It might be a little hard to find, located on a side street that doesn't really lead to anywhere, a place you might not happen by unless you lived in the neighborhood. But when you do discover Redwood and look in, you'll probably wonder why you haven't known about it for years.
That's an easy one. Even though the Redwood has the immediate, welcoming feel of a long-established neighborhood bar, complete with old advertising signs, it is only a year-and-a-half old.
The place is a bar - a saloon -open only to patrons who are of legal drinking age. Which is too bad for anyone younger. The food is terrific and all made from scratch on the premises.
AND A MOOSE
We were on a mission. The lunch squad had struck out - the Redwood doesn't open until 4 p.m. - but, thinking fast on our feet, we regrouped at 6 p.m. as the dinner squad and returned to 514 East Howell Street, right where Belmont dead-ends. The space has mostly been used as a laundromat, though in recent years, in true Seattle fashion, a café was part of the laundry scene.
Now it looks like anything but a laundromat. The ceiling joists are exposed, a beer can collection stands at attention along one of the joists. Oil lanterns hang down over the 30-foot bar, electrified now, giving a mining counterpoint to the moose antler chandelier. There are a half-dozen tables, half that many booths, a long, stand-alone auxiliary bar surrounded by barstools and another long ledge underneath the front windows with more barstools. A moose head hangs on the wall near the unisex restroom ... watching.
As people come in they look around. They are not looking at the old rifle targets on the walls, nor at the vintage Schmidt's beer sign dimly illuminated by the door, nor even the old shotgun hung above the bar. They are looking for friends and acquaintances. This watering hole is clearly frequented by a regular crew.
This has the feel of one of those places you may have stumbled upon somewhere in Colorado, or Montana or Northern California. It has the feel of a place where patrons toss peanut shells on the floor. At the end of the bar is a big, wooden bucket full of roasted peanuts, so you can do just that should you wish.
The menu is written on boards at the end of the bar, above the peanut bucket. You have to go to the bar to order. While you're there, you might notice the colorful row of shotgun shells epoxied into the bar and lit from underneath. None of the employees or patrons were wearing those plaid, red wool caps with the earflaps, but it would not look out of place. The Redwood has a woodsy feel.
FEEL AT HOME
In short, this is a low-key, very casual kind of place to relax, hang out and leave your hipness at the door.
Our choice for dinner was one blackened catfish ($11) and one pulled-pork dinner ($12). Dinners come with a choice of two sides from a long list that includes salad, corn bread, baked beans, coleslaw and several more. We both had salad and corn bread and when the food arrived (on those funny, blue-enameled tin plates) we were impressed to see that everything was obviously made from scratch. The food was delicious, far more gourmet than you would expect in a neighborhood bar.
We were joined by the dinner squad auxiliary, who began perusing the juke box, a large, light-emitting machine full of compact disc albums. The music was heavily weighted to late '60s, early '70s standbys (Moody Blues, Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix), but there were some newer offerings as well. But the owners plan on having as many local musicians on the jukebox as possible in the future.
"Hey look, they have Bill Patton," exclaimed a squad member. Patton is a Capitol Hill resident. Joe Gray jumped up to have a look, having done the design for Patton's CD.
"Gee," Gray said. "I've never seen any of my work inside a juke box before."
Gray had the foot-long chili-dog, on special that evening.
"I'd say this is almost on par with Rusty's Ranch Café in Lewiston, Idaho," Gray said, between bites. He is a chili-dog connoisseur. The chili is also made from scratch.
"We wanted a place that was comfortable that we could come to," explained Lisa Jack, who co-owns Redwood along with Tim Purtill, Kelly Staten and Mat Brooke. "What we were going for was like if you were going through Montana and found an old road house, a sportmen's bar."
"We wanted a comfortable, neighborhood bar," Staten said .
They have achieved both. It looks like it has been there for 40 years and if you are like me, you immediately know it is someplace you want to just hang out. But Tim calls it a work in progress. All four of them have day jobs and the Redwood is a labor of love.
SAUCEY GOODNESS
"What we really do best here is the barbecue sauce," Tim said. "Mat came up with that and he did a great job." So good, in fact, that the Redwood sells the sauce to a few other eateries.
Jack strongly recommended the creamed corn nuggets, though I had to admit that when I saw them on the menu I hallucinated the Jolly Green Giant heaving a can of Niblets at me. Well, since everything else is freshly made (even the sweet potato fries are hand cut), maybe next time.
But isn't the moose head a little over the top?
"Someone came in and gave it to us," Jack said. "We had a big fight and it stayed in the back room for a year."
Inside the restroom guarded by the moose is a large mirror lettered as a sign, "Suds and Duds," a legacy from the old laundromat. The walls are papered with shooting targets featuring raccoons, rabbits and other critters sporting large circles over critical parts of their anatomy. The targets are about shooting, not about animals, insisted Jack.
"This place is not making a statement," Jack said. "It's just a place to hang out."
You can hang out at the Redwood if you are over 21 and you point yourself to 514 E. Howell St. Reach Redwood at 329-1952.
Freelance writer Korte Bruckmann lives on the Hill and can be reached at editor@capitolhilltimes.com.
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