Back Door Pub

This place is perfect for what it is-​a neighborhood dive bar. The clientele is pretty diverse from what I’ve seen. There are pool tables and pull tabs. I got a lesson in pull tabs from the awesome bartender here.
Speaking of bartenders, that lady makes one heck of a stiff drink. A+, for sure.
It’s a great place to grab a drink after work.

I’m not sure why this place has gotten such bad reviews. It’s just a regular bar from what I could tell. Football was on, the service was fast. People were courteous. As a woman having a drink alone on a Thursday night I felt no more uncomfortable than I would have felt anywhere else.
It smelled a heck of a lot better than the bar close to my house. The customers were merry but not what I’d call «drunk.» Maybe if I’d had a friend along I would have felt weird because I’d have had someone to impress. But as a place for a quick drink alone, it was fine.

This place is great. Exactly what a true dive bar is. Cheap drinks and an almost retro feel that tells you it was in its prime in the 70s. The people in earlier reviews are probably looking for new age «hip» and ironical «dive bars». This isn’t one of those, it’s a true dive. Looking around I see no shady characters that other people warned of. Definitely an older crowd. I live in the area and confidently say I’ll be back.

Great bartender, this one lady has been a bartender for half of her life and she knows how to make a Manhattan. It is delicious. But we only come here for 1 drink since there isn’t a kitchen, no food. 1 pool table which is always occupied. We just stop by for 1 drink and leave since this place isn’t our type of place.

It’s a bar

Five stars if you like dive bars, and I do. Racially and culturally diverse customer base with great bartenders and stiff drinks. I want nothing more in a dive bar.

I live close bye so I have tried to make this place work.
However, if it isnt the freaked out psychopaths trying to manipulate the bartenders
to have power over people– then it its the one particularly angry angry freaked out female bartender. I took a gal there recently. i was embarrassed for them. I am never going back. Wouldnt recommend it unless you are addicted to meth and whatever else.

I love dive bars with a passion — for a girl with a penchant for sexy black dresses and stilettos, put that red lipstick and brown eyeliner on! Throw on a black leather jacket and hit the town! This one serves Miller Highlife in a bottle for just $ 2! What more could a Seattleite want? TGIF!!! Let’s play pool!

This is a normal person’s dive bar. Some clientele might seem sketchy, but they’re just drunk. If the regulars stare you down it’s probably the deer in the headlights look on your face when you notice you aren’t in your usual brobar/​hipster pub/​college chick drinking hole.
I love dive bars. I love drinking without being judged or annoyed. So this place is pretty great for a Tuesday night after a long workday when you just want to chill out.
A pool table and foosball are good bets for making friends (and cordial enemies who always best you at either game).
If you’ve ever thought you were better than other people around you, don’t come here. None of us want your beauty and perfection and super duper awesomness ruining our beers and friendly conversation.
Bartenders here are exceptionally nice and handle rowdys and jerks really well.
Only three stars since there is not really any food.

The Back Door Pub is certainly not a bar for everyone. I never shy away from visiting places that I clearly don’t belong to so I was all for going in. I had encouraged my fellow to go with me and he was even skeptical. Apparently they have a baseball team called The Back Door Violators. If that doesn’t make you think twice about entering, I don’t know what will.
This bar is on Lake City Way and all the times I’ve driven past it, it looks like its seen better days and has been improved upon to disguise the past. Funny thing is I never saw anyone hanging out in front. Reason number two not to go in?
One night after dinner my dude, his sister, and her husband with two of their friends in tow decided to brave the uncharted waters that is the Back Door Pub. On a Tuesday night a few regulars were in attendance. One spirited regular talked loudly about something and the lone bartender acknowledged him by nodding. There was music playing. The interior was much cleaner than I thought it would be with great beer mirrors, red carpet, and wood paneled walls. A dog was walking around the premises. The bartender has clearly been working there for years and knew how to handle unknowns. She was quick to see our IDs, hand us beers, and then ignore us the rest of our time there.
As we sat I observed the surroundings a bit more and saw a menu on the side of the bar that was limited but had hot dogs.
The signal our time at Back Door Pub needed to come to an end was when the owner of the wandering dog (which I am still not entirely sure it was) kept talking to us in a frantic way. Our silent treatment went unnoticed. I never knew a person could talk so much when there was no reaction by the people that are being talked to.
You won’t fear for your life here but you may find yourself in the midst of a one sided conversation.

