I don’t know about you, but when I have just endured three grueling hours of professors droning on and on, all I want to do is sip on a stiff drink. So, when the hands on the clock strike 4 p.m. I am more than willing to take a seat in a dimly lit bar and enjoy the classic tradition known as “happy hour,” which oddly enough is usually three or four hours long.

Nonetheless, after a hard day of “work,” there is nothing better than filling my tummy with greasy fried foods while simultaneously harming my liver with ice-cold beers and liquor-heavy beverages.

 

Best happy hour to hear local music

Cap Hansen’s

209 E. Chestnut St.
Happy hour: 4 p.m. to 6 p.m., Monday through Friday and all day Sunday
Deals: $2.75 well drinks, discounted beers, $4 top-shelf liquors, daily food specials ranging from $1 to $2.

Cap’s is the shadiest bar in town, other than the Ranch Room. Not that it is full of undesireables, quite the opposite in fact. Physically it is a dark place. It has only a couple big windows in front to provide light and an interior that seems to get more and more cluttered as time passes.

Cap’s is the place to do crossword puzzles during the day and enjoy a conversation with one of the many local artists, musicians and writers who frequent the bar during the night.

Cap’s also has the only jukebox in town that features music by Bellingham bands and all-day access to popcorn, which is usually stale but always edible.

When you enter the bar you may be greeted by B-Rad the bartender, who once told me, “Welcome to Cap’s. The bar that gives a crap.”

But Michelle Schutte, another bartender at Cap’s, said the unofficial slogan for the bar would be more accurate if it were, “Welcome to Cap’s. The bar that gives a crap… if you know the right people.”

Best day to go: Sunday

Hit up the Sunday brunch special, which starts at 10 a.m. and goes until they run out of food. it is a great way to cure that hangover after Saturday night. Brunch options include quiche, eggs benedict, biscuits and gravy and corned beef hash. The drink specials are $4 double bloody marys and $3 mimosas. Cans of Pabst Blue Ribbon and Rainier are always cheap.

Happy hour with the largest drink

Jalapenos Mexican Restaurant

501 W. Holly St.
Happy hour: 11:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. everyday.
Deals: Big Mama margaritas for $6.25, a taco for $1.25, discount prices on beers, $2.99 well drinks, King Kong nachos for $9.95 and free chips and salsa.

When I walked into Jalapenos, I noticed a sign that read, “Have you had your Big Mama today?” Then I noticed 14 out of 32 people in the restaurant had a Big Mama margarita sitting in front of them. So the answer for about half the people was “yes”.

The Big Mama is the restaurant’s claim to fame—for good reason. It contains between four and six shots of tequila, which means if you can finish a Big Mama in 20 minutes you will be very buzzed, if not completely wasted. So be cautious when taking on the task of drinking this behemoth of a beverage.

“There isn’t a better margarita in town,” said Bellingham resident Gene Voorhies, who comes to the restaurant twice a week and always gets a margarita with his meal. “When most people think of tequila, they think of Jose Cuervo, but that isn’t real tequila. Jalapenos has the best tequila selection in town.”

Jalapenos boasts a selection of 27 authentic Mexican tequilas including Don Julio Real, which the restaurant said is the finest tequila in the world. It costs $45 a shot.

Best day to go: Any day is a good day for Mexican food and tequila. Go for a stroll through Maritime Heritage Park, which is right across the street, after your meal.

Best happy hour to take a date

The Temple Bar

306 W. Champion St.
Happy hour: 4 p.m. to 7 p.m., Monday through Saturday and all day Sunday.
Deals: Bottle of wine and a small cheese plate for $15 and $1 off all cocktails.

The candles, chandeliers and drinks with names like The Flamenco, Sally Tomato and Lola may seem unattractive to men, but they are missing out. Voted Bellingham’s Best Happy Hour, Best Cocktail and Best Place to Meet Women by Cascadia Weekly readers, The Temple Bar is accessible and reasonably priced for such a swanky atmosphere. Drinks cost between $5 and $9.

“We really put a lot of detail into the preparation of our drinks,” owner Chelsea Farmer said. “When I started the Temple Bar I wanted to make sure it was intimate and casual. It’s a good place to enjoy a quiet night out.”

I’d recommend trying the Temple Bar’s infused drinks, which are made by bartender Matthew Kennedy. In infused drinks, ingredients are added to an alcohol, such as vodka, and then the alcohol soaks up the flavor of the added ingredients. My favorites are the Sally Tomato, which is made with a roasted jalapeño and garlic infused vodka, and the Walla Walla Sweet Onion infused gin martini.

