The Frontier Room

10/01/09

Great BBQ at reasonable prices in a great building

by darceyfarrow at Citysearch

The frontier room has some of the best bbq in the west. I really usually like a sweeter memphis style but it seems that they have taken some of the better parts of different styles of cooking. They serve a wide variety of southern style dishes and just this weekend we even stopped in for their new southern brunch. I would have added some additional items on the brunch menu but everything that we had was very good.

I really like the staff there because they are always really fast and very helpful. They even helped us find a cab when we had stayed a little too long....

I am not sure how it is latenight for all of the dancing and DJs but for food the frontier is one of my favorites in town.

• Pros: The Ribs and the restaurant itself

06/24/09

Good for dancers, but not for posers

by getfuzzygurl at Citysearch

The headline of this review says it all-- The Frontier Room is a great place for people who are actually dancers and just want a place to get funky and know that you'll get a little sweat in the process. It's not good for those pretty boys and girls that just want to sit or stand with their drink and be eye candy.

Like just about every establishment in Belltown, this BBQ place turns into a nightclub after 8 pm. Ladies get in free, which is a wonderful deal. The DJs are very consistent in always playing a good mix of 80s, 90s and Top40. It does get very packed on the dance floor by midnight, but on the brightside you can actually go to just get your groove on without getting molested by creeper guys at this place. People will leave you alone to party, which is a nice difference from some of the bigger clubs in which you have 3 nasty, sweaty guys surrounding you as soon as you walk in the door. The drinks are very good too and I thought all of the staff members, including bartenders, that we interacted with were very friendly and attentive and very good about efficiently serving people despite the huge crowd.

The only major downsides are that one of their speakers on the dance floor majorly needs to be replaced as it started screeching once they turned the music up louder and they allow drinks on the dance floor, which makes for several spilled beverages as people get drunker and the place gets more packed.

If you actually want to go to dance and party, I would highly recommend this place. If you're snobby and want someplace that you can sit and drink and expect that your waiter will be attentive to only you, I'd suggest going down the street to someplace like Amber. However, if you're looking for all the classiness your money can buy, you probably shouldn't head to Belltown anyway and stick to Queen Anne or upper downtown.

• Pros: good mix of music, good drinks, attentive staff
• Cons: parking is terrible in Belltown, bad speakers, crowded

01/02/09

Great food, stiff drinks

by partyon52 at Citysearch

I recently went back to Frontier Room to evoke old memories of my nights of drunken mayhem from years ago. So surprised to see how nice and clean the new Frontier Room is! We weren't planning on eating, but the lingering aroma of BBQ was too taunting. The bartender suggested the Mac n Cheese and the Ranch Hand, which was kind of a sampler platter of all of their featured BBQ items. We were extremely impressed! I read other reviews from diners claiming that the meat was dry and tough, but ours was the exact opposite. The sauce was amazing, the meat succulent...totally worth the money! We stuck around for the DJ, as the bartender told us that it turned into a dance club after 10pm on the weekends. We didn't know what to expect, and didn't want to be stuck in some typical Belltown club, saturated with slimy frat boys. Fortunately, the crowd was mixed, the DJ played some cool 80's as well as top 40's, and the drinks were stiff, just as I remember. I saw the bar staff handling a lot of s*** late night, but they did so with a great balance of patience and grit. I've lived in Seattle for 15 years after moving from the East Coast, and it is sometimes excruciating to watch bartenders in this city work. There is an extreme lack of sense of urgency, as they couldn't sling a fast drink if their life depended on it. I would say the Frontier Room bar staff was some of the fastest I have seen in Seattle! We had an awesome night. It gets a little sweaty in there during club, but that was my only grievance. We will definitely be back to check out happy hour!

• Pros: Food, drinks, bartenders