On a mobile device? Try our mobile site, optimized for faster browsing.
Mon-Fri. 11:00 a.m. - 2:00 a.m.
Sat-Sun. 4:00 p.m. - 2:00 a.m.
Loading...
Honestly, I preferred their last location, on Madison, but I do find myself at the Twilight Exit far more than I would expect these days, given that I live in Redmond and all. It's a pretty good place still. They've added some nice things, but it doesn't have that dirty old edgy feel it used to have.
Good, cheap beer on tap. Great bar tenders. It doesn't seem to fill up with people like the old location did, but there do seem to be more people bringing in their dogs than I remember at the place on Madison.
I think I'm going to have to move into the neighborhood once my lease is up. All this driving to the Central District is cutting into my drinking time.
So the drinks are cheap and the bar food includes tater tots. Also there's a mangy overgrown poodle that hangs around...and we all know how I feel about dogs in bars. Automatic many star rating.
Me: *feeds dog tater tot*
Dog: *is happy*
Me: *feeds dog tater tot*
Dog: *is in love*
Boyfriend: *tries to pet dog*
Dog: *runs away*
Me: *holds out tater tot*
Dog: *comes back*
Bartender: (to dog) hey! stop begging! (to us) Sorry about the dog, guys.
Me: *secretly feeds dog tater tot*
Boyfriend: Hey - where did all the tater tots go?
Dark, kinda gross, has a resident dog and sketchy clientele. Clean bathrooms. This place is like my mothership.
So I came here looking for beautiful, brooding, high school-age vampires with great style and nice cars. What I got was even better.
I got stiff drinks at a fair price, some of the best bar food in Seattle, and a diverse, cool crowd.
I ordered a crown and coke, and I was pleasantly surprised when I tasted way more crown than coke, but it wasn't so strong that I was drinking straight crown (which I do, but sometimes I like to cut it with some sweet, sweet coca cola).
I ate the cheese balls (mozzarella sticks, but balls), and they were perfectly crunchy on the outside and gooey in the middle, and only 2 exploded! Furthermore, when you make them into balls, the cheese is completely gooey and never chewy.
My friends tell me the rest of the menu is great too. I can't wait to eat and drink more there.
Who knew that a pretty sketchy looking purple building on the southeast edge of Capitol Hill (practically Madison Valley/Central District) could be such a fantastic dive bar?
I have two words to start off the food experience: One, tater, Two, tots. TOTS. Whether you want to be reminded of childhood, college dining hall food, or just vicariously experiencing these things via "Napoleon Dynamite," this place serves up heaping bowls of tots for $3. I'm not sure I need to go any further than this.
For the more adventurous (and healthy!) at heart, chicken-fried bacon. Truly, it's like this restaurant took the thought, "what wouldn't be better deep fried" to its limits by taking something already essentially deep fried and, uh, deep frying it again and serving it with a bowl of gravy. Seriously!
They also have a number of bar standards on the menu, including chicken tenders, burgers and fish and chips. Everything is made to order and seems fairly high in quality (burgers are hand balled meat for example, not frozen patties) which could be somewhat surprising given the restaurants decor but worth having. For the record, you can get the burger with peanut butter. (If you're not filling up on tots and bacon that is)
I can't finish the review without mentioning that they also have arcade-style Tetris (don't tell me you don't like that game because everyone does). This place might be kind of out of the way but it's worth a trip, and well, pretty much the only game in town if you find yourself down by 23rd and Madison.
Too bad, so sad :(
Twilight has moved...
Ahh... Twilight... how I love you! There's nothing like a can of Oly to garnish my birthday… Read more »
Tetris!
Karaoke!
Chicken Fried Bacon! Yes Bacon!
SUPER stiff drinks!
And the only bar stumbling distance to my pad!
I think you're closing soon, and that makes me sad. I hope you will be paved over by another awesome condo that I can't afford. syke.
In the "War on My Internal Organs", there have been some epic battles - Eastlake Zoo Bar vs. my lungs (pre-smoking ban) and Mama's Mexican Kitchen vs. my entire GI tract.
The final battlefield of Alcohol vs. my liver could very well take place in The Twilight Exit.
The bartenders here have a heavy hand like Jeff Gordon has a heavy foot.
I have a couple of friends who keep dragging my ass to this ridiculous place.
I get it. Seattle is filled with 20-somethings who wish they were older and wiser. They wish they were filled with disdain for the world instead of secretly harboring pie-eyed hope for the rain forest.
This is where all you Bukowski reading, self-congratulatory, pretentious a**holes end up on Saturday night when you get rejected at Contour.
