Solo

I’m having a hard time deciding how many stars to give Solo.
When I first walked in, I immediately was reminded of my grandma’s basement, and I’m not sure that’s a good thing. It’s almost charming. I think if my drink had been better, I would have said it was charming.
But the drink… Oh god the drink. Hands down the worst cocktail I have ever had in my 37 years of existence. I couldn’t even finish it, which is pretty bad as I am known amongst my friends as the person that will eat or drink anything gross. About three sips and I just decided to count it as a sunk cost and that I’d enjoy my life more if I didn’t drink it. For your reference it was the Pear Collins, and if you want a drink that tastes like cough syrup I do recommend it.
Now that said, the service was quite good if a little slow. And I was surprised at how tasty my ham & Gruyère sandwich was, though my friend got the Käse spätzle (she grew up in Germany so maybe a hard sell?) and was disappointed both with the dish and the portion size.
I think for happy hour this place might be worth it, but I literally could not stomach paying $ 8 for the drink I couldn’t drink again. For $ 8 I can go to Percy’s and get a truly delightful beverage made with decent liquor and fresh herbs. I might go back to Solo and give it another shot, but I won’t be hurrying to do so.

This place has a very chill ambience, coffee house, speakeasy type. Great lighting and alot of seating choices including couches, and bar seating. At the bar you will find be very friendly attentive wait staff who are great at recommending beverage selections.

This place looked great from the outside but was a little disappointing inside. It seemed like it had been cheaply built and was rather dirty actually (window sills had gross stuff on them).
We had a cocktail and appetizer. I had the pickled veggies, which were fine. My boyfriend ordered the pig in a blanket which was a sausage with a tiny bit of pastry dough wrapped around it. It also came with a super small serving of mustard. He said the flavors were fine.
We had an average experience but won’t be heading back anytime soon.

Totally chill hidden gem on Queen Anne. Arrived around 1oclock am, and the bartenderess was super friendly and cool. They have couches to chill at, but many patrons gather around the bar instead, as the bartenderess is engaging and hilarious. Also she makes excellent drinks — I’d recommend the Bulgarian hoo-​ha juice, a grapefruit juice and vodka shooter that goes down easy but sneaks up on ya later. All in all I will definitely be back to solo bar!

Stepped into this place on our way to a show. Good drinks and the atmosphere was very mellow. Wait staff was friendly and attentive. We’d stop in again.

This place was pretty chill and had the coolest bartender. Good drinks and amazing happy hour deals! Loved the vibe and the cool art, not to mention my man Nabisco!

This is the perfect place for a drink and a meal before the ballet. The food is very good, much better than you’d expect in a bar, and the wine list is well priced. Friendly, attentive service; easy to pay and depart when you have to go. A pleasant, spacious room; you don’t feel packed in.

We were here as a group of 10 people that popped I n just for drinks. A gentleman greeted us and quickly said the couches on the raised area would be perfect for our group. We ordered at the bar. French 75, Moscow mule, Pear Collins and pamplemousse were great. We ordered around of kamikaze shots from the female bartender… strong and tart just the way we like. It was a quick but pleasant stop. I hope to come back for hh next.

Love this place! It is my favorite bar in Queen Anne, I just love the vibe. The service is freakin’ top notch and I always feel welcome.
Great cushy couches and squashy armchairs so you can sit and chill with your group, but also fun to sit up at the bar. The drinks are nice and stiff, and they always have Radeberger on draft which is fantastic.
In terms of the art and the music, its what sets it apart form all the sports bars with blaring TVs. Instead, here you get to see amazing local art of all different styles and they always have great music going, and it is a different genre almost every time I come in, and always good.
Lucky to have this place in the neighborhood :)

I think this place is definitely underrated by most, one of the chillest spots in all of lower queen anne. Its literally like having a drink in someones living room/​basement (in a good way). There are plenty of comfy couches to sit on and cool to art look at (and even buy if you are in the market). If you are looking to grab a drink with a few friends and just chill out, definitely a great place to do it.
Also, all-​day happy hour specials on Sunday and Monday.

A nice place to sprawl on a couch and bend your elbow after a play. Music nice and not loud.

Oh, Solo, let me count the ways I love thee… Where to start? The food is superb, simple fare. I regret that it took over a year of coming here to order anything beyond drinks. I’ve never had a dish here that I didn’t absolutely love, but the ones I come back to time after time are the pork belly sliders, the Mac and cheese and the grilled caprese sandwich. Soups change frequently and are stellar every time. The portions are just right and, with most under $ 10, doable on any budget. The cocktails are absurdly affordable for Queen Anne (especially during happy hour), and the beer selection is good. I adore the all day happy hour on Sunday. Solo is a must try regardless of where you’re currently at in Seattle
Finally, this review wouldn’t be complete without mentioning Elizabeth, the hardworking bartender. She’s the bees knees, mixes awesome drinks and has a remarkable memory for names and drink orders.

Solo Bar is also said to be an art gallery and with two Unilocal entries for the place I thought the art and the bar garnered individual reputations. But it is about” all in one” as you can get. The place is really a bar more than anything with art up for sale along the columns and walls. I thought the amount of art and the presentation of it was more like how some restaurants sell art on their walls and it just didn’t seem gallery like at all. In fact no one else there was looking at art at all, just drinking. I looked for a short time but there was so little there I sat down relatively fast. The atmosphere here wants to be promising but the furniture, dark curtains, white walls, red lamps and so on makes the place an unintentional mismatch, further diminishing the sophistication most art galleries have. The combination of bar and gallery here just doesn’t work… but it could.
Ok, enough of my interior decorating and presentation critique. I do have to say on the positive side the seating is relaxing and you can get a pretty decent assortment of beers, mixed drinks and snacks. The prices here are more reasonable than at the bars up on Capitol Hill but I don’t know how good the mixed drinks actually are. I got a pear beer here which was good and also reasonable. The bartender also was very sweet.
Out of all honesty I am not sure if I will swing back in here or not. The” gallery” concept was a big let down for me and the rest was just so so. There are other places that mish mash two concepts together and pull it off much better.

