(WSB photos)
By Tracy Record
West Seattle Blog editor
Kurt Niemeyer has a degree in marine science.
His love for sealife is visible throughout his new restaurant/bar on Alki, the Pacific Room.
The ex-Hawks Nest West/Bamboo space at 2806 Alki SW is now totally transformed into a classy – but not overly high-brow – dining, drinking, and entertainment space, three months after we reported the Pacific Room was on the way. Until its grand opening next Tuesday, it has soft-opened by reservation. We stopped by this afternoon for a preview.
Kurt, a West Seattle resident, explains that his restaurant career started as something he did between maritime gigs from diving to piloting. He found himself in management, and eventually had a idea for his own place – now the Pacific Room.
If you visited the space in its previous incarnations, you wouldn’t recognize it now.
Electric fireplaces line much of the west wall, until the row of elegant black-upholstered booths. Nautical and sealife decor graces the walls over the booths; the theme continues on the patio, where fish and turtles are among the designs inset in the patio just outside the floor-to-ceiling front windows with a view out across the street to Alki Beach Park and Elliott Bay. The prototype designs are also visible on this piece just inside the entrance:
Kurt and family members designed and built the renovations.
As for the food – they’re serving a limited soft-open menu for starters, lots of seafood – though you’ll also find meat, from burgers to filet mignon, and vegetables including a vegan salad. We photographed test platters of coconut shrimp and seared salmon:
Executive Chef Warren Akana, from Honolulu, and his team were at work in the kitchen, also overhauled in the transformation.
Even the restrooms were renovated, now highlighted by stainless steel and mirrors. Perhaps the only original features you’ll find in the Pacific Room are the exposed beams:
For starters, they’ll be opening at 11 am and staying open until things slow down, likely in the 9 pm hour, seven days a week. They’ll have music on Friday and Saturday nights to start, beginning June 14th/15th, working up to seven nights a week eventually; the performance area’s at the back of the house.
The Pacific Room is all ages, though you have to be 21+ to sit at the marble-topped bar.’
The soft-open nights before Tuesday are by reservation only – email Kurt at kurt@pacificroomalki.com.
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