Noting that new bars "spring up in Seattle like weeds in sidewalk cracks," the Stranger reported "there's a new trend where people can find their favorite beverage in a place that speaks directly to the need for coziness, companionship, and intellectual fodder through the dark and damp Seattle winter: bars in bookstores."
"The whole point is to build community," said Danielle Hulton, co-owner of Ada's Technical Books and Cafe, which recently added a cocktail bar and event space called the Lab. "Having food and drink helps."
Third Place Books "has devoted the basement and part of the main floor of its new Seward Park location, which opened in May 2016, to Raconteur, an all-day bar and restaurant by the folks from Flying Squirrel Pizza Co.," the Stranger noted, adding that the bookseller "was already a player in the bookstore bar game with the Pub at Third Place, a cozy, wood-paneled craft-beer spot below their Ravenna shop."
Although patrons can now sip rosé at Little Oddfellows in Elliott Bay Book Company, grab a beer at Ada's and drink cocktails at Raconteur, Third Place managing partner Robert Sindelar said the concept wasn't so accepted when the Ravenna pub first opened more than a decade ago: "It was slow to start. Initially, people wanted out of it what other bars in the neighborhood offered: Where's the pool table? Where's the dartboard? How cheap is your beer?" By the time Third Place prepared to launch its Seward Park space, a pub was part of the plan and the owners "brought in a different restaurant operator and different food offerings, and made the bar a more integral part of the store," the Stranger wrote.
Hulton noted that her customers at Ada's liked the Lab's concept immediately: "They wanted more space for community, to find different ways to interact with Ada's that plug in for them."
Caleb Thompson, who has managed the Pub at Third Place for more than a decade, agreed: "That's the whole ideal of the third place--you need somewhere to go to talk to people and relate.... You come in and it's like, there are so many of the things I love in one place! Why isn't this everywhere?"