Sad, I met my wife there.

Try Murphy's in Wallingford, or any of the eight or so other places in Fremont or Ballard instead.

Belltown is being hollowed out to satisfy our Millionaire overclass and the Billionaires that make them squeal.

@Cienna Madrid

Well the way I saw it, walking into a place like Kellys, I stuck out like a sore thumb, people often thought I was a police narc. But you would see normal people walk in there, often not knowing what kind of a bar it really was, you know, basically tourists, they would drink their one drink, avoid the bathroom and leave.

So when your the only guy in the bar who looked they took a shower that day, striking up a conversation with a gal who accidently walked into that bar, was kinda easy to do. Except my wife wasnt in town for a few days, she had come home after living in NY for 14 years.

So yeah, after a few dozen horrible dates on craigslist/yahoo personals, I found my wife in the nastist, dirtiest, most foul dive bar in Seattle.

Kelly's really was a dump, the kind of place, as Kinison notes, so dumpy that as a regular guy you couldn't go in for a beer and a shot without being stared at. Cheap Rainier on tap if you didn't mind the stares though.

Will, I see that perhaps having recognized that there are only six billionaires in the entire Seattle area (and zero, I believe, who live in the City proper), you don't seem to believe that they actually control everything that happens here--that there are millionaires too! New meds?

@5 give it time. Technically, there are four billionaires in the Gates family.

in 1987 i worked as a legal assistant and our client had his throat slit & was robbed out front of Kelly's. he was sitting in a taxi while the driver ran in to use the john. our client believed he was targeted for flashing part of his $200 cash paycheck inside the glorious kelly's. hellhole for at LEAST 23 year.

In my drunken days, places like The Jazz Quarry, Goose Hollow Inn, Kelly's, Kell's, Lowell's, The Inn-Between, The Athenian, Pike Bistro, Six Arms, Duke's, Claudia's, Zack's, Stanich's 10-to-1, Produce Row, Jazz d'Opus and a few score other watering holes were my oft-frequented favorites. I miss them all but would never, ever go back to that way of life.

When I go out now, I drink Sharps and latté and have as good a time as I ever did when I was shitfaced -- and the feds aren't videotaping me hanging around getting drunk with The Missoula Connection. Janet Reno gave me my intervention.

Before our yearly trip to Vegas, my posse meets up for a few quick shots at Kelly's. Then we hit the lightrail to the airport. And so the trips begin.

That said, the rumors around Belltown are that the new place will be another goddamned "ultra lounge" and be target at Asian Belltowners. I have no evidence, tha'ts just the buzz around the street.

3rd and Bell has been problematic for decades. And yet, ever since Kelly's closed it seems much, much less problematic. The lost souls have wandered off to other haunts.

I'm hoping they'll install one of those check cashing pay roll advance enterprises. This is something the neighborhood is in dire need of.