Two stars for the Jerry Springer Show with alcohol.
Two flavors of people here......
Those who rate this place favorably probably own Wire and Specimen on vinyl.
Those who do not just downloaded the latest from DJ Hansdooderdouche onto their mp3 player(which they most likely paid for).
To each their own.........
I was here last night with a friend of mine. When we went to leave, I was waiting for him to get out of the bathroom, and this girl came up to me and asked, "Excuse me, do you know that guy you're leaving with?" I told her I'd known him since he was 6, and she said, "Well, he was going through your purse while you were in the bathroom...I figured it was probably OK, but I wanted to let you know, just in case...." So, maybe this is more of a review of the patrons of Twilight Exit, or of the good people of Seattle, but I really thought it was awesome that this girl felt the need to look out for a fellow girl.
Oh, and I told my friend what happened when he got back from the bathroom, and he was like, "Dammit!! I totally saw her looking at me! I need to figure out a way to gay it up when that happens!" As if marching up to the bar and ordering "Two Dicks, please" isn't gay enough.
I moved to Seattle from San Francisco where I had a lot of of haunts and dive bars. I wanted to find something that reminded me of some old bars from back home and a local tattoo artist recommended the Twilight Exit.
(that was about a year ago!)
I finally made it out there this past weekend (it's about a mile walk from my apartment) and it was SO worth it! I took a friend who was my barhopping buddy back in SF and he was impressed too. It reminded us both of a bar we frequented and we felt right at home.
BONUSES INCLUDE:
-It's got a divey feel but it's not dirty or seedy
-The women's bathroom was clean
-The drinks are CHEAP!
-The amount of people in the bar wasn't overwhelming but the atmosphere wasn't dead either
-Service was fast and food was good
What more could you ask for?
I love the Twilight Exit. It was the only place within walking distance in the recent snowstorm and I was so happy that it was. A great place to escape from the cold. Great drinks, friendly bartenders, really cheap happy hour, cute dogs running around and lots of room for big crowds. Also, my friend got a ridiculously huge/amazing tasting bowl of alcohol here on her birthday!
Glumly, "It might not even be open... I see a 'Proposed Land Use Action' sign on the side..."
My companion had just guided us through what was easily the most terrifying neighborhood in Seattle, and I followed him to a non-descript blue building on the corner. Were it not for the illuminated neon beer sign in the one window, we probably would have assumed it WAS closed.
"One Drink Minimum" seemed charming to me, greeting patrons in authoritative black sharpie as they stepped out of the afternoon light into a startlingly dark Twilight Exit.
The regulars perched at the barstools, close enough to our table that we felt we were a part of their cliche conversation. Behind us, a sunset beach mural enveloped our painfully crooked table, making us forget that every small movement rocked our glasses of ale so much that they would slop over the sides. The bartender reeked nostalgically of a youthful Ozzie Osbourne, complete with crazy black hair, slightly dazed eyes and some exaggerated confusion when you try to order a pitcher (they only have pints).
We found the menu to be surprising, considering the musty atmosphere and sticky tables (the wonderful idiosyncrasies of your Friendly Neighborhood Lounge). There was a claim that 99% of the food on their menu was made from scratch on the premises, and the spicy chicken sandwiches we ordered did NOT disappoint. The following day, we would still be raving about these marvels.
Quotables from the walls in the ladies room included, "Who ya gonna call? Slutbusters!" and "Jam out with your clam out", both of which we found unique and quite catchy.
Good beer, GREAT food, but NOT a place to impress your date or plan a work luncheon.
Notably, happy hour is from OPEN to 8pm. One might think this would dissuade the bartenders from pulling a decent pour, but no. VERY no. They should rename it "REALLY Happy Hour".
I went to the Twilight Exit for the first and NOT the last time last Saturday night. I was charmed by the "No shoes, no shirt, no crack" sign at the entrance, pleased by the ambience (dark, dive-y, but not gross), and thrilled when I looked at the menu.
Three words, people.
Chicken. Fried. Bacon.
Of course, I had to try this. I ordered the bacon, a meatloaf sandwich, and a Dick's Danger Ale (on the recommendation of the barkeep). The bacon was *outstanding*. Not too much breading, nice long pieces, perfectly fried, and served with a side of gravy. The meatloaf sandwich was well seasoned and adorned with cheese and other toppings (I can't recall - too busy stuffing my maw). The beer was exactly what I like, based on my description to the bartender.
The music was eclectic but not cliche or hipster. We even heard some rare KISS disco while there. The crowd was cool and not obnoxious.
I am sad to hear this place will be gone (in the fall?), but when I get back to town I am SO going back.
