Kincora Pub
Of all the businesses on Pine’s 500 block, Kincora Pub has the richest history, especially in the context of Seattle’s musical heritage.
“Soundgarden, Nirvana, Mudhoney...everybody played here! “ A lively bartender named A.J. (right) is reciting a Who’s Who of Seattle grunge bands who performed on a tiny stage here in the 1980s when this place was known as Squid Roe and these were just local bands.
Since then, A.J. tells me, the bar has had several different names and owners, but has remained essentially the same. “It’s always been a dive kind of place,” he says,”...a great dive.”
Diveyness is a virtue at Kincora, savored by bartenders and customers alike. The three friendly characters I met here on a quiet Wednesday afternoon spoke lovingly of great dive bars they have known in Seattle, New York and Chicago, but insisted that Kincora can hold its own with any dive bar in the world.
To prove this point, bartender Brandon Carr proudly showed me deep gashes and exposed springs in the pub’s booth seats and encouraged me to make a pilgrimage to the men’s room to view its elaborate graffiti and smell its distinctive odor. “It’s one of the worst bathrooms in Seattle,” he proclaimed in a gravelly voice, “but also one of the best.”
I asked A.J. if it would be possible to relocate Kincora when this building is torn down.
“The character IS the room,” he replied. “I don’t think you can relocate it at all, because of what it is. It’s not like we got some theme going on. Now, if you had some theme like Manray or Cha Cha, yeah, you could relocate, call it the same thing, just throw some stuff on the wall and there you go. Today everybody wants themes and shit. Even Linda’s (a popular bar on the next block) – Linda’s is TRYING to be a dive bar! That’s like their kitschy thing.”
I asked Brandon (right) what he will miss most about this block when it is has been transformed.
“The community, man,” he replied wistfully. “Definitely this is a tight knit community. There are two degrees of separation on this block; if you don’t know somebody, you know who they are. And definitely if something goes down, everybody knows about it and everybody cares. It’s turning into a passby now instead of a place where you congregate with people. It’s not going to be a community.”
A.J. admits that it is hard to justify saving these buildings. “It’s not like the building is something to behold,” he says, laughing, “It’s not exactly like this is the Taj Mahal, you know? The roof is old, the plumbing is horrible. I mean, we’re lucky because we’re at the top of the hill; all the water goes down - it goes into Manray!”
But at least old buildings like this give small businesses places to thrive. A.J. points across the street to a Vietnamese restaurant that tried to make a go of it in a huge new condominium building. The restaurant closed recently and the space is now empty. “You can’t have a mom and pop or a first business owner in that kind of space,” he says, “They want too much rent. So what do you do? You want people to move in because it’s a kitschy neighborhood, it’s a cool neighborhood, it’s got a neighborhood vibe, I mean that’s the idea, right?”
“Well,” he concludes, sweeping his arm to encompass the whole, doomed block, “THERE GOES THE NEIGHBORHOOD!”