The Room
The Bookstore Bar opened with the Alexis Hotel renovation in 1981 — a downtown cocktail tavern dedicated to the proposition that downtown Seattle needed a serious classic-cocktail destination. The dining room is intentionally cinematic: leather banquettes, dark-wood paneling, framed photographs of literary regulars on the walls.
The Seattle Times has held The Bookstore Bar on its top-cocktail-bar rankings every year of operation.
The Food
The bar-bites kitchen runs gastropub-classic — the burger, the seasonal-rotating bar bites, the small-plates programme.
Whiskey programme runs over 200 bottlings. Cocktails are classic-American. Service is informed and warm.
Best Occasion Fit
First Date: The Bookstore Bar is one of downtown's most-photographed cocktail-led first-date seats.
Solo Dining: The bar at the Bookstore Bar is one of the better downtown Seattle solo-dining seats.
Close a Deal: The Bookstore Bar is the Alexis Hotel cocktail-tavern alternative for a downtown after-dinner conversation.