Hilltop Kitchen’s cocktails return, this time in downtown Tacoma

Hilltop Kitchen’s crew will return to work this week, although the cocktail lounge has not found a new permanent home. Think of it as a team-up between the city’s best cocktail slingers.

Chris Keil, co-founder of Hilltop Kitchen with Matthew Schweitzer, is teaming up with Jason Alexander and Robyn Murphy, owners of downtown Tacoma’s tiki lounge, Tacoma Cabana. Keil and crew have been hired to serve cocktails in the upstairs space.

Said Keil via message, “It will be fun and we're really excited about the opportunity to work with these guys.” He described the menu as short, for both food and drink, and said that “most of the HK bar team is involved in some way.”

The space is above Tacoma Cabana, 728 Pacific Ave., in an area that Murphy and Alexander recently opened as an extension of their cocktail lounge.

The first night serving cocktails will be Thursday. Hours going forward will be 5 p.m.-midnight Wednesdays-Saturdays.

Wrote Keil on his lounge’s Instagram account, “Well, unemployment didn't last very long. We're very excited to announce that our friends at Tacoma Cabana have hired us to sling drinks upstairs. While it's not HK, we're very excited to make you fancy cocktails, snacks, & kick out the jams.”

Hilltop Kitchen opened in August 2013 at 913 Martin Luther King Jr. Way. Lease negotiations failed in December, leading to the exit of the cocktail lounge. Their search for a new permanent home is underway.

This story was originally published January 26, 2016 at 2:26 AM with the headline "Hilltop Kitchen’s cocktails return, this time in downtown Tacoma."