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The Timberline
is currently closed, due to their building be
sold. However, they have leased a new space
just a few blocks away and are currently engaged
in construction on the new space. Current
reopening date is expected to be in August (perhaps
Labor Day Weekend?).
The Timberline (originally
built as a Sons of Norway meeting hall), is a grand
building close to Seattle’s downtown and within
walking distance of the Seattle Center, Space Needle,
and Music Experience Project. The interior
of the building was used as the Roadhouse in the
David Lynch television series, Twin Peaks.
The suspended wood dance floor
is about 40' x 40', with standing and seating areas
on all four sides, some of them slightly elevated,
giving the dance area something of a corral-like
feel. One side of the floor is dominated by
the open bar area, up a few steps from the main level. The
DJ booth is on the second floor balcony, and a pool
table and coat check are in a room at the front of
the building.
The Timberline is open every
day. Tuesday and Friday are country, with lessons
on Tuesday. Other nights of the week feature
clogging lessons, karaoke, flagging classes, a popular
Sunday afternoon T-dance, 80’s music, and the
ever-popular Lube Wrestling; on Friday and Saturday,
the Timberline is open for after hours (2:00 am and
beyond; no alcohol) with disco/club music dancing. The
Timberline (like all Washington bars with hard liquor)
also serves some food (sandwiches, hamburgers, and
appetizers).
Dance lessons are on Tuesday
nights from 7:30 to 9:00, in three parts: beginner
couples lessons, more intermediate level couples,
and a line dance. Instructors are Jim Drew
(1st, 2nd, and 4th Tuesdays, teaching Two-Step, Waltz,
and other dance styles) and Neil McNeil (3rd Tuesday,
teaching Two-Step). The Tuesday lessons
are free, but students are requested to tip the instructor
with a couple bucks. The third Friday
in February will see the beginning of a weekly half-hour
of couples lessons on Friday nights (starting at
8:00), taught by Neil.
The Friday night DJ is Neil
McNeil.
The Timberline also sponsors
a dance performance team, the Rain City Rhythm
Riders. The Rhythm
Riders also periodically teach intermediate
lessons onWednesdays, running from 6:30 to 7:30. Done
in a “team” style, each session focuses
on a single dance style and a single song, creating
a fully choreographed routine to that song, emphasizing
repetition and awareness of the music. Each
session runs about 4-8 weeks (depending on what
is being taught), with new class members invited
to join the first couple weeks of each session.
Timberline patrons maintain
an e-mail mailing list for announcements and lesson
schedules. It can be joined at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/T-100.
Gay.Com’s
Andrew Collins rated the Timberline as one of the
country’s top ten Great Mixed Bars in early
2001. (This review isn’t available on
their site any more. Sorry.)
“If you think good country music and line
dancing are strictly a Southern thing, you’re
mistaken. This bar is renowned along the
West Coast. A huge, pitched ceiling and rustic
post-and-beam construction give it the feel of
a western hunting lodge. One with a disco
ball, that is. The crowd is friendly and
energetic, and although the women seem to keep
to the left and the guys to the right, there’s
always plenty of mixing. There’s a large
dance floor, lots of viewing areas and a festive
back bar. Even if you can’t two-step
or line dance, you can come just to watch.”
Other reviews can be found at Planet
Out (early 2001) and Seattle
CitySearch (date unknown).
Unfortunately, the Sons of
Norway hall has been sold to become a theater for
the new campus of Cornish College, so the days of
the Timberline are numbered at the current location;
the current lease runs until May 2003. The
owners intend to open a new bar in Seattle at some
point, so country-western (and other activities)
will go on in Seattle (eventually), but the Timberline
as such will not.
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