Review and photos by Ted Broussard
The Other End of the Dock
For over three years now, I’ve looked toward Pacific Avenue as the starting place for my downtown sphere of places to eat and drink. Sure, I knew about the neighboring Dock Street locations of Paesan, The Social and Choripan at the Museum of Glass, but I thought that kind of covered our immediate neighborhood. Turns out, there’s one more at the other end of Dock Street. If you walk north just beyond the Foss Waterway Seaport building, you’ll find Rock the Dock. Their website describes them as “a small family-owned pub” that was “voted #1 Best of Western Washington, Best Neighborhood Bar.” They go on to describe themselves as “Motorcycle & Boat Friendly” and they take great pride in their “fast, friendly crew and delicious pub fare with fresh, home made recipes.” Since I don’t own either a bike or a boat, but I do like great service and delicious food, I decided to give them a try.
Rock the Dock won’t be for everyone. If you’re partial to friendly bars, decent food and killer outside seating in warmer weather, you might like it here. The place itself is basically a bar with a large dining area and a performance space for live music on the weekends and karaoke and open mic nights. There are several outdoor tables with commanding views of Mt. Rainier and the Foss Waterway when the weather allows and lots of dock space for easy boat parking.
I joined a couple of friends for a happy hour stop recently and was pleasantly surprised. The menu offers a daily lunch special and half-off appetizers for happy hour 3-7 pm Monday through Friday. You’ll find a full range of pub grub from burgers and sandwiches to even a few dinner options featuring chicken or salmon along with a full breakfast menu on weekends. The bar has everything you’d expect, i.e. full range of spirits and draft beers, but I was impressed that in addition to their house wine, they also offered four choices of white and four choices of red as well as a few cleverly named specialty cocktails.
Our server certainly lived up to the website’s claim about fast and friendly service and was helpful and efficient through the evening. Of the three dishes we tried, my favorite was the Taco Salad ($11.99). I subbed the “spicy taco meat” for chicken and found all the usual suspects -- lettuce, tomatoes, black olives, cheddar jack, guacamole, salsa and sour cream, but the big star was the house-made tortilla bowl. Light as a feather, as the saying goes. The chicken was tasty and well-seasoned and the lettuce was fresh and crisp. It all worked well together but the bowl kicked it up a notch. We also tried the daily special of a half sandwich of cheddar and ham on grilled sourdough served with a bowl of house made chunky tomato soup ($6.49). The sandwich was good and the soup had pretty good flavor but this bowl at least was missing the chunky tomatoes. We found a few large pieces of celery but as far as we could tell, the tomatoes were chunkless. The Dock Eggrolls ($9.99) rounded out our choices and tasted fresh and delicious with chicken, slaw and secret spices served with a very good house-made sweet chili sauce. Feeling frisky, I tried the “Skinny Dip” cocktail made of Deep Eddy Grapefruit Vodka, club soda and lime and found it to be good but a little sweet. My dining companions each had a glass of white wine and thought they were good with a generous pour.
Rock the Dock lives up to its hype on their website. It is a friendly neighborhood bar with good pub food. It’s not gourmet, overly healthy or trendy but they’re not trying to be. Don’t let the motorcycle or boat community themes put you off. Their commitment to having friendly staff and preparing fresh food in house shines through and everyone is welcome there. We learned on our recent visit that a new menu and remodel is planned for April. No details available yet but it might be worth a before and after visit.
P.S. You may have noticed a flier on the bulletin board downstairs about an upcoming event at Rock the Dock featuring one of our own residents, Dave, who will bravely have his long beard shorn for a fundraising charity event. Check flier for details.
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