W
Joined: Mar 26, 2002
Posts: 2639
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W
TikiMaxton's mention of his Trader Vic's bar guide find reminded me of a story I was too lazy to relate when it happened...
About a month ago I came across a reference to the Admiral Benbow Inn, an old West Seattle lounge that sounded like it had an untouched nautical theme to it. I planned to check it out some day, but some day never came.
Two weekends ago I overheard some people praising the Benbow and I asked them about it. I was told it had just closed due to the sudden death of the owner. There had been a big "last call" hurrah (featuring Seattle's Seafair Pirates) and the auction of its fixtures had been the night before. I was in the neighborhood and stopped by the Benbow where an "estate sale" was wrapping up. I got to look around the joint and immediately began kicking myself in the ass for having missed out.
The place had a sort of "Treasure Island" theme (apparently Admiral Benbow was a character in that book). The main seating area in the lounge was made to look as if you were inside a huge old sailing ship. There was a wall of stained glass across the "bow" and from what folks told me there had been a light effect behind the glass so it looked like sun reflecting off of water. At the push of a button located behind the bar there would be thunder storm sounds and lightning flashes across the ceiling and behind the stained glass. The storm would subside and through the stained glass it would look as if the sun was coming out from behind the clouds. A room near the lounge was done up with driftwood wainscotting and rope trim, with a fountain in a corner made up of plastic greenery and a series of rum barrels. Water poured from one barrel to another and then into a rock pool.
The Admiral Benbow Inn had been opened for just over half a century (Francis Farmer used to hang out there when it first opened). Some of the waitresses had worked there since its opening. While I was looking around quite a few people stopped by saying how they had just heard about the closure and how shocked they were. There was a lot of restaurant odds and ends for sale (25 cents an item) and I felt more than a little vulture like as I pawed through the boxes while people reminisced with the waitresses manning the sale about their times at the Admiral Benbow Inn. I picked up a few useful items including a 1948 copy of Trader Vic's bar guide. I payed for my stuff, the waitress said "Here's your gift," and handed me a sugar shaker with sugar and a saltine cracker in it. Out in the car I opened the cover of the Vic's bar guide and saw written on the endpaper "To catch up on all the good times we missed."
[ Edited by: woofmutt 2010-05-19 10:13 ]
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