Credit: FAUSTOMATIC.COM

Description: A Belltown dive filled with
eccentrics—many of them apparently down-and-out, many of them
perfectly friendly.

Fair warning: The ladies’ room has no doors. It’s just a
naked toilet resting in the nook of a hall. Skittish about being burst
in on? You may want to leave your pee at home.

Bonus for literature dorks: Hot-shit writer Denis Johnson
mentions Kelly’s in his 1992 short-story collection Jesus’
Son.

Excerpt: “I pushed through the door into Kelly’s. Inside they
sat with their fat hands around their beers while the jukebox sang
softly to itself. You’d think they’d found out how, by sitting still
and holding their necks just so, to look down into lost worlds.”

Happy hours: None. But the always-cheap wells ($3.25) are
close enough.

Hours: Daily 5 am–2 am (alcohol is not served until 6
am). recommended

Marti Jonjak—The Stranger’s fashion columnist—has a technical degree in apparel design and works in the garment industry. Her treasured casual-wear aesthetic is both glamorous and trashy, suggesting...

6 replies on “The Happiest Hour”

  1. They need to shut this place down. From the transients to the crack head and drunks at 8am. This is one of Seattle bruises that needs to heal. You want to make Belltown nice. Start with shutting this shit hole rapist breading establishment down.

  2. I was just in there a few weeks ago. Seemed like a friendly neighborhood bar to me. The current bartender and the bouncer have been trying to weed out the trouble makers. You think closing this bar is going to make Belltown a better place? HAHAHAHAHA!!

  3. I can’t believe you are actually suggesting that readers should consider going to Kelly’s. Your sending them to the skinny pants graves. Kelly’s is hostile at best, maybe the staff is reasonable but the clientele has stayed immune to the changes of Belltown for a reason, they don’t want a bunch of ironic kids ‘slumming it’ for an eve, they would much rather slowly die into their beers with an occasional meth fueled bender.
    Don’t go! Don’t go!

  5. You people kill me. This is nothing but a neighborhood bar. I swear to god, Seattle natives are afraid of their own shadows. No, it’s not a fucking Microsoft corporate snob hang out and it’s not a hipster douche bag bar. And you’re probably right…I don’t think they want you in there. Hell, I don’t want you in there fucking it up. This is a blue collar bar. A bar for people who work for a living or are now retired from working for a living. If you feel threatened by people who don’t make a lot of money, then maybe you should tuck your tail between your legs and go back to and go back to your $15 appletini serving meat market you hang out in. Maybe when your testicles drop you can try again. And for fuck sake don’t ever go to NYC…you couldn’t handle it. It’s too “dangerous” for you.

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