I will always remember driving to New York City from Pennsylvania, the first thing you would see was the twin towers of The World Trade Center. Those towers were tall! I wonder if it was just me, but there was always this weird optical illusion with the twin towers, the further away you were from them, the larger they appeared!
But when you were Downtown, near the WTC, they didn’t seem nearly so big.
The McMenamins Elks Temple in Tacoma Washington doesn’t look that big from the outside, but you have no idea just how huge this place is until you step inside …
If you live in the Pacific Northwest you are probably familiar with McMenamins and what they do, but for everyone else, here’s a quick primer. McMenamins is a restaurant and hospitality chain that buys and refurbishes old, classic and historical buildings. What’s cool is that they do their best to maintain the integrity of the buildings while giving them a “McMenamins” upgrade. Some places will just be a pub or a restaurant, while others are more complex. For example, The Anderson School in Bothell Washington was a former junior high school with multiple buildings. McMenamins converted the entire campus into a hotel, movie theater, giant salt water pool, fine dining restaurant, brewery, pub, and themed bars, including of course a tiki bar … The North Shore Lagoon!
The Elks Temple had been in a bad state of neglect and abandonment for a long, long time. I’ve walked by this large building many times on the way to The Devil’s Reef, which is literally a block away. Word on the street was that McMenamins bought the property in 2007, but for years it looked like nothing was being done to the building. Well finally on Wednesday April 24th, the Elks Temple opened its doors to the general public. Let’s go inside …
When you walk through the main doors you are greeted by a giant sign that says “Welcome” …
This is the entrance to the Elks Temple main dining restaurant called The Pub or more officially: McMenamins Pub at Elks Temple.
Before we go any further, I want to let you know that I didn’t eat at any of the restaurants, I only drank at the tiki bar, so I can’t talk about how the food was. McMenamins always serves great original dishes and I’m sure the food at the Elks Temple is just as good as all their other locations.
Heading up to the top floors we have the hotel rooms …
These cool little rooms have big bay windows and the whole thing feels like some kind of village. There are more normal hotel rooms found in the outer hallways.
Need a breath of fresh air? This is the view from the top of the Elks Temple …
Down one floor from the hotel rooms you will find Doc’s Bar …
This is your regular McMenamins bar with shuffleboard, pinball machines, pool tables and the people that play them.
What’s cool about Doc’s Bar is that it looks down into the Spanish Ballroom …
This space is huge with major acts already set to play their stage. Check the Spanish Ballroom calendar to see who’s coming soon!
Going down another floor we come to the Spanish Bar …
You can enter the Spanish Bar from a landing on the historic Spanish Steps as well …
From the Elks Temple website: “The Spanish Bar is a tapas-style café, serving an array of Spanish-inspired cocktails and bites like Fingerling Patatas Bravas and Wild Boar Meatballs.”
Last but not least, let’s check out the tiki bar located on the ground floor of McMenamins Elks Temple called The Old Hangout …
This is the entrance to The Old Hangout …
You enter in and go around the wall …
And wham! You are in a cool, dark, classic tiki bar!
What I really love most about The Old Hangout is that it feels like a tiki bar that might have been left over from decades ago. The décor has a very classic atmosphere to it …
It has a world traveler feel, pulling influences from far away lands all over, like the Orient …
Papua New Guinea …
And other exotic places I may never get to visit in my lifetime …
Finally, let’s do some drinking! Here is the cocktails and drinks menu …
The drink selection has rum based tiki cocktails but also several other options that are vodka, whiskey and even tequila based, as well as beer, and non-alcoholic choices …
I had to order a Hurricane …
The drink is served in a Munktiki mug and it went down quick and easy, then I felt the booze once I had to get up!
Jason Craig (We Shall Tiki) ordered a tiki drink that actually has coffee in it, and chocolate covered espresso beans on top. It was called a VooDoo Brew …
For my second drink, I went with a Singapore Sling …
This a tiki drink that has gin as the main spirit and it was great!
Jason went traditional and ordered a Mai-Tai.
It was solid! I’m getting one of these next time!
Our buddy Joel showed up, he wasn’t drinking tonight, so he went with a non-alcoholic drink called an Unleaded Strawberry Daiquiri …
He liked it! It went down more like frozen yogurt but was still tasty.
Jason went ahead and ordered a Pisco Sour …
This drink was the best of the bunch. It was tasty, yet strong, without being too boozy.
I’m blown away by the Elks Temple. McMenamins did an incredible job. I live in Seattle but I see myself coming down to Tacoma quite a bit in the future, and I think a ton of other people will be doing the same!
Oh Yeah! Don’t forget to check out the Vault! It’s a speakeasy, so I’m not going to tell where it is, you’ve got to find it for yourself …
Here is the Elks Temple website
And the McMenamins general webpage
Looks like they did a better job with the Old Hangout than they did at Kalama Lodge. We stopped at Kalama on Sunday and was a bit disappointed with the interior deco or lack thereof. Will have to check out the Elks Lodge for sure!
Oh! They knocked it out of the park with The Old Hangout! I can’t wait to get back there. It’s a bar I can see myself spending a lot of time in…
With every new McMenamins they up their game. 60 locations from Mill Creek, WA to Roseburg, OR. Their 1st tiki bar was the Kapu Bar in Eugene, then the North Shore Lagoon in Bothell. This tops them both. Rumour has it that each new McMenamins will have a tiki bar. Wonder where next?
I agree! I think the Elks Temple may be my favorite McMenamins location.