Ho boy.
Talk about a mixed bag. Loved the bartender, dug the location and felt ok about the crowd.
We only came here for one drink, but left with a good memory. We won’t be regulars but I can see us visiting again!
I can’t think of a better place in the area to get a stiff drink, heavy hand on those pours!

I’m so a back door type of gal.
I’ll tell you straight up. If you do not like dive bars, you are not going to like it here. There’s no hipster, cool dark wood bars and french films playing on projectors. There are no ice bars or DJ’s. Absent are scantily clad college girls and dudebros. Sorry to disappoint anyone that thought somewhere called the Back Door Pub was going to be anything but a true dive, and it’s a damn good dive at that.
It’s a neighborhood bar whose clientele are a little rough around the edges. For the most part everyone seems to get along just fine. I’ve never felt unsafe here, and I’ve always gotten good service from the bartenders. Drinks are reasonable. And because of this bar, I have a story about a lovely lady who scribbled a raven on my arm in sharpie and drew a portrait of me on paper as a gift.
They play old music mixed with Top 40. Patsy Cline followed by Jay Z. There’s a pool table. They show Football. It’s nothing fancy at all, and it’s quintessential Lake City, a very mixed crowd on weeknights. I’m not ashamed to say I know I’ll be back there for some rounds in the near future.

If the smell of urine and smelly bums is what you’re after, this is the place. I gave it 2 stars as they tend to pour some of the stiffest drinks in town. Granted, it’s very difficult to want to come back from the local patrons ranging from gang banger types to what appear to be people making their living in alternative ways. I’m not saying I would employ any of the people there, just most of them are unemployable and appear to have plenty of money. I definitely don’t want to stick around long enough to find out. If you want shady, grungy, smelly dive bar, this is the place for you. No bathing required prior to coming here.

Sorry guys, if you had food it would be 5. Tara and Chad are the heart and soul of this dive bar. Tara is warm and sweet as honey and Chad is the funniest bartender of all time. pool, darts, foosball, live. Music some nights and magic box that plays your picks if you feed money. Good drinks at good prices, just no food.

This dive bar is a staple of lake city. Cheap beer, stiff drinks and the staff is superfriendly or supercute AND superfriendly!

Free darts on mondays!
For a shitty little dive bar, it has a pretty good beer selection. most of the bartenders are pretty cool, and they have a pretty good jukebox.
The regulars are… yeah… a little strange, but no one has ever tried to lick me and if you leave them alone they’ll generally leave you alone.

Hey, now! This place I think deserves a little better than what its got. Sure, it’s a dive. Yes, it has those regulars. Hell, if I care if they want to talk to me. Never encountered the «lick» move, but I wouldn’t put it past some dude or dudette there.
I live within a stumbling distance from there and is often the place that I go to have a last one before hitting the sack or the floor, whichever comes first. Done with the sarcasm.
The bartenders recoginze me and my friends who go in there once every 2 weeks or so. I’ll run into them every once in awhile outside of the ‘door with a «Hello.» We’ve been there for the entire bar gets a free drink for sh**s and giggles.
Whats not to love about an old «Cheers» crowd? …I guess here their cheer may have escaped them a few years ago. Whatever, beer is delicious.

It’s a small, semi-​sketchy dive bar.
Apparently, (after reading other reviews) the regulars try to lick newbies. Who’s to say that wasn’t a welcome lick? Let’s be open to other cultures people.

Despite the awesome company, this bar was a dud.
One of my friends fell off the bar stool.
Another went behind the bar to answer the phone when the bartender disappeared.
Otherwise, completely unmemorable.

What you see is not always what you get.*
*=What I saw was 1 foosball table, 1 pool table, overpriced beer. What I got was a lot of stares from the regulars and a big fat bellyache from the Rainier. What was I thinking?
2 stars? Hey, they serve beer.