The first draft of this piece was very negative. Originally I wasted the entire intro cutting into the Belltown club crowd: "They dress funny, they order crappy drinks, they eat babies." It was the usual barrage of lame insults, delivered against the usual invulnerable targets, to the usual negligible effect. If you're out there in your Ben Sherman shirt sucking down cocktails made with Red Bull, there's little I can say to dissuade you.
But that's not what this is about. Belltown's nightlife isn't broken, and it's pointless to pretend that it is. Some of my favorite joints -- including Roq la Rue [0], Rendezvous [0], Shorty's Coney Island [0], Lava Lounge [0], Del Rey [0], Mama's Mexican Kitchen [0] and Whisky Bar [0] -- are located in Belltown. Much as I'd love to use this space to talk smack about Karma [0], the Apartment [0], See Sound Lounge [0] and the like, the numbers are overwhelmingly in favor of acquitting Belltown -- especially now that the McLeod Residence Lounge [0] has fully joined the party by opening its doors to the public.
For its first year, entry to the McLeod lounge was restricted to members. Membership in the Residence is available to everyone who's willing to pay the dues ("People enter by wanting to enter," as their Web site [1] says) and brings with it some nifty perks -- you can choose your own name ending in "McLeod," invent (and name!) a cocktail for the menu, attend private parties, "learn secrets" and even get documents notarized. The membership structure is still in place and still worthwhile, but beginning this weekend everyone is free to mix it up with the McLeods in their swanky lounge, which I enthusiastically recommend you do.
Simply entering the Residence is a treat. A simple sign that could be the shingle for a piano teacher announces the Residence to the street. A handsome wood staircase leads up to a rectangular foyer done in black floral-print wallpaper. (When last I saw it, the foyer was dominated by a portrait inspired by Michael Jackson's mugshot.) The gallery and performance spaces are very much their own entities, contained in separate rooms like independently minded siblings.
You have to take a couple of turns before you even find the lounge, but when you do, it's worth it. It's dark and cozy -- perhaps too cozy for huge, obnoxious Belltown crowds -- and lit only by a giant, glowing ransom note. Seriously, there's a God-sized ransom note on the north wall, assembled from remaindered commercial signage, advising some aggrieved party to "Leave nineteen million dollars in unmarked bills."
That alone is enough for me to recommend McLeod, but there's more to the place, though that "more" is tough to describe. There's an intangible vibe here, a kind of hippie feeling of being a petal on the flower that stopped a bulldozer. In any case, McLeod offers proof enough that the future of Belltown nightlife isn't entirely written in Red Bull.
And Ben Sherman makes some nice shirts. There, I've said it.
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