Save money by eating early

Using Happy Hour to leverage a great, cheap meal is not really a scam. Really, it’s not. We prefer to think of it as a creative way to conserve cash and eat at some of the best restaurants in town. In other words, it fits perfectly into the Bargain Bites mission statement, which is to seek out great food at bargain prices.

The formula is simple. If you’re willing to eat early enough in the day, you can get half-price (or cheaper) food in the bars and lounges of many restaurants. Good Happy Hours are certainly not restricted to downtown — hey, even Applebee’s has a good Happy Hour — but we decided to restrict our Happy Hour journey to roughly the Davenport Arts District, an area that is Happy Hour-intensive.

Europa Pizzeria and Bakery

Any discussion of Happy Hour must begin with Europa Pizzeria and Bakery, which has gained a much-deserved reputation over the years as the place to eat your way through a Happy Hour. The atmosphere is certainly part of the attraction. Europa’s pub is a welcoming space full of old-fashioned couches, rattan chairs, oriental rugs and exposed wooden beams. Gentle classical music drifts around the room.

But the real attraction is the Happy Hour menu, which includes 19 items, including many of Europa’s terrific calzones and pizzas. A calzone — easily a full meal — goes for only $6.25 at Happy Hour, compared to $8.50 regularly.

However, the specialty appetizers can be an even better deal if shared judiciously. The Pesto Torte, a huge wedge of basil-flecked ricotta cheese with a layer of roasted red pepper running through the middle, is regularly $7.25, but only $3.95 at Happy Hour. The expansive Antipasto tray is also a tremendous deal at $5.

We tried the Shrimp-Stuffed Mushrooms ($5.50), which came in a special baking dish with six egg-shaped holes. The whole thing was crusted over with browned, melted cheeses. When we dug through the crust, we found a whole mushroom cap in each little nook, stuffed with cocktail shrimp.

You might also try the Calamari, $5.95. Pair this with one of the salads on the Happy Hour menu ($4.25 for a Caesar) and two people can share a decent dinner for less than $10, total. Beers and house wines are discounted at Happy Hour, as well.

And here’s the most remarkable thing about Europa’s Happy Hour: It’s not just for Happy Hour anymore. Happy Hour runs Mondays through Saturdays from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. and then returns from 10 p.m. to midnight and all day on Sunday.

What? Wouldn’t that make it Happy Day?

The Davenport’s Peacock Room

For the next stop on our Happy Hour tour, we headed to the most elegant spot this side of 1912.

Happy Hour at the Peacock Room in the Davenport Hotel is like a bargain-priced vacation to the land of the upper tax brackets. Even the bar stools went way beyond regular bar stools. They were more like bar thrones — alligator-skinned bucket seats on a stilt. Overhead was the gorgeous Tiffany-style glass ceiling – a sky full of glowing peacock feathers. On the walls, golden peacocks cavorted on a black background.

And we Happy Hour adventurers were munching on the Davenport’s Teriyaki Tenderloin Skewers, served on a bed of marinated zucchini-and-carrot slaw. We had five impossibly tender chunks of grilled beef tenderloin, salty and tangy from the teriyaki baste. And we had all of this for a mere $3.

Yes, you heard me, $3.

Pair it with an order of the Davenport’s French Fries (more like fried matchstick straws, also $3) and we could have had a nice little Davenport dinner for six bucks.

There are a couple of catches. At the Peacock Room, you must purchase a beverage to get these deals, and there is no Happy Hour beverage discount. A 12 oz. glass of Northern Lights Pale Ale will set you back $3.50, a 20-ouncer $5. The wines by the glass go from about $5 on up, and many of the fancy drink specials are in the $5 to $7 range.

Also, the Happy Hour menu is limited. Besides the tenderloin skewers and the French fries, only two other items are on special: the Habanero Hot Wings, a fiery, top-class version of the Buffalo wing, distinguished by a dipping sauce that has big hunks of bleu cheese; and the Soft Cheese & Crustini, a ramekin of cream cheese baked with sun-dried tomatoes and garlic, heaped with briny Kalamata olives, and served with toasted French bread slices. Each of these items is also $3.

So, after you order a couple of these and add a drink, you might be up to, oh, $11 for your Happy Hour dinner. But that’s not bad when you consider that the tenderloin appetizer alone goes for $12 outside of Happy Hour. And that you also get a glass dish full of the Peacock Room’s signature cashews.

The Peacock Room’s Happy Hour runs Mondays through Fridays, 4 p.m. to 6 p.m.

Catacombs

In search of a more hearty style of Happy Hour, we headed underground – to Catacombs, the Austrian-style pub just a block away and about 20 feet straight down.

Catacombs is loaded with atmosphere, too, but of a different variety. We descended a long staircase into a dark, basalt-foundation cellar. The décor is Salzburg pub all the way, including a medieval-looking tapestry and an archway that says, “Wilkommen.” A cheery gas fireplace added some spark.

So did a roaring wood-burning oven, which was significant to our Happy Hour adventurers, since the brick-oven pizzas comprise the entire Happy Hour menu. We could choose any of five small-sized pizza varieties for a mere $5. It specified “small,” so all three of us ordered a pizza.

But these were no tea-saucer-sized mini-pizzas. A trio of 12-inch-in-diameter pizzas arrived at our table, each lapping over the sides of the platter. When we looked with alarm at these acres of pizza spread out over the table, our server said, “Don’t worry. They’re thin crust.”

Yeah, they were, and an excellent, crispy thin crust at that. Still it turned out to be one generous serving of pizza for only $5. Not every pizza is on the Happy Hour list, but many of the most popular are, including the Quattro Formaggio, with four cheeses, the Quattro Staggioni, which has a different topping on each quarter. You can even get the Bavarian, which has a sauerkraut topping (an acquired taste).

We ended up taking half of our pizza home in boxes, although if you hit Catacombs’ Happy Hour with an empty stomach, you should be able to polish one off by yourself.

Catacombs’ Happy Hour also gives you a dollar off on drinks, which meant that a Snoqualmie Porter was only $2.75. So, my pizza and beer total was $7.75. That’s what I call a full-meal deal.

Catacombs’ Happy Hour runs Mondays through Thursdays, 4 p.m. to 6 p.m.

Finally, let me add one more selling point of the Happy Hour experience: peace and quiet. Happy Hours exist to coax a few people in during the naturally quiet hours. There were a few other diners taking advantage of these deals in every spot we visited, but not as many as you’d expect.

So the next time someone suggests meeting for dinner, tell them, “I’ve got a better idea. Can you get away before 6 p.m.?”

You’re not being cheap. You’re being smart. OK, maybe a little cheap.