westcoastman

Seattle Updates: Not much has changed.
The Seattle Lesbian & Gay Film Festival is in full swing.
Both Manray Video Bar and Pony Bar will need to close down soon because of the new condos. Manray is slated to close right after Thanksgiving weekend.
Pony Bar is still very hip with a fairly mixed crowd. It is an unusual and and interesting place to visit early in the night. We ordered ice cold cans of Colt-45 for $3 and they even put them in small paper bags to carry around the bar. Very cool. They even offer Astroids and Air Hockey and other campy video games.
There are many Halloween events going on they are listed on this blog about Gay Seattle.

CarNut

Any Seattle dining recommendations for Christmas Eve and Christmas day, hopefully within walking distance of the W? DH and I will be in Seattle for the first time from December 24 to December 28.

Thanks!

westcoastman

In Downtown:
Purple Cafe has half priced wine (under $50) on Sunday.
Barolo Ristorante has an excellent gay-friendly happy hour.
For pan Asian Wild Ginger is nice.
Both restaurants at W Hotel (Earth & Ocean) and Hotel Monaco (Sazerac) across the street are very gay friendly but you already know the "value" of hotel restaurants. Check out W Hotel's bar on Wednesday night for SIP (Social Interactive Playtime).
If you are looking for something in the Pike Place Market - Campagne or Cafe Campagne are a good chioce as well as Matt's in the Market. Maximilien in the Market has an excellent happy hour featuring French food.
Capitol Hill:
Hope you can make it up to Capitol Hill and try a dinner at Martin's Off Madison for a fully gay, relaxing, piano bar experience. Entertainment every night starting at 8 pm and pretty good food and decent value too and here is a Martin's Off Madison review.
Check out Crush on Capitol Hill as well for a quaint and straight but very gay friendly experience.

98103

Hey westcoastman, I heard a rumor that CCs was going to go the way of Thumpers...closed, razed and replaced with more condos.

Any info on that one?

westcoastman

That rumor has been around for a while about CC Attle's. But maybe it is coming closer to actually happening. I will have to look into it. CC's is typically pretty quiet except on special "Bear" nights so it would not surprise me. When they really scaled down the restaurant part of their business things changed from there. I will investigate further and report back. Both Pony and Manray should close down this week. Here is that article again about the decline of the gay bar in Seattle

westcoastman

Both Manray and Pony are now closed down. But The Elite has opened. Here are some pictures of the new bar.

SeaMeFly

Is it worth visiting? Any better than Purr? I still like purr overall than any other ones. Well, next to The Cuff

westcoastman

Different crowd. Older crowd than Purr however the crowd seems younger than when the Elite was at its old location on Broadway. Purr is a stand/sit and pose "cocktail Lounge" with a DJ on weekend nights while the Elite is more of a bar/tavern with a pool table and big screen TVs. The main thing you will see is the patrons at the Elite are quite friendly and after work the front bar looked pretty crowded. One main thing is the bar is very bright now so I am not sure how customers will like that. But for now people seem happy to have something new.

westcoastman

If you are still looking for a place Martin's Off Madison is a gay piano bar located on Capitol Hill but not really walking distance but not too far from downtown either. On Christmas Eve they have their full menu until 9 pm along with entertainment. On Christmas they will have a Holiday Dinner from 4:30 to 8:30 pm for $15 (Dinner, Dessert & Seconds) and their food is pretty good quality. FYI I don't think they will have any entertainment on Christmas Day even though they do have it every single other day.