Stefan has assembled a crack team of mixologists to satisfy your every alcoholic urge.
Heavy hands pour drinks cheap, strangers mix and mingle amidst the thrift store castoffs and wacky jack decor and all along one wall is the most beautiful sunset you will ever see this side of Maui.
Often dirty, never boring with a wicked jukebox to boot, I heart-heart-heart the Twilight.
Get here quick though, the lease is up and the clock is ticking..
Ahhh, Ms. Exit, where do I begin?''
Geoff moved to Seattle about a month after Beth and I did, a couple years ago. We landed a few bocks from Lady Twilight back when Deano's was still operating and you could watch crack being smoked in our yard hourly. After careful observation of our surroundings, and an incredible crackhead/fireworks experiment, I said to Geoff: "It's important for us to explore that weird blue building we can see from our front window, I think it's going to be our neighborhood bar."
Geoff: "ok"
We walked over. We were the only people in the bar for most of the night. The bartender (Erica) was friendly, funny, and poured us some interesting shots. Approving nods were exchanged. The place is big, dark, comfortable. Surprisingly good food, with impressive specials. Where else can you have in-house dry aged steaks with perfectly grilled asparagus or incredible artichoke crabcakes while you watch crack deals.
Cue highlight reel of shenanigans like Johnny climbing on the roof and squirting patrons with warm water from a bag in his pants, wrestling matches, birthday drinks big enough that one of the garnishes floating in the drink is literally a can of Oly or Sparks, an unhealthy Golden Tee golf obsession, meeting long time neighborhood historians who knew Jimi, shooting the moon three times in a row...
The neighborhood has evolved, condos have been built, you see Mercedes that actually belong to the driver, but Twilight abides, taking all comers (even from Contour.) It's pretty incredible to come in early (opens at 4pm) on a Friday, and watch the evolution from the 9-5 martini crowd, then the locals, then the college kids, drug dealers, and pirates. Of course, those can turn into the nights where I get lost on the way home. Yes, I still live in the same place that you can see from the pool table.
It's not for everybody, but at the same time manages to attract the most diverse crowd I have ever seen at a neighborhood bar. It's weird, not necessarily clean, there are video games, pinball, pool, a great patio, perfect bartenders, and I only know one person that has been shot in the neck while they were there.
*update on the food: THEY HAVE CHICKEN FRIED BACON
**and now: CFBLT!!!
***CHICKEN FRIED PICKLED EGGS
I can't give it five stars simply b/c.. well, just trust me. It's not 5 star. While this throwback dive bar is located in a seedy, albeit scary neighborhood, don't let that deter you. Good music, live djs playing metal all night long, and Buck Hunter/ billards. Pair that with '70's decor, stiff drinks, and a great selection of bar food and you got yourself a winner!
It gets "2 radical metal djs' thumbs" up!
Great dive bar, when not crowded with hipper than thou hipsters. Damn them and their ilk.
Karaoke was okay. Some obvious regulars like to show off american idol stylee.
BONUS is an outside smoking area!
I've received word that the Twilight's new location will be Cherry & 23rd, former home of La Louisiana cajun restaurant. This is great news for me, as it is within barfing distance of my home, and is hopefully the beginning of the rejuvenation of that stretch of Cherry. 5 stars in anticipation, hopefully to be confirmed by functional Ms. Pac Man, strange decor, and stranger clientèle.
The Twilight lost something when it moved across the street. It's still a cool joint with th… Read more »
The chicken strips. And they have Manny's. That's all you need to know. The icing on the cake is that the bartenders are nice, and still good at keeping the line in order and moving quickly. It can get a little crowded, but that must be because it's a friendly place. I like the Twilight.
The new Twilight ROCKS!! It's still in the hood and the décor is groovy. Solid drinks, great bar food, an eclectic mix of hood rats, creative class, rockers, punks, artists, and everything else! Thanks for helping the neighborhood and.....they have WiFi!!!!!
Really comfortable, unpretentious bar with good beer selection and surprisingly good food. (Try the fried chicken sandwich!)
I don't find the neighborhood too scary, personally.
Twilight is my favorite Seattle dive. Quite large for a dive, even on busy nights I've always found room. Different evenings have interesting entertainment from the usual Sunday night karaoke to Vliff the awesome magician showing up on Wednesdays. I haven't caught the movie night yet.
Drinks are decent, bartenders are always nice. Great atmosphere.
Couches and free wifi in a bar on the way home are certainly a great way to coax me off the bus too.