I really can’t say anything bad about this place. So why the 3 stars? I think that somehow it lacks charm. It feels a little like the space was a little thrown together without a lot of care and attention to detail.
The couches are lovely, the overall ambiance is pretty low-​key, it’s spacious. The drinks are pretty good (though I didn’t have any, the group I was with all enjoyed theirs) but I just don’t see this place as the type of place I would go back voluntarily. Or out of my way to go there. I didn’t dislike the place, but I think I’d have to actually want to come back if this place were to earn a fourth star.

After my first visit, Solo is what I would politely call a «nice place.» That is to say that it’s clean, they served me drinks, and nothing went terribly awry. It was a Monday night and there were about a dozen people in the bar. It was quiet, good for conversation, while music played quietly in the background.
The décor was modern and cute, and you could tell they wanted the room to be open and inviting. I imagine that they don’t get especially packed in there as the arrangement of the furniture — couch and coffee table seating at one end, tall dining tables at the back, short dining tables at the front, and a standard bar at the other end — wouldn’t suit a big crowd. But it was nice all the same.
The server was initially attentive, but after 2 stops at our table, I had to walk to the bar to order the rest of the drinks. It probably had something to do with the fact that she was the only one working, but I’d prefer one or the other — I only went to the bar when it seemed clear that the server wasn’t coming back to the table.
It was happy hour and the prices were good: $ 2 off cocktails, $ 1 off wells. We tried a couple of specialty cocktails and they were both very good. It was late, so we didn’t try the food.
Around 9:30 they dimmed the lights and started playing Super Troopers on a screen at the front of the bar. It was a little strange since it was completely unexpected and a bit louder than the music had been, but the group at the bar were loving it and it didn’t distract us too much from our conversation. Maybe playing movies is a regular thing and I was just unaware?
I imagine I’ll probably come back at some point. Maybe I’ll be able to bump up the rating when there are more servers to go around. But for now it gets 3 stars for being a «nice place.»

I’d read another review which said that the cocktails were $ 4 during all day happy hour on Sunday and Monday, so I came by on a Monday to check it out for the first time.
Cocktails were actually $ 2 off, so they were $ 6 instead of $ 8. I’m okay with that.
The bartender was cool and my drink was tasty enough (dark rum & ginger beer). Well drinks are $ 4 during happy hour. We didn’t try the food.
I liked the atmosphere. There are lots of long couches arranged next to each other so that a group of 6 – 8 can sit together and still hear each other talk. Local art on the walls. It was neither crowded nor empty and felt neighborhood-​y.
Order at the bar — there’s no sign indicating that.

Needed to find a bar to go to before a show at the key arena. The first two we peeked in where overcrowded and standing room only. Solo had enough people in it, but still a few places to sit. We were able to snag a seat at the bar where we received excellent service. Shots were served in larger glasses than tends to be typical. Beer selection on tap was small, but there was an interesting selection of cans and bottles. I enjoyed the art on the walls and the couch areas looked pretty comfy. Perused the menu, but didn’t try any food although it did look appetizing and I appreciate the labeling of the vegetarian options and the posting of the menu on the outside window. My only complaint is that one bathroom for a bar is not the greatest.

Great little happy hour spot if you’re staying in Lower Queen Anne at The Maxwell Hotel. The bar has a pleasantly divey feel, but not in a gross and dingy kind of way. The bartender was extremely friendly and attentive and you can’t beat the happy hour prices on draft beer and wine/​sangria. Quirky food menu, but lots of good happy hour snacks including some gluten free options like deviled eggs.

Delish and what a great happy hour!
I came with some friends that seemed a bit put off by the juxtaposition of what seemed like a casual neighborhood bar but featured a ‘gastropub’ menu but I was happy as can be.
I ordered the charcuterie plate and the duck fat roasted potato wedges and both were outstanding. I’d order both again in a heartbeat, they were a perfect twist on ‘meat and potatoes’ both filling and well made, I was feeling like I’d been out to dinner intsead of just had a snack.
I had a drink not on special– I like my drinks as I want them and rarely choose the happy hour options– and it was priced for the gastropub, not the neighborhood bar but it was really delicious.
I looked it up– it’s been a while since I was in– and Happy Hour no longer seems to include food specials: sadness.
I’d still go back, but I’ll pout.

Stopped here when in town and staying at the Maxwell Hotel. We kept walking past and thinking, «Wow, that place is packed» so we finally put on our game faces and went inside. I was pleased to see that the interior was tastefully decorated and the art on display is also for sale, so it was almost like a private art show, if you wanted to peruse all the artist’s work.
It was a laid back atmosphere, but most of all I liked the craft cocktail selection. We’ve been to a few «speakeasy» type bars where we are from, and enjoy creative mixing and twists on the old standard Manhattan, for example. At solo, the Manhattan to Prague was probably my favorite drink. Just changed a few things and gave it a whole new taste.
We came back every night thereafter, and had some of our Seattle-​ite friends meet up with us there too. It was good times.