10 years of ginger beer and grilled cheese at Tacoma’s best ‘craft dive’ bar

Dim lights. Kitschy velvet paintings of tigers and birds. Textural acrylics of sailboats and seascapes. Schlitz and Coors neons. One buck trophy. A singular ceramic clown holding balloons in the corner. Cold beer. Wine, but who’s drinking it? Handwritten signs, artsy though. Darts and a pool table under a Tiffany-style lamp. Grilled cheese and “gas station nachos.” A spot-on old fashioned and other cocktails, many made with homemade ginger beer that alone will cure what ails you.

This is a dive bar. But can a bar be a dive at just age 10? And is a dive bar even allowed to serve good — like real, honest, consistent, dare I say “craft” — cocktails?

Over 10 years on South Tacoma Way, The Mule Tavern has made a very strong case that all of these things can be true at the same time.

Late afternoon on a recent Wednesday, an older gentleman sipped a draught Guinness, a buck off for happy hour. There are other bars in the neighborhood, he said, but none pour the proper pint from a nitro tap. Two ladies chatted with bartender Kyle Mobley and owner Sam Halhuli, leaving before the clock struck 6.

“I love you so much!” one said to Halhuli on her way out. “You can put that in the article.”

Then Halhuli closed the curtains on this clear summer’s day.

“The sun in a dive bar?” he asked.

The Mule was one of the first bars I went out of my way to visit when I moved to Tacoma, and it remains among my favorites.

I remember asking a colleague, “Where are all the cocktail bars?” Even in 2019, good cocktails were largely relegated to a few full-service restaurants, where it felt like a disservice to only order a drink — if you could snag a bar stool at prime time. Then the pandemic overwhelmed the world, and bars teetered on the edge. The best ones pivoted.

Halhuli’s optimism during that tenuous time was contagious. Unable to welcome guests, he transformed the bar into a “general store,” selling more than just growlers of his incredibly zesty ginger beer, jam-packed with pounds of the raw root and fresh lemon, and pink-hued tonic to-go. Recreating a perfect old fashioned at home became as easy as pouring an ounce of The Mule’s old-fashioned syrup (a combination of bitters, sugar and macerated orange peel) with bourbon, stirred with ice. In a Cardinal, he usually used the Danish liqueur, Cherry Heering, but developed a cherry treacle spiced with molasses to replace it. He posted videos to Instagram with instructions on how to make your own cocktails, using a mason jar to further dispel the myth that you need a fancy glass to make a high-quality drink and hosted virtual happy hours for regulars to convene via screen. The idea proved lucrative enough that he was able to rehire most of his staff at the time.

“The cocktail program is easy but expansive,” he said in July. The pandemic “forced us to be creative — it was like a reset.”

When the bar reopened, he wholly embraced the consistency afforded by house ingredients like the old-fashioned syrup. It’s also faster: “I made so many god damn old fashioneds, stirring every one,” recalled Halhuli of countless days behind the bar here and in other cities. “I’m making them over and over and over again. What if I made that into a syrup? I couldn’t taste the difference at all.”

Served over a big cube with an orange peel, it’s still a cool $12 and handily one of the finest around.

Now you can also order a “Big Boy” — 50% more cocktail for a few more bucks — of all the mules, from the classic Moscow to the El Diablo with tequila and cassis and the new Randy Buck, featuring a brandy base with peach liqueur and lemon. Or fashion your own liquor-plus-house ginger beer tipple. Or shoot Malört poured from a keg.

The Mule Tavern turns 10

“To be at 10 feels bonkers,” said Halhuli last week as we sat at a table on the fully fenced and covered back patio, a perk of being on a commercial drag with roomy alleys.

Originally from the Northwest, he had been bartending in New Orleans before relocating to Tacoma on something of a whim, drawn to the city by a Craigslist ad for an old bar in a building constructed in 1905. First a hardware store, a fire in 1926 altered much of the entrance, once adorned in turn-of-the-century brick with classical details and prism-glass windows. The 1,800-square-foot space became Oasis Beer Parlor in 1945, according to city records, later renamed Oasis Tavern.

Halhuli bought it for $150,000 in May 2016, remodeling just enough to rev it up to modern speed without relinquishing the history. He retained the long bar and the vinyl-chrome stools perched on an elevated rail. He wrapped the walls here and there and everywhere with his distinct, yet elusive, style sense. The bar’s handpainted, faded black-and-yellow sign pays direct homage to the two-tiered sign of its predecessor, with an arrow pointing you in the right direction.

When The Mule opened in July 2016, South Tacoma Way hadn’t yet revitalized into the destination it has become in very recent years. Dawson’s has been around the block, of course, but there was no Howdy Bagel, no Church Cantina, no Radnor’s Smashburgers, no Bluebeard Coffee Roasters, no Juniper Botanical Bar (or its predecessor, the barbecue edition of The Opal Lounge). No Studio 56 Collective, a curated vintage furniture store, or The Fernseed, a boutique plant and flower shop. The all-ages music venue, Real Art Tacoma, had only just opened the year prior. Airport Tavern would debut just a few months after The Mule. It was, in other words, a risk for Halhuli to risk a major property purchase that hinged on the success of a “craft dive bar” idea.

Not everyone agrees with the “dive” definition, but The Mule was and remains a come-as-you-are bar that feels like it’s been there far longer than it has. A daily happy hour helps, as does a simple open kitchen that stays open until the bar closes. The menu has evolved over the years but lately found its footing with snacks like a Lunchables-inspired tray of meats and cheese with Ritz crackers and sandwiches like a PP&J (prosciutto, provolone, house-pickled jalapenos), a vegan sloppy Joe and of course the flagship grilled cheese with a ramekin of tomato soup — dipping advised.

Halhuli recalled the finest compliment as one of an elusive sense of familiarity that perhaps only a true dive can evoke.

“‘This bar reminds of X,’ and they’ll describe a bar, or just mention a bar anywhere from Alaska to Florida, which doesn’t really make sense until you realize what they’re saying is that it reminds them of home,” he said. “A dive bar is a bar that most people are comfortable in. But being able to get a pony of High Life or a shot of whiskey or a Guinness on draft with nitro, or ... or ... or — you know, including those craft cocktails, is kind of what epitomizes the experience that I want people to have.”

In 2023, he took the concept — with less Grandma paintings and more vintage Coca-Cola signs and Tom Selleck in his prime posters — north to Sixth Ave, in a tiny storefront near The Red Hot. Side Pony Lounge slings a similar array of food and zero-pretension cocktails, beer on tap or bottle or can, reasonably priced liquor and twice-daily happy hour.

The Mule Tavern

• 5227 South Tacoma Way, 253-247-6314, themuletavern.com
• Sunday and Tuesday 4-11 p.m., Wednesday-Thursday 4 p.m.-midnight, Friday-Saturday 3 p.m.-2 a.m. (closed Mondays)
• Details: “craft dive” turns 10; most cocktails $9-12, snacks $4-$11, sandwiches $12-$14 with Ruffles or side salad; patio seating the back; to-go growlers of ginger beer and tonic start at $15
• Events: check calendar for trivia to drag bingo, plus an annual pre-Thanksgiving party to a Festivus celebration and themed New Year’s Eve special

Side Pony Lounge

• 2914 6th Ave., Tacoma, 253-442-0221, sideponytacoma.com
• Monday 5-10 p.m., Sunday and Wednesday-Thursday 4 p.m.-11 p.m.(ish), Friday-Saturday 4 p.m.-2 a.m.