This is a huge place, with roomy outdoor seating that smelled like ceder all summer long. They have a fantastic karaoke night on Sundays, with a mic that makes everyone sound like a million bucks. We've even encountered a staff magician named Cliff, who seriously, seriously blew all of us away.
Its our neighborhood bar, and while the drinks aren't as cheap as say The Maharahja or The Monkey Pub, there is always seating open and their jukebox is pretty complete. As a bonus, their kitchen is open relatively late and serves decent bar fare (great fries, ect)
Also, on my friend's birthday, they made him a FREE drink that was (no exaggeration) the size of my head, had over 7 different types of alcohol in it, and an unopened can of Rainer was dropped in at the end. With a cherry or two as well, if I'm not mistaken.
Side bonus- safeway is right across the street and open pretty late as well, so you can get really bad food to soak up all the booze before you stumbledrunk home.
The 48, 43, and 11 bus lines all run near by.
Also, beware- the old, abandoned, burned out Twilight is across the street and about half a block up. I guess some of the map sites still direct people to that locale...
The real one is the building WITHOUT massive amounts of graffiti on the front of it...
Mmmm cheese balls n tater tots...Guiness battered fish n chips...stiff cheap drinks...pretty sure that's all you need to know!
Okay so the interior is a little funky, it's dark and divey, with weird mismatched furniture, but I think that adds to the appeal. The food is awesome and the portions are generous. The mixed drinks are stiff, the beer is reasonably priced. It's a great little bar. Just don't come here if you're looking for hip-hop, bright lights or a dance floor.
heh... so so dark inside and the drinks were poured heavy!!
love the outdated yet comfy atmosphere and the juke box had some awesome tunes in it
i was very intently watching a baseball game on tv so i was in the zone... no fraternizing for bernie this night folks!
Pinball, good beers, no-BS staff, and incredibly delicious food. You would not expect this place to have great food, but it really does.
The Twilight may have ditched the best couches in its across-the-street move but it gained a tasty menu (try the deep-fried mozzarella) and an attractive cook. The drinks are still poured stiff and the happy hour prices (i.e. $1.50 PBR pints) are stellar.
Bonuses include pinball, old-school table top games, and a rockin' jukebox.
I like this place. Not only because it's at the end of my street, but also because it's cheap, divey, and they have signs directed at the crack addicts that I've grown accustomed to wandering the neighborhood (not as much since they're tearing down the buildings across the street but they're still around). Too bad it won't be around for much longer, I'm going to have to hurry and catch one of the infamous karaoke nights I read about. Do they still do that? Oh I hope so, I need a good shitshow to lift my spirits!
I came here at random one night after already having had a few drinks elsewhere. It's only a few blocks from my house and I'd heard it was cool but somehow managed to avoid going in. It was someone's birthday, so they were having Guitar Hero night on a projector. Somehow I ended up hanging out with all the staff and the owner smoking cigarettes in the kitchen and discussing my landlord. They were awesome. The drinks were what you'd expect and not expensive. The crowd was cool. Guitar Hero rocks. Pinball = happy.
If you too were devastated by the closing of Club Chocolate City, take solace in the fact that, with a short walk across the street, you can advance to a slightly classier echelon at The Twilight Exit. It's so cheap, dark, and cozy, you may never want to leave. For some reason, it reminds me of the basement in That 70's Show, but more pimped out and without the herbal haze. Though a few decades beyond the decor, the juke box selection is loaded with much of my favorite rock. I'm sad that I haven't been there for the metal DJs (that's so awesome!), but the old guy walking around doing magic tricks was pretty great too. I just wish more of the tabletop arcade games were still working.
Excellent...I walked in here and it was pretty dark with really cool lamps and a nice back porch for taking in fresh air. The food was so good! Totally not your typical greasy bar food...really yummy cole slaw (and I do not even like the slaw), excellent fried chicken sammy, and tater-tos...okay, so maybe it IS bar food, but it felt somehow healthy. The music was great and the staff/clientelle were v. friendly. This is a little gem that I would recommend checkin' out.
Hip Dive Bar.
Dark wood and 70's decor. It's a little sketchy, but everyone is nice. PBR in cans, a few micro brews, big mixed drinks. Interesting mix of people, not for the faint of heart. Nice patio outside for sunny days. One pool table and two pin ball machines. Juke box has lots of classic rock on it. Food is your basic processed, frozen, fried bar food.
I've been here on the weekends, which I liked for a drink or two. I stopped by on Sunday for Karaoke and it was fairly dead. Only about 10 people in the bar.
It's a pretty big place now with good bar food. I like it and it's just far enough out of the way that it's never too full of idiots from the Pine St loop. The decor...70's rumpus room chic.
