(Image: CHS)
The neighbors have their Christmas decorations up already.
The Christmas Dive Bar will be popping up in Pike/Pine through New Year’s starting Thursday — a week before Thanksgiving.
“Hanging from the ceiling of the main area of CDB, there’s kitschy decorations, overscale ornaments, and enough colored light strings wrapped in tinselly-garland to make Mrs. Claus happy,” Murf Hall of the Burgess/Hall family of Capitol Hill businesses — and “huge Christmas buff,” according to the press release — says about the new project temporarily replacing 11th Ave’s The Woods dance club.
“We’ll be shaking up Christmas cocktails like Cranberry Collins and Eggnog Espresso Martinis and serving up snacks such as Crockpot Little Smokies and Cherry’s Xmas Chex Mix,” Hall’s business partner, husband, and presumed favorite secret Santa Joey Burgess says in the release. “We’re a dive bar with a festive twist ready to make the holiday season a little brighter, one drink at a time.”
The new setup in the club on 11th Ave between Pike and Pine includes “jingle bells, classic blow molds, and vintage décor” where elves will be mixing “festive cocktails” below “vintage chandeliers hung with ornaments and dozens of rolls of wrapping paper covering the walls create the perfect vibe for the holiday season.”
The pop-up announced this week hasn’t been a secret to anybody walking 11th Ave where small town shopping district-worthy window painting has advertised the changeover. It comes in a time when venues giving themselves over to temporary and seasonal pop-ups has become an alternative source of revenue for bars and restaurants but the twist here is a local business taking the reindeer reins and running the show themselves.
You can compare the project to a the recent return visit of the “Haunted Soiree” Halloween experience on North Broadway produced by a national event company. A more direct comparison is the company behind the Miracle and Sippin’ Santa Christmas themed cocktail bars that now produces pop-ups across the country every year including the Miracle on 2nd takeover of Belltown’s Rob Roy.
Instead, the business family behind The Woods that also owns Queer/Bar, The Cuff, Oddfellows, Elliott Bay Book Company, and Big Little News is taking on this Capitol Hill holiday opportunity. The company debuted its latest venture, The Gemini Room next to Chophouse Row, last December.
It comes on the block it shares with Queer/Bar on a much-changed Pike/Pine street still undergoing some growing pains. Across the street, a massive Five Iron Golf simulator bar operates below the neighborhood’s WeWork. The corner of 11th and Pine still is home to the Rhino Room but the upstairs office spaces formerly home to The Stranger have remained empty since the “alt weekly’s” 2020 exit from the neighborhood. There is another large void forming in what seems more certain now to become the former Cafe Racer space as attempts to financially salvage the all-ages music venue haven’t yet worked out. Meanwhile, the first of what could eventually be hundreds of Mt. Joy “pasture raised” chicken sandwich fast food joints is set to open next to the Christmas Dive Bar before the end of the year after a test-run in the former E Olive Way Starbucks parking lot.
The CDB project, as Burgess/Hall calls it, is hoped to be a fun and festive goof in the middle of Pike/Pine’s back to pre-pandemic-and-then-some nightlife crowds.
Amid the kitsch and decorations, two “faux fireplaces will give out all the warmth a fake flame can,” while “classic holiday movies projected above the mantle fill the space with the comfort of the season.” For you romantic types, upstairs at the Woods will become the Chug & Cheers Chalet, “where flickering lanterns, faux fur hides, and icicle lights abound.”
It will also help the venue capture revenue from holiday party rentals. Yes, Grinch, the folks at Burgess/Hall are looking to cash in on the holidays but at least, this time around, it is citizens of the Pike/Pine Whoville putting on the show. And they’re being sweet about it.
“We had a fun time getting this all together, pulling in pieces from our personal collection of vintage holiday decor and creating a space that greets you instantly like a second home for the holidays,” Burgess/Hall says.
Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night.
Christmas Dive Bar will open Thursday, November 16h through “the New Year” at 1512 11th Ave. Hours are 5 PM “to late” every day. Learn more at christmasdivebar.com.
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I will be the first to say: who asked for this?
Me, I did!
This sounds like so much fun!
I hope there is nothing but Hallmark showing on tvs for all the fa-a-la-la fun. No need for sound, you already know the story line, empty cups, and no kiss until 5 minutes to the end. I hope they have a flaming punch.
Christmas “dive” bar with $15 drinks.
Luckily for this bar, Christmas season now goes from Labor Day till Valentine’s Day.