Best day to go: Friday

The Temple Bar is a perfect place to start the weekend. It gets pretty crowded on Friday and Saturday, Farmer said. So get a seat early and pre-funk with style before going out to listen to music or imbibing lesser alcoholic beverages at a college party.

Best sports happy hour

The Quarterback Pub and Eatery

356 36th St.
Happy hour: 3 p.m. to 7 p.m., Monday through Friday.
Deals: $2 well drinks, $2 basket of fries, $2 chips and salsa and $5 for sliders and fries.

The Quarterback is the largest sports bar in Bellingham and is tucked away in the Sehome Village shopping center.

The bar has nine large-screen, high-definition televisions, so no matter where you are sitting, there is a game within sight.

For those who do not enjoy watching sports there are also 13 pool tables, a dart board, an air hockey table and pinball. The QB offers Western students a 20 percent discount off their entire bill with a school I.D., and pool is free every Tuesday and Thursday. Also, the QB is one of the few bars in town that is all-ages until 9 p.m.

Best day to go: Monday

It is football time, which means alcohol consumption on Monday nights has risen significantly since the summer.

Kirsten Ryan, who is taking a year off from Western, said she comes to the bar regularly during the football season.

“The atmosphere around here is really fun,” Ryan said. “There are lots of Western students, so it’s usually a little more rowdy, and they are all football fans. At most bars people aren’t even really paying attention to the game, but here everyone is into it.”

Best happy hour to spoil yourself

Nimbus

119 N. Commercial St.
Happy hour: 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. every day and 10 p.m. to 11 p.m., Monday through Thursday.
Deals: Discount appetizers for $5, a pint of an imported draft beer for $3.

Relaxation and inebriation meet at the top of the Bellingham Towers building, where Nimbus is located. The ritzy restaurant is perched on the 14th floor of the building, which means it has the best view of Bellingham in the city.

The prices are steep, especially for the food, but I am of the opinion that even the poorest of people deserve to drink like a king for at least an hour. The bar changes drink specials every day, said bartender

Ken Blankenship, who has been working at Nimbus for nearly six years.

“We try to keep the happy hours specials different every time,” Blankenship said. “We don’t want people to get bored.”

Blankenship suggests getting the Nimbus sliders, which are small hamburgers made with premium beef, beet pickles, bacon and bleu cheese on top of a sweet Hawaiian bread bun.

Best day to go: Saturday

Hit up the late-night happy hour as a starting point for a Saturday night on the town. Enjoy the great view of the city, the bay and the tree-filled hills that surround Bellingham. It gets really packed on weekend nights, so get a reservation if you can. Otherwise you may have to wait, especially if something is going on at the Mount Baker Theatre.

Comments (1)

Posted by Kris H, on Oct. 28, 2009 06:51PM It seems to me that there are a couple errant things about Rod Lotter’s article, Happy Hour Hop. One detail when subscribing to the “thrifty lush” is thriftiness. He advises taking dates to the Temple Bar, which may be nice and he does refer to it as “reasonably priced for such a swanky atmosphere”, but any place where drinks cost between $5 and $9 dollars is not designed for a thrifty lush. It might be a great place, but when two drinks per person equates to between $20 and $36 dollars, that is not thrifty at all. For a thrifty date, get some decent wine/beer/booze (whatever they drink), kick your flat-mates out or borrow a friends place, and cook an amazing meal. It’s cheaper and WAY more personable. If that person was interested in you before, they will even more so when you serve them a two to five course meal seasoned to their taste with appropriate drinks (also great for just making new friends or spending quality time with old ones). All that aside, the problem with the article that bothered me the most was the lack of a “Best Happy Hour” column. When catering to thrifty lushes, it seems like that should be the focus of the article. While writing this, the guy sitting next to me just told me he was disappointed there was no “Best Food Deal” column. It seems to me that there should be a list of the best of both of those things before anything else. I’ve only been here for a month or so and I’ll testify that the Quarterback has definitely treated me well on both accounts, but as for the “Best Drink Specials” it is Rumors Cabaret (1119 Railroad Ave) hands down. $1.50 wells and $6.25 microbrew pints from 5-9 pm is a pretty amazing deal anywhere. They have other cheaper specials for domestic beer, but I like the good stuff. After all, how great is it to order a pitcher of Boundary Bay beer a block away from the brewery for cheaper than they sell it? The staff is friendly, and if you play pool or air hockey, the place is empty until happy hour is over anyway. I don’t know about “Best Food”, but I will be exploring and I look forward to finding out. Report

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