Divey yet charming. We just stopped in to check the place out and place some video games, and left with an overall great impression despite the fact that the Jukebox ate all our money!
Breakfast was a joke.
I had a friend tell me the Twilight Exit had decent brunch on weekends, so months later I thought we'd try it out since it is walking distance from our house in the Central District.
The service was fine, only one waitress (super bowl Sunday though). The menu touted "home fries" with several of the entrees. I ordered biscuits and gravy, my girlfriend a scramble. The food was passable, but the gravy had no sausage and lacked spice or flavor - the biscuits were blah also. The poached eggs were cooked well though. But the "home fries" turned out to be tater tots! Just like we got in grade school, from a freezer bag. We asked the waitress about this - she replied "we're old school, no home fries". Why the hell don't they take it off the menu then?
We asked her for coffee - she said it sucked, "what do you expect, we're a bar". If you serve brunch, you should damn well have some decent coffee!! The Safeway across the street has several brands of decent coffee. There is no excuse for lame coffee in Seattle. And they didn't have decaf.
Seems like a few tweaks they could do a lot better, but for now, the Canterbury kicks their butt brunch-wise.
This bar is amazing. It has the attitude of a retired prostitute with good legs. The bar food is really top notch and the decor is weird and happy and the outside looks scary and uninviting. Truly, a fantastic bar. I believe last night was it's finale and it's moving over to 25th and Cherry, right alongside the Ethiopian cluster%$#@ of restaurants. Does anyone know the new opening day?
Okay, the original place was a little more entertaining. Kitschy and grotty - and cheap to drink there. And the new location across the street is pretty darned good too. Cheap fried food to absorb the beer makes it worth staying. So, it isn't quite as gritty as the old place, but still nice. If you're burdened with guilt about gentrification you might not be terribly comfortable here, but if you're learning to accept that no matter how much you rail against it, you are part of it (um, yeah, like me...) then you'll be relaxed enough to suck down a couple cold ones and a basket of rings.
Oh my goodness. I've done so many despicable and disgusting things here, I cannot even begin to write about it. Yet I must go on. Even though it physically pains me to relive the trauma of all the nights that I've ended up at the Twilight Exit, I must submit for the betterment of modern mankind. The crowd, although sometimes annoying, (you know in the white/hipster in a poor black area kinda way) still keeps to themselves and at least has decent taste in music for the jukebox. The staff on the other hand are really cool, nice, laidback, and definitely unpretentious. They even seem to enjoy getting the pickled eggs from the giant jar every time I order it. The tots are great and so are the super nachos. Actually the fries and chicken strips were some of the best I've ever had. Let's just say they are deep-fry connoisseurs. As a result of the jovial atmosphere and the high calorie (or as I like to call it "energy") foods, I have done some amateur breakdancing, clapping pushups, and a "dip" I've invented on the way to the jukebox. I heard some asshole developer is kicking them out, but I also heard they were opening somewhere off Cherry. Thanks to all the mighty spirits. In summation three words to seal the deal: chicken. fried. bacon.
I love The Twilight Exit. The pinball machines, table-style and stand-up arcade games, HUGE plates of nachos, divey-yet-homey (like someone's so-uncool-it's-hip 1970s basement - and trust me, that's not usually my scene). They do Karaoke nights, sometimes have live DJs, good selection of tunes in the jukebox, decent drinks, good selection of beverages, it's dim enough to be a bar but well-lit enough that you don't have to strain your eyes to see your friends. The music is generally loud enough to hear but not so loud you have to talk loudly. Plus... free wi-fi! I dig this place, when I lived across the street, my roommates and I eventually made this our "second living room" in a lot of ways. Bathrooms have always been VERY clean, good service, and despite being in kind of a sketchy neighborhood the clientele is pretty laid back and I have never felt threatened or uncomfortable here. It's a fun little joint.
Sunday FUNday Happy Hour…
Neighborhood: Ballard
TWO Happy Hours!
Seattle, WA
Neighborhood: Central District
Category: Lounges
Neighborhood: International District
Category: Karaoke
Neighborhood: Capitol Hill
Category: Lounges
Neighborhood: Central District
Category: Lounges
Neighborhood: Central District
Category: Coffee & Tea
Neighborhood places in the CD that I frequent and…
My local dry cleaner, watering hole, deli, cafe,…
I love happy hour. Why pay $10 for lunch when you…
but these bars are as close as I'm going to…
capitol (and first) hill... where you may see me…
My local dry cleaner, watering hole, deli, cafe,…
My local dry cleaner, watering hole, deli, cafe,…
