Story and photo by Keri DeTore
Reporting for West Seattle Blog
If you’ve noticed activity in the storefront where Dante’s closed a year ago, between the Admiral/California Wells Fargo and Zatz A Better Bagel, here’s what’s coming: The Cask.
The Cask is described by co-owner Shon MacDughlas as an “Old World ale and wine house” which will offer local, independent-label wines and 150 imported beers. MacDughlas notes that the venue, which he co-owns with his wife Dedria Pope, a West Seattle-based Windermere real-estate agent, has applied for a “multi-faceted license” allowing them to offer beverages for retail sale as well as serving them.
The Cask will provide a “cozy” atmosphere with wood features (including the bar top, made from a fallen old-growth fir), lamplight, and music, including a lounge with space to accommodate solo musicians.
According to MacDughlas, the bar will feature six rotating taps of seasonal craft beers, and one “cask-conditioned” beer engine — a pump that pushes the ale out of the cask without the use of CO2 or nitrogen, while still creating a head on the ale. He says these are considered “real ales.”
For starters, The Cask will offer mostly beverages, with some snack foods, but the proprietor hopes to eventually be able to offer meat and cheese platters and more hearty “European fare.”
He’s a lifelong West Seattleite, and this isn’t his first endeavor – he started what is now C&P Coffee as “The Elder Green” with a business partner.
Asked about opening a new business in the current economy – in a neighborhood where five new establishments have opened in recent months (Porterhouse, Brickyard, renovated Angelina’s, Shipwreck Tavern, Heartland Café) – MacDughlas notes that restaurants and pubs still tend to be “packed.” He feels the Admiral District is an area that will welcome and support a business like his, and notes the added amenity of having dedicated parking behind the building, as well as the underground parking lot next to nearby Bartell Drugs.
The owners are aiming to open The Cask in May, adding the usual caveat that it depends on the construction process.
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