New owners, new pizza at this 84-year-old Tacoma bar. Try their take on cheese sticks

Parky’s is the type of corner bar that easily could have slipped into the pandemic ether.

Yet, this 84-year-old bar persisted.

Quietly, it changed hands last year, and in May, with the original “tavern” sign intact, it surreptitiously re-emerged as Parky’s Pizza Bar.

New owners Dylan and Kim Ashley have meticulously restored it, retaining an admirable level of its midcentury charms while imbuing modern accents and, importantly, a pizza program worthy of a seat at one of the old black leather stools.

“We have a funk to our crust,” said Dylan Ashley.

These pies, about 12 inches in diameter cooked in a standard deck oven, punch far above your average bar pizza.

Kim Ashley, who spent years with Safeway-Albertsons, makes the dough every morning from Italian “00” Caputo flour, proofed for eight hours before cold fermenting for four to five days. It is then portioned and rested for a couple of hours ahead of service.

“We worked on it and worked on it until we loved the flavor of it,” she said.

Six house pizzas include a margherita; an Italian with pepperoni, prosciutto and pancetta; and a take on a Hawaiian with pecan-smoked bacon and shredded pineapple. Eight sandwiches range from a French dip on ciabatta to a chicken bacon ranch, and seven salads in generous portions feature house ingredients like homemade Caesar.

Dylan Ashley recommended the cheese sticks. Normally I would not bite, but here they employ the same delightfully tangy dough, brushed with butter, mozzarella and parmesan, served with a “bomb” marinara.

The draft list highlights regional brews, including Chuckanaut and pFriem pilsner — “the pilsners by which all others should be judged,” said Dylan Ashley — and a permanent handle for Incline Cider. Mixed drinks aren’t fancy, but sometimes whiskey and ginger calls.

Unless you’re enjoying the upgraded back patio, no matter where you sit, you have a view of the bar and all your fellow barflies. I’ve seen the same table of regulars here twice and once witnessed a terribly endearing conversation between two older gentlemen, their stools turned just so toward one another. It’s that kind of neighborhood tavern, where generations mix and people eat pizza.

Despite its obvious wear — let’s just say it had an aroma — the Ashleys fell for this particular corner bar.

“These places take on a life of their own,” said Dylan Ashley. “It’s the people that run it that make it what it is.”

Though they’ve never owned one themselves, he has long worked in tandem with the industry, as a contractor whose team has lovingly refurbished Cole’s Bar, Hank’s, Terry’s Office Tavern, The Parkway and most recently West End Pub. Think of your favorite Tacoma bar and in the past 15 years, he’s likely built something for it, from patio enclosures (Incline Cider House) to picnic tables (The Mule Tavern).

“I like bars and bringing old crappy buildings back to life,” he said. “I didn’t wanna change too much. It’s a cool dive bar!”

It really is.

Swinging saloon-style entry doors, vinyl and chrome stools nailed into an elevated bar floor, peculiar ceiling tiles, an almost millennial pink wall that might be melamine or metal or composite wood — together they evoke nostalgic comfort and contemporary cool, achieving retro status through a do-it-yourself ethos.

That was partly out of necessity, said the Ashleys, who have been collecting random pieces in their garage for years, waiting for their right home.

80 YEARS OF PARKY’S TAVERN

Lloyd D. Parkins, a jazz drummer, opened his namesake bar downtown in the late 1930s, moving it to McKinley Hill by 1941, the same year he opened the Shop-Lite Tavern at 3831 6th Ave. Either in 1970 or at the time of Parkins’ death in 1987, depending on whom you ask, Maurice Forseth, who owned the butcher shop A&M Meats down the street, took over. It was bequeathed to his son Jon in 2011.

All the while it was known as Parky’s Tavern, selling beer and wine with pull-tabs and ample cigarette smoking. It acquired a full liquor license only a few years ago, according to Kim Ashley.

Jon Forseth decided to sell the bar in late 2019, “after 10 years of thinking about it,” he said.

When it first came on the market, the Ashleys — then casually seeking to embark on their own bar journey — looked at it, but another buyer scooped it up. That deal fell through as the pandemic unraveled.

“I was like, ‘Oh boy,’” said Kim Ashley, who was raised nearby and whose cousins lived down the street. “(Dylan) builds everybody their bars and he’s like, ‘I really want one myself.’”

Forseth had one main request, she recalled: to keep the name.

“We just love that history. We love to be a part of that, too,” she said. “We weren’t ever gonna change it — it’s Parky’s to us.”

Over the decades, Parky’s has been robbed several times, according to newspaper clippings; it had a bowling team that competed in a league of a dozen taverns, only a couple of which still stand, and a party with a complimentary lunch buffet to celebrate 60 years of having Olympia beer on tap. The address changed from 3527 McKinley, where Top of Tacoma now sits, to 3551 as the block grew.

It has always been a neighborhood watering hole, and it feels very much like it will continue to be.

PARKY’S PIZZA BAR

▪ 3551 McKinley Ave., Tacoma, 253-212-2367, instagram.com/parkyspizzabar

▪ Daily 4 p.m.-12 a.m.

▪ Details: retro neighborhood tavern with draft beer and cheap mixed drinks, plus pizza, sandwiches and salad ($6-$13)

This story was originally published September 2, 2021 at 10:49 AM.