$5 A MONTH TO HELP KEEP CHS PAYWALL-FREE
🌈🐣🌼🌷🌱🌳🌾🍀🍃🦔🐇🐝🐑🌞🌻 
Subscribe to CHS to help us hire writers and photographers to cover the neighborhood. CHS is a pay what you can community news site with no required sign-in or paywall. To stay that way, we need you.

Become a subscriber to help us cover the neighborhood for $5 a month -- or choose your level of support 👍 

Sitting in the 100-year-old chapel of a former funeral parlor, drinking a pint of “Nazi Punks Fuck Off” lager feels a little like you’ve stepped back into a punk bar in the early ’90s. This is a ghostly space. Maybe it’s the old growth fir tables and bar top, made from the shelving that once held urns and lined cabinets holding caskets, or it could also be the “female apparition” seen by multiple bartenders. Regardless, the beer is cold, the people are friendly, and The Pine Box is celebrating ten years of making peace with spirits, pouring spirits, and being spirited on Capitol Hill.

“We’re still here. Even as this neighborhood keeps changing.” Ian Roberts, part owner and a regular sight at The Pine Box, also runs Seattle Beer Week and White Center brewery Future Primitive Brewing.

“First ten years, it’s been good, it’s been great,” Roberts said. “The last two years had ups and downs, a little scary, but I can’t think of doing anything else.”

Roberts says the Capitol Hill — and Seattle beer drinking — communities kept them going through the first ten years, including two years of a pandemic. “My livelihood was based on being a bar and doing events and gathering people, and all of a sudden I can’t invite people here. I can’t tell people to come here. I’m pretty cautious, I have two young kids at home…It’s hard to plan events and do your life, and also be socially responsible. So many times I’ve been putting the brake on things in the past two years. I felt like I need to, for me personally, for my family, for the safety of my employees.”

A decade later, the kitchen of The Pine Box is still pumping out delicious pizzas, sandwiches, and appetizers, but Roberts notes “no one’s coming to your table to take orders right now.” There are QR codes at the tables and you can order at the bar, says Roberts “but we’re not doing drinks that way, I still believe in looking someone in the eye before they order an alcoholic beverage.”

Every year since they opened, (except last year) they’ve had a unique collaboration beer called the “Nail In The Coffin”, this year is the 10th. Working with New Belgium this year, the special beer is a sour blend, and another collaboration with Fremont Brewing is a variation on the First Nail anniversary beer.

While the pandemic slowed them down, Roberts feels like The Pine Box is finally coming back to life, and appreciates the way the community stepped up over the past two years to help keep them around.

“There was a lot of community support that I didn’t expect. It felt really good. It was a nice reminder of how good the people in this neighborhood are, and Seattle in general really.”

He also know that it takes more than community to keep you going and require dedicated and flexible staff. “We’re going to keep doing the same good job we’ve done before,” Roberts said. “The crew I have right now, they all do an amazing job.” They have signed another five year lease on the space, so maybe they’ll be around for another half decade at least.

If you’re up for a party, The Pine Box is having an anniversary celebration on Saturday, March 26th from 3 PM until “whenever”. According to Roberts, they’ll have beers going back to their 5th anniversary on tap, “except no 9th Nail”, thanks to pandemic uncertainty. If you’re planning a little further in the future, The Pine Box Beer Can Derby is coming back May 14th. “Right now I’m going to plan that everything is good. If I have to cancel shit, I cancel shit,” Roberts said.

The Pine Box is located at 1600 Melrose Ave. You can learn more at pineboxbar.com.

$5 A MONTH TO HELP KEEP CHS PAYWALL-FREE
🌈🐣🌼🌷🌱🌳🌾🍀🍃🦔🐇🐝🐑🌞🌻 
Subscribe to CHS to help us hire writers and photographers to cover the neighborhood. CHS is a pay what you can community news site with no required sign-in or paywall. To stay that way, we need you.

Become a subscriber to help us cover the neighborhood for $5 a month -- or choose your level of support 👍