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News & ArtsThursday, May 14, 2009
Housekeeping Happy Slog Happy Day!
Posted by Megan Seling on Thu, May 14, 2009 at 11:46 AM
Today is Slog Happy day! It starts at 6 pm at the Roanoke Tavern at 2409 10th Ave E (on the 49 bus line). Whether or not you like Kokanee beer, you'll no doubt love the Roanoke. Bethany Jean Clement does! When the bar was featured in a January Bar Exam, she raved:
The Roanoke is also known as the Chia Pet, in honor of its exterior coat of ivy. From the inside looking out, each window has an extra frame of encroaching twigs and leaves; it's dim and friendly and worn, like a tree house with drinks and pinball. Three TVs show three kinds of sports, with related announcements and exhortations often featured on the outside reader board (interspersed with various congratulations—on birthdays, coupledom, babies—and, once in a long while, a heart-wrenchingly terse RIP). The front door bears a directive to neighborhood teams to leave muddy footwear elsewhere, and the back room has photos through the years of those teams. In the men's room: some retro, sporty, good-natured photography of the NSFW variety. In the women's: vintage Life magazine covers (Faye Dunaway, "The pocket calculator craze," etc.).
She also says:
One weekday afternoon a long time ago, I was drinking beer at the Roanoke, unemployed. I got to talking to a friend of a friend, who turned out to be one of the owners, and by the time I left I had a job as a cook in the Roanoke's tiny kitchen. I had no experience. This is the kind of thing that happens at the Roanoke. The menu seems exactly the same—sandwiches, burgers, nachos—but the food is surprisingly good.
So come eat surprisingly good food, cheap beer (pitchers of Kokanee for $8.75), pick up a free book, and meet some nice people. It starts at 6 pm and goes until everyone leaves.
See you there!
5
Wait.
You're telling me that this is a bar/restaurant where an unemployed person with an indirect tie to one of the restaurant's owners was able to 1) enter the restaurant, 2) be introduced to the owner 3) speak to the owner and (wow!) 4) get a JOB as nothing less than a COOK? Are you telling me this REALLY HAPPENED? With NO experience?
Holy crap it's magical.
I would never in a million billion zillion years have thought that an eatery in this day and age would go about hiring a cook via the quaintly wonderful route of picking a friend of the owner's friend. Who has ever heard of this happening before?
And to hire a cook with no experience to prepare bar food? GET OUT!
You know what? Somebody should tell this story to the world. Restaurants and Bars Monthly should send their top reporter and a photographer to document this otherworldly slice of fairy tale wonder. I'm thinking movie deal. Seriously. They could call the movie: The Roanoak: Where the Magick Begins!
(See, I don't just do this to Jonah. So there. I might show up tonight and you can yell at me then if you want.)
You're telling me that this is a bar/restaurant where an unemployed person with an indirect tie to one of the restaurant's owners was able to 1) enter the restaurant, 2) be introduced to the owner 3) speak to the owner and (wow!) 4) get a JOB as nothing less than a COOK? Are you telling me this REALLY HAPPENED? With NO experience?
Holy crap it's magical.
I would never in a million billion zillion years have thought that an eatery in this day and age would go about hiring a cook via the quaintly wonderful route of picking a friend of the owner's friend. Who has ever heard of this happening before?
And to hire a cook with no experience to prepare bar food? GET OUT!
You know what? Somebody should tell this story to the world. Restaurants and Bars Monthly should send their top reporter and a photographer to document this otherworldly slice of fairy tale wonder. I'm thinking movie deal. Seriously. They could call the movie: The Roanoak: Where the Magick Begins!
(See, I don't just do this to Jonah. So there. I might show up tonight and you can yell at me then if you want.)
10
You know, Greg, I know perfectly well people are going to say the don't like things I've said. And I know they will talk about my kid because I've mentioned my kid. When it was appropriate to mention him. But I'm getting tired of people who want to bring my kid into it every time they want to complain about me.
14
I'd like to just point out once again that Mac n Jacks tastes like shit.
Now that that's out of the way....
I think what's killing me about this piece is not that BJC saw the men's bathroom (if they are single-use, bathroom swapping is common in some bars) but that she sponge bathes Roanoke's butthole for 4 paragraphs before inserting "oh, by the way, I got paid by them" into what would otherwise be an innocuous anecdote at the end of Bar Exam.
Now that that's out of the way....
I think what's killing me about this piece is not that BJC saw the men's bathroom (if they are single-use, bathroom swapping is common in some bars) but that she sponge bathes Roanoke's butthole for 4 paragraphs before inserting "oh, by the way, I got paid by them" into what would otherwise be an innocuous anecdote at the end of Bar Exam.
15
You know, @14, I get your point, but on the other hand it's saying a lot that after working for them, she still sings their praises. I can't say as much about most of the placed I've worked.
16
Geez, people! Elenchos, if I could go tonight, I still wouldn't yell at you; cranky's fine by me. And @14, it was so, so long ago—and they paid me so, so little.
20
Poe is all troll. I am wearing a t-shirt and hoodie just to piss him off tonight. No tie, no slacks, no style. Just seeing people dressed like this will irritate the shit out of him.
I will still buy a beer for you and your "undisclosed" companion though-
I will still buy a beer for you and your "undisclosed" companion though-
22
I wasn't yelling at elenchos... Some of my best friends are cranky jerks. I mean, I wouldn't let them around my kids or anything (if I had them). But, you know, they're people, and they're going to do their thing...
23
Well, it's 7 and I've had dinner and handed the kid off to his mother. I could drive over there and see the fabled Roanoke, where dreams come alive, but I just finished downloading 3 hours of Lost and I'm on my second cocktail. And I'm still only 85% over the Spanish flu/regular flu/bum ear that has haunted me for the last month.
I totally would have been to the Ballard Slog Happy last month if I hadn't been in the emergency room begging for Percocet for my ear infection. Maybe next time.
And Julie is right about me. I've always been like this. I've been doing this Slog thing the same for, what, 5 years now. Look it up. Use the Google and prove it yourself.
I totally would have been to the Ballard Slog Happy last month if I hadn't been in the emergency room begging for Percocet for my ear infection. Maybe next time.
And Julie is right about me. I've always been like this. I've been doing this Slog thing the same for, what, 5 years now. Look it up. Use the Google and prove it yourself.
25
I actually had one of my infrequent public appearances this evening, but I was at the Twilight Exit. I looked gorgeous.
26
So, they hire cooks without TB tests, any references, or background checks at all?
And this is considered good?
And this is considered good?
27
@10: Maybe it's my bad memory again, but it seems like pre-baby and post-baby you got a heckuva lot crankier. I just don't remember tirades like #5 from that time before. I suppose it's possible they were there and I missed them.
28
Greg.
Even if you're right (which you're not -- use Google. Google is your friend), what's your point? Do you think I'm going to drown him in a gunny sack? Do I look like Mr. Poe?
Even if you're right (which you're not -- use Google. Google is your friend), what's your point? Do you think I'm going to drown him in a gunny sack? Do I look like Mr. Poe?
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