drink’s progeny.
And yet … The Traveller Bar arrived in Seattle six years too late to feel relevant.
The experience for sale is Prohibition-era cocktails made in a speak-easy setting. But our fascination with that era has passed. And in this age when many bars, even dives, make excellent craft cocktails, the drinks aren’t noteworthy. They’re more noteworthy for being more expensive — $16 to $22 — than what local bars charge.
I’m not the only one who didn’t get it.
On opening night, the bartender boasted about how the crew spent three hours assembling this booth to look like a 1930s drinking den, furnishing it exactly the same at every city it visits.
“You’re like the Ikea of bars,” a hotel guest said.
The bartender sounded crestfallen. “We aspire to more than that,” he mumbled.
The Traveller Bar is located inside Hotel 1000, 1000 First Ave., and is open daily from 4-10 p.m.; drinks only (206-957-1000 or thetravellerbar.com).