Description: Splash Lounge is a typical Belltown joint: The space is neither large nor small, the interior neither dumpy nor extravagant, the happenings neither intriguing nor repulsive. It's stocked with sleek and bland furnishings; upon them rest customers wearing sleek and bland clothes. It's thronged on a Thursday night, and the crowd eases by, shouting conversations into each other's faces, sliding their bodies into yours. Don't bother telling your friend any complicated stories: Your thoughts will just shuffle away from you, leaving you staring into the middle distance, waiting for them to come back.

What else: Lights surrounding the bar fade in and out in a spectrum of vibrant colors, giving the scene an unreal, liquid quality. The celestial blue suggests a gray night sky as it shifts into morning, embodying unpleasant drug memories—those times when suddenly the blood inside you felt sore and vibrating, and you realized the people to whom you'd spent the last several hours revealing your secret dreams were really not that interesting. Writer Jay McInerney described this moment, loaded with "gratuitous damage and the palsy of unraveled nerve endings."

Happy hours: Daily 4 pm–2 am (!)

Happy-hour drink specials: $5 wells and wine, $3 drafts (Red Hook, Shock Top), $6 select cocktails (the Blue Haka, made with vodka, elderflower liqueur, blueberry flavoring, lime, and soda).

Happy-hour food specials: Fancy-ish $4–$6 small plates ($5 katsu bites, $5 tuna poke).