Thumper's, the venerable eatery at 15th Avenue and East Madison, turned 20 last month. The last 20 years has seen huge changes in Seattle's, and the world's, gay community and Thumpers' owners, Nathan Benedict and Steve Nyman have had a ringside seat to see it all.
"We've been here a long time and watched this end of 15th totally change." Benedict said.
The restaurant's neighborhood was a bit rough at that time and the Seattle Police Department's East Precinct did not exist. Nonetheless, the police kept a watchful eye on Thumper's. Not to harass the customers, but to protect them.
"We've never hidden the fact that we have always been oriented to gay and lesbian clientele," Benedict said. That was a bit unusual in 1985. He said Thumper's was envisioned as an upscale alternative to dark, dingy cruise bars.
"At first some people wouldn't come in because of the large windows," Benedict said. They were afraid to be seen in the bar if someone they knew drove by. "That is no longer a problem."
The restaurant has two areas for outside seating, a deck off the bar and a shrub enclosed dining patio off the dining room. R. David Adams, a well-known landscape architect, now deceased, designed the dining patio using parts of the terracotta façade salvaged from the old Mountaineers Building.
"The gay community has such a short memory," Benedict observed. "The 20 to 30 year olds have no memory of how we got where we are now."
He said today gay and lesbian couples can go almost anywhere and not give it a second thought.
"When we opened that was not the case," he said. "We were trying to create an open and welcoming environment, and the community responded."
Thumper's offers live entertainment almost every weekend, and sometimes cabaret shows that feature off-Broadway shows with casts of up to six people. Other nights the entertainment may be a pianist and singer, a jazz band or a comedian. All this in the dining room, which seats 50.
"The audience really enjoys it because you are really part of it," Benedict said of the intimate performance space. The performers walk through the audience at their tables, interacting with them. "It's really kind of classic cabaret."
Benedict describes Thumper's as a neighborhood club.
"Pretty much we know everybody who comes in," Benedict said. "There have been lots and lots of great nights and great parties."
Nyman earned an MBA from Stanford University, then felt he had to find a job using the education his father had paid for. A year at Boeing left him miserable, and his mother pointed out that the happiest she had ever seen him was when he was a bartender.
"And I have been a bartender for 27 years," Nyman said with a contented smile.
Benedict's entry into the business was a little different. He grew up in Connecticut, went to school in California and taught biology at the University of Nevada.
"I fell madly in love and found myself involved in the restaurant business," Benedict said, looking at Nyman with a smile and a shrug.
Their first restaurant was the Inside Passage on Pine Street, but after eight months they wanted a larger space and found Eddie Cotton's restaurant available. They moved in and named it Thumper's.
The average restaurant lasts less than two years, according to Nyman. "I figured if I had a restaurant I could at least eat." he said. "The first two years were really hard. After that we thought we'd be here forever."
It hasn't been forever - yet - but it has been 20 years and things have changed a lot, politically and socially. Some of the changes have been in the liquor laws. The state had very specific ratios of food to drink in 1985, so if you wanted to have a cocktail lounge you had to have a restaurant. The original bar at Thumper's was just 12 feet long - not the service bar, the entire room. Now the bar features an oak bar 70 feet long that comfortably seats two dozen people on upholstered, square-topped stools.
"I always wanted an oak bar, and we got a little carried away with the oak," Nyman said gesturing to the bar, the oak tables, oak chairs and oak paneling covering all the walls.
The restaurant has been a consistent sponsor of the Dine Out for Life fundraiser sponsored by the Lifelong AIDS Alliance.
"It has been a long trip in terms of going into the AIDS crisis and our clientele young and dying," Benedict said.
The restaurant has also sponsored a variety of sports teams, most famous of which was the 1987 women's softball team that won the softball world series in New Haven, Conn., and was crowned world champions.
"Thumper's had the only gay softball team to be world champions," Benedict boasted. "We actually got a lot of negative vibes from our male clientele for sponsoring a women's team, but we wanted to be more inclusive."
Ruby Bishop - noted singer, pianist and raconteur - played Seattle from the late 1950s through the 1970s. She played with many famous entertainers, including her friend Louis Armstrong. She has decided to come out of retirement and will appear at Thumpers' on Mondays.
"We hope Seattle will like her like they used to." Nyman said.
Thumper's offers a full menu Friday and Saturday until 1 a.m. and Sunday through Thursday until midnight. Informal dining is available in the bar and more formal dining in the dining room.
The 20th anniversary celebration will be over Memorial Day weekend. Well drinks will revert to 1985 prices.
"Which is going to cost us a lot of money," moaned Nyman, the guy with the business degree from Stanford.
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