“The whole world is three drinks behind,” Humphrey Bogart proclaimed in 1950, according to a wonderfully long-winded Modern Drunkard profile of the actor’s boozing prowess. “If everyone in the world would take three drinks, we would have no trouble. If Stalin, Truman, and everybody else in the world had three drinks right now, we’d all loosen up and we wouldn’t need the United Nations.”
Amen. And thanks to Brad Bogart (no relation), Bogie’s back in town.
Good luck keeping this all straight. Brad Bogart once owned Bogart’s on Second Avenue in Pioneer Square. There was also a bar on Eastlake Avenue at the time called Bogie’s. But those Bogies went bye-bye, giving way to a trifecta of Goldie’s—one north of the city limits on Aurora (also a casino), a second on Airport Way, and a third in Wallingford.
Before the Wallingford Goldie’s was Goldie’s on 45th, it was called the Iron Bull. Now, under new ownership, it’s back to being the Iron Bull. Bogart (Brad, not Humphrey) bought and sold Goldie’s on 45th twice. He also owned Goldie’s on Airport Way for 12 years before selling it three years ago to the same owners who sold it back to him earlier this year. Now it’s been rechristened Bogart’s.
“It’s the last of the big old dive-o-saurs of the industrial area,” says Bogart of his now-eponymous bar.
Goldie’s regulars won’t miss a beat upon seeing the bar’s interior; the sign outside is about all that’ll change. “It just needs fine-tuning,” says Bogart. “It’s a hard-core workingman’s bar. Some of these people have been coming in here for 60 years.”
Scanning a packed barroom during Friday lunch hour, it’s evident that Bogart isn’t exaggerating. A huge table of retirees is doing what more retirees should do now that nobody’s the boss of them: drinking wine at noon (Europeans of all ages have had this down for centuries). But Bogart’s really isn’t much of a wine bar, what with its numerous cowboy hats mounted above the bar, Kokanee on tap, straightforward bar grub (the French dip is sufficiently tender), and the likes of Knut Bell & the Blue Collars providing live weekend entertainment.
Bogart can expect to stay busy if his bar sticks to its present formula. There are thousands of hungry middle-class workers in the area—a fair share of reflective vests were on display on the Friday in question—and hardy stalwarts like Flynn’s and Uncle Mo’s are no more. Bogart’s is effectively the last bar of its kind left standing in the neighborhood. And when you’re all there is, the United Nations, as Humphrey said, smacks of superfluity.
