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  • Kelly O

The buildings that once stood next to Linda's Tavern have been demolished, except for a single brick wall—the paint-by-numbers mural that separates the establishment from the fresh dirt lot next door. The earnest endeavor of Linda Derschang (a Colorado native who moved to Seattle in 1987 to open a clothing shop), Bruce Pavitt, and Jonathan Poneman (the founders of local record label Sup Pop), Linda's opened with four beers on tap and no food, and became an immediate institution—a place musicians worked and hung out, a place to meet your friends and talk for hours. A full liquor license, a kitchen addition, and two decades later, Linda's remains, in location and spirit, more or less the same since opening in February of 1994: a neighborhood bar, no matter how the neighborhood changes. I talked with the owners, folks who worked there back in the day, folks who are currently working there, and regulars who hung out there and/or drank there, and drank there some more, about the resilient culture of a little tavern called Linda's.

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