Kids Allowed Bars Broaden Appeal, Customer Base By Gaining Restaurant Status

Family night for the Kinkeads used to be pizza and Monopoly.

That’s all changed. Now, quality time is often spent at one of a handful of North Spokane bars, where Paul can have his Bud and a burger, Gloria has gin and fish strips, and the two young ones - 8-year-old Samuel and 4-year-old Trish - have pockets heavy with quarters for video games.

Over a battered wood table at the Swinging Doors on Francis Avenue, and between pitches of the Mariners’ game on the big-screen TV, the family talks business: homework assignments, work gossip, grandma’s illness.

“I’ll tell ya, family nights are a lot more fun for us these days,” said Gloria Kinkead.

The Kinkeads and other North Spokane residents have found a new place in their busy lives for the neighborhood tavern.

The joints are no longer just smoky havens for the world weary and Tammy Wynette fans; happy hour has become family hour.

The change follows a statewide business trend in which neighborhood beer bars are gaining restaurant status, broadening their menus and serving hard liquor. Rule changes that set the stage for the shift were enacted 15 years ago but, in the past four years, a growing number of taverns are converting to boost flagging business.

Kids are now allowed in certain parts of the bars until 8 p.m.

That unlikely cocktail minors and booze - has created a boom for a handful of bars, including the North Spokane’s Swinging Doors, the Bigfoot, Ichabod’s North, the Maxwell House, Mead’s Fizzy Mulligan’s and Hillyard’s Special K.

“We’ve got triple the business - and the tips,” said Special K bartender Chris Warman.

To qualify for restaurant status, bars used to have to wall off more than half their floor space, separating lounge from dining. Complicated formulas were required to balance food receipts with booze sales.

At the request of the state restaurant and bar lobby, qualifications to sell hard liquor were simplified. Now, only 15 percent of a bar must be set aside as restaurant to qualify for the class H permit. The menu must include at least five meals.

“It’s their way to counter a downward trend in the business,” said Liquor Control Board agent Mike Waldron.

Converting from beer and wine to a full-service bar costs an extra $1,300 in permits. Many bars had to buy industrial kitchen materials, some shelling out more than $10,000. A stock of booze costs around $2,500.

The investment has boosted beer and food sales for the Swinging Doors, according to owner Bob Materne.

“It sure brings in the extra business,” said Materne.

In some cases, it’s also changed atmosphere. Dinner time looks like the crowd at a Disney movie. One bar - Fizzy Mulligan’s - has family karaoke on Sundays.

“For Mariners games, we have $1 burgers wrapped in foil, just like they sell at the Kingdome,” said owner John Hiatt. “You see families sitting in the back, watching games together.”

High school kids also take advantage of the relaxed rules. Students from Mead’s alternative high school - Frank Nelson, Kyle Allen and Mike Greever - stopped in Fizzy Mulligan’s for a quick game of pool one day last week before heading to a 1:30 p.m. metal shop class.

“No one notices us. It takes forever to get a Coke,” said Allen, a stocky sophomore in a red and black flannel shirt.

The three say they know where the invisible line between bar and restaurant lies. A stark white sign on the wall warns minors not to walk through a doorway into the bar.

But in other places, the division is a simple railing. At the Bigfoot, men on stools, cradling sweaty amber pints and Marlboros, huddle on the long bar. Bartender Jeanie Myers fears the pub will be over-run by teens.

“The come in not sure whether they can be in here,” said Myers. “It took some getting used to for me. It still feels like a tavern.”

Dennis Nichols, a 43-year-old computer network designer, agrees. “I’m not sure this is the best place for kids to be,” said Nichols, drinking with three friends at the Swinging Doors.

At the Special K, men in stained baseball hats and work shirts sit in front of their own pitchers; the kid-friendly eating area is across a waist-high barrier.

Liquor Control Board agents check the recently converted bars for violations and problems. None have come up, said senior agent Mike Waldron.

But the board has heard reports that newly-converted bars skirt the meal requirements by cooking on a hot plate and microwave, according to Liquor Control board spokesman Carter Mitchell.

“The (Liquor Control) board frowns on a tavern using (food service) as an excuse to sell spirits,” said Mitchell.

The change has also given the clientele of some places a softer, less hairy look. Women are more apt to settle in with the men when they have the choice of a mixed drink, said Rich Culnane, owner of the Maxwell House.

“As they get older, the women would rather have a mixed cocktail than a beer,” said Culnane. “It doesn’t fill them up so much.”

“We used to see five or six guys sitting around drinking pitchers of beer,” said Lisa Ruggles, bartender at the Swinging Doors. “Now we see families and wives and girlfriends.”

But some regulars cry into their beers for the good-ol’-boy days. Nichols, the computer network designer, joins his friends Tony Wiener and Arnie Sause every Wednesday and Friday, 4 to 6 p.m., for a drink at the Swinging Doors.

They flip a coin for each pitcher of Miller Genuine Draft and talk man stuff - politics, baseball, cars, Tony’s sparse dating life.

“This is our Bible study,” said Sause, 75.

They return home after two hours of drinking, somewhat reluctantly. They aren’t sure if the changes at the Swinging Door are a good thing, but the regulars will hang around regardless of who they share the bar with.

“Sometimes our two hours stretches out a little,” said Sause. “You know how it is when you’re drinking beer.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color Photo