Inside Passage
Water · Ketchikan Gateway Borough ·
Underwater theme bar with giant octopus, novelty cocktails, and shipwreck decor
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Alaska Get directions
Underwater theme bar with giant octopus, novelty cocktails, and shipwreck decor
Alaska Get directions
"Don’t come to this underwater-themed spot inside Rumba expecting groundbreaking drinks. Instead, come for a good time and tropical novelty in the form of shipwrecked odds and ends, glowing turquoise lanterns, and enough fishing nets to recreate an episode of Deadliest Catch. You’ll sit under giant replica tentacles sprouting from the ceiling and sip cocktails in gimmicky vessels. Those include a rum-spiked ube drink served in a miniature rice cooker, and a fruity cachaça situation placed in what appears to be an Amazon Prime box. While the cocktails here most likely keep local dry ice companies in business, they all taste like watered-down stuff from an all-inclusive resort." - kayla sager riley, aimee rizzo
"On Alaska voyages I include opportunities for close-up views of orcas as they glide through the Inside Passage, offering dramatic wildlife encounters." - Jancee Dunn Jancee Dunn Jancee Dunn is the New York Times best-selling author of eight books. For several decades, she has written for publications such as Vogue, The New York Times, Food & Wine, and The Washington Post. Travel + Leisure Editorial Guidelines
"Inside Passage is a bar-within-a-bar, a.k.a. a speakeasy accessible through a sneaky side door inside Rumba. The hype surrounding this underwater adventure-themed cocktail establishment is intense, and if you’d like to check it out on a Friday or Saturday, you probably can’t since they’ll be booked. Weeknights are usually fair game, and you can make an online reservation to secure your 90 minutes—just barely enough time for a snack and two rounds of drinks. When you enter, it’s immediately clear what kind of bar this is. Like walking into a queue for a top-tier amusement park’s pirate ride, there are neon lights blasting everywhere, “sea monster” tentacles adhered to the ceiling, and lots of tropical accoutrements. With all of the theatrics, you’d expect Inside Passage to be rowdy and loud, but it’s actually a relaxed, kind-of-quiet place to drink. That makes the whole experience fun, and something you should do once. But really, only once, and that’s because the drinks, while tasty, are overpriced. photo credit: Nate Watters The menu has classics like hurricanes and blue Hawaiis, drinks that pay homage to influential mixologists (like “The Four Boys,” which is an ube and rice milk-spiked rum drink named for the quartet of Filipino bartenders who invented the original “Rhum Rapsodies” at Don The Beachcomber) and drinks that poke fun at a certain large tech company (the “Amazombie” is served on top of a replica Prime shipping box). For starters, they’re all really expensive. We’re talking Canon-level prices, around $20 and up. But unfortunately, these aren’t mind-melting works of liquor-based art like the drinks at Canon. Many of the cocktails here have a ton of ice, and/or taste like soccer practice juice boxes despite containing three types of rum, champagne syrup, yellow chartreuse, rhum agricole, marionberry, lime, and passionfruit. A refreshing juice box nonetheless, but you get the idea. Small plates like coconut shrimp and spam sliders are good enough if you need a nibble, but we’ve had much better bar snacks in the neighborhood for lower prices. But if you’re curious about the hype and need somewhere different to entertain out-of-towners or to host a low-stakes date, then consider coming here to bask under the neon glow and faux squid legs." - Aimee Rizzo
"Embracing an extravagant oceanic fantasy, Inside Passage is a theme bar sibling to Capitol Hill’s Rumba with an interior by Notch Gonzales that features a giant floating octopus named Kiki (each tentacle is 18 feet long) and cocktails presented as mini experiences—examples include the Little Mermaid–themed Dinglehopper, a Japanese rum drink served in an anglerfish mug, and the cheeky Amazombie 2.0." - Eater
"Nyman and Benedict previously owned the now-defunct gay bar Inside Passage, part of their earlier involvement in the Capitol Hill gay bar scene." - Megan Hill
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