Don't Judge a Book (Restaurant) by its Cover... Hardy Har Har...

When you live in a small town you can expect to pretty much exhaust every dive bar, restaurant, and hole in the wall place to order dinner. And when I say small, I mean small.  The census sign says something like 8,000 but we’re not sure if that includes the confused college freshman who thought they needed to say they “lived” here even though they were just students. We have 2 stop lights, 20mph speed limits, and it is not uncommon during the Spring or Summer to get stuck behind a tractor that is driving on the city roads.
 

As with many weekend nights, Saturday night we decided we’d go grab a bite to eat, but didn’t really want to drive anywhere. The thing to understand is if we don’t want to go somewhere local, then we have to drive to Salem or Corvallis, which can require anywhere from a 15 to 45 minute car ride. Back home with all the lights and traffic - that time span was just a standard even if we were just staying in Federal Way. However, as I told you before, we are definitely adjusting to the small town life, so somehow driving “out of town” for even 15 minutes seems so much longer than it used to. J

 

Anyway, far down on Monmouth Street standing all alone is a red building with a sign that reads “Chase Bar and Grill”. When I say red, I mean fire engine red, with trimmings of black and gold as finishing touches. Since we moved here I’ve called it the pirate restaurant. It just screams “Captain Hook” when you drive by. We have always been a bit leery to try it out, but after several raving reviews from people around town we thought we’d take a chance.

 

While we might sound brave, we in fact are not. The two of us did not attempt the Pirate Bar alone, but instead convinced 2 of our best friends Andrew and Emily Wynings brave it out with us. Michael worked with Andrew and Emily both during our “first tour” at WOU, and since then we’ve become such great “married” friends. We are most well known for our Feuling/Wynings nights out on the town (Or more specifically hole in the wall places like San Antonio’s here in Independence).  Our goal is always to find good food, a great atmosphere, and somewhere that can handle 4 people laughing more than any 4 adults should. Never fail, each Feuling/Wynings night goes down in the books as a success and Chase Bar and Grill was no different.

 

As for Captain Hook’s hangout, to all of our surprise, it was FANTASTIC! Inside it was very pub-ish with high tables and bar stools. Both the food and the prices were definitely to our liking, and all 4 of us would for sure recommend the homemade pub chips (fresh cut and made fries with the skins still on and a perfect amount of salt) that we shared as an appetizer.  In the end we all enjoyed our dinner, drinks, and another fun Feuling/Wynings night here in town. Maybe next time I give a restaurant a goofy name, we’ll try it sooner. Either way, we will definitely be visiting Chase Bar and Grill again sometime soon, and maybe you should too! J