BY MEG VAN HUYGEN for WEEKLY VOLCANO | 8/7/2026
Longtime industry vet Ryan Carr took over the historic dive in June 2026.
Last week, a banal errand took me past the hallowed New Frontier Lounge, where I spied a table of women in the cordoned-off sidewalk patio under a red patio umbrella. They were sipping what sure did look like Aperol spritzes. It was a flawless PNW summer day, around 72 degrees with a little cross-breeze, and you know what? I wanted to be one of those spritzy ladies too.
After completing my silly errand, I circled back to the corner of 25th and East C and took a seat at the bar. While waiting for my spritzy spritz, I hazily recalled a convo with a friend about the new ownership at the New Frontier and asked the curly-haired bartender if it was true. He confirmed. “Very new! It’s me. I bought the place last month.”
Originally from Tacoma, Ryan Carr cut his industry teeth at legendary Seattle bars such as King’s Hardware and the Waterwheel Tavern (RIP). He moved back to Tac in 2025 and had been managing Holy Moly on Sixth Avenue for only a few months when he heard a rumor that the New Frontier Lounge was on the market.
“I’ve loved this bar since I was 21,” Carr said. “I’ve played shows here. I’ve been to a million shows here. I’ve hung out here my whole life. When I heard it came up for sale about a year ago, I just . . .”
He gestured to the room as if to say, “How could I resist?”
Carr said it took almost a year to seal the business deal with Neil Harris, who opened the bar in 2008 and reopened it in 2022 following an extended closure. Harris, who also owns the bar’s building, passed the business on to Rose Peterson briefly, sometime before Carr’s takeover.
If you’ve never been, well, the New Frontier Lounge is known for its vibrant live music scene as well as its fascinating collection of vintage signs, taxidermied animal heads, pull-down screens painted with oil landscapes, wacky thrift-store art and general historical bric-a-brac. It’s like if Earthwise Architectural Salvage had a bar and a stage inside. Carr commented that there’s a bit less bric-a-brac in the New Frontier Lounge now than before, though.
“Some of it had already been cleared out before we took over,” he lamented. “But there’s still a good chunk of it. Plenty of cool old stuff left here.”
The changes to the New Frontier are pretty minimal otherwise. I spotted a departure from the very hot dog-focused menu they once had, now pared down to two options: a Seattle dog or an ostensibly plain happy-hour dog. The happy-hour menu also had a smashburger, some classic Buffalo wings, mozzarella sticks and other odds and ends.
“Yeah, we shortened it up a bit,” Carr said, “but we kept most of the favorites,” adding that the team is starting out by enhancing the cocktail menu instead.
Among the alluring new drinks on the cocktail list is the Desert Rose, made with gin, watermelon juice, lemon and sparkling rosé, although for me, it had to be that $9 happy-hour Aperol spritz. I snagged a happy-hour smashburger too. Why not? Lovely and delicious, both. My summer afternoon dream from several hours earlier, at last realized.
The New Frontier got a shout-out from Kristine Sherred at The News Tribune for its enormous club sandwich too, and it didn’t take long for me to overhear someone ordering it. Et voilà, it was Trevor Hamilton, who owns Corbeau in Proctor.
“It’s so good, dude,” Hamilton assured me.
As prophesied, the Frontier Club is a whole helluva thing to behold once it arrives: a sandwich so massive that one can barely get one’s jaws around it. Note to self for next time.
A few days later, I brought my boyfriend by the New Frontier Lounge for a quick Friday-night bev, and Carr was again behind the stick. My guy destroyed his smashburg in a trice, and I tried the Seattle dog, which comes with a little twist of buttery sautéed cabbage mixed into the grilled onion, cream cheese and mustard morass. They butterfly the dog too, so there’s some extra grilly surface area. I like that. Been thinkin’ about it.
Carr said he and his life and business partner, Amber Pulley, are doing the bookings themselves, and the shows are another major focus of the bar’s humble renaissance. Pulley has plenty of professional experience here, having previously owned the Everett bar and arts venue Lucky Dime. Recent headliners at the New Frontier Lounge include indie-grunge alternaband Alex Vile and freaky-deaky drag queen emeritus Jackie Hell. Coming up Aug. 8 is a hyperlocal one-two punch featuring psychedelic jam band Deep Unreal and experimental tape-loop showcase Tacoma Noise Rodeo.
There’s a burlesque bingo night, a trivia night and a poetry open mic coming up too. On Aug. 20, the New Frontier will host a segment of the third annual multiday Stankoma Aroma festival, with a lineup that includes PNW bands Holy Death Temple, Profit Prison, Horsebag, Strange Chords and Nova Motor. Carr and Pulley are stoked to flesh out the rest of the summer calendar with more local acts ASAP.
“We’ve been tossing around the idea of trying to turn this place into an all-ages venue too,” Carr said, citing Pulley’s previous venue in Everett, which was open to all ages. “We’d just need to put up a railing around the bar to make it legal.”
He also said the building was once an Odd Fellows hall and that there’s a secret ballroom upstairs that they daydream about refurbishing someday . . . if they can get access to it.
“We haven’t quite decided everything we’re gonna do yet,” he confessed. “Lots of projects to get done first!”
Although it’s only been a few weeks since the transfer of power went through, Carr said everything has been pretty hunky-dory.
“So far, so good,” he said, nodding and glancing around the room as Alex Vile started their sound check and new guests slowly filed in. “I just wish I’d moved back down to Tacoma a lot sooner. Can’t say how glad I am to be back.”
