BY KEELIN EVERLY-LANG for WEEKLY VOLCANO | 7/17/2026
Sports Bar and Grill Latitude 84 in Hosmer features pool tables, dart boards, karaoke and a menu full of fried classics like wings, fries and mozzarella sticks.
With its host of regulars, quirky personalities, and tight-knit community, Bar Manager Sese Thomas says it’s like a diverse version of Cheers, the classic sitcom set in a Boston bar.
“We have a very diverse crowd, and on any day it’s like a whole melting pot in here,” Thomas said. “You may have a gang member here sitting next to a doctor, who’s sitting next to a lawyer, who’s sitting next to somebody who just got out of jail, and they’re all having a conversation, and you would never know.”
Tell someone you’re going to Latitude 84, and you’ll sometimes get a reaction like the one I got today: a warning about the safety of your decision.
Talk to Thomas, though, and she’ll tell you that people should talk about what they know personally, not what they’ve heard about the establishment.
As someone who lives and works in Hosmer and is also the parent of a student in the neighborhood, Thomas is a key pillar in a community she loves and describes as “overburdened” by systemic issues.
She has worked there for 21 years and seen multiple managers come and go. Current owner Chong Yi purchased it in 2008, and the sports bar has built a strong community and its share of regulars.
In one memorable instance, she said, her liquor board agent and the Pierce County prosecutor retired the same year and chose Latitude 84 as the place to celebrate.
“We’re not as bad as people think we are, you know. But to change people’s perception of who we are, they have to at least make it in the building. . . . I’m very honest. I own up to what has happened here and what has not happened here, but we’re not as scary as people think we are.”
“We’re not everyone’s cup of tea. We’re like everybody’s cup of Hennessy,” Thomas said.
When I stopped by, a FIFA World Cup match was on several screens. As I sat and talked to Thomas, the pool tables filled up with players and more patrons trickled in. Although she was off the clock, Thomas was greeted every few minutes by friendly customers and friends.
In the past, the bar was a “notorious dart bar,” but today the focus has shifted more toward the pool league, which meets almost every night, and karaoke, though one wall of dartboards remains.
The league runs Sunday through Thursday. On Sunday, the league starts at 5:30 p.m. On Monday through Thursday, it starts at 7 p.m.
Different days have different formats, switching between nine-ball and eight-ball, except on Thursday and Sunday, which feature Double Jeopardy, meaning players can compete in both.
The bar’s menu includes classic fried chicken and fries, and Thomas said they’re in the running for the best chicken in Tacoma.
While the jury is still out on who wins that particular title in the city, local content creator T gave the wings an 8.7 out of 10 on his YouTube channel, To Make a Long Story Short.
During his visit, he also praised the customer service and atmosphere but warned people to be ready for “some action” if they come to Hosmer generally.
“I’m not saying in Latitude, but just in Hosmer. Sometimes, not every day, but some days, it gets wild out here, and if you ain’t ready for no action, don’t pull up. Even if you ready for the action, just don’t give nobody no eye contact. Just keep on pushing,” T said in his video, which he posted about a year ago.
All that being said, crime rates in District 5, which includes Hosmer, have gone down about 20 percent every year for the past three years, according to the city’s crime dashboard.
Yes, the bar is still on the Joint Base Lewis-McChord off-limits list, and yes, there are still problems there sometimes.
But the bar’s reputation is also exacerbated by issues in the area that spill over onto the property, false reports, and police logs that include Latitude 84 as the landmark for incidents unrelated to the bar.
“Running a bar and being in a prime spot comes with its own issues,” Thomas said.
For the longest time, she said, she would pull up the 911 call log listing calls for first-responder services attributed to her business, and it would include incidents such as traffic stops.
“They were using us as a landmark,” Thomas said, explaining that if a car was pulled over on the 8400 block, Latitude 84 would be the landmark police entered into the log.
As one example of the type of incidents the bar deals with, she received a call from staff last week saying police were in the parking lot responding to the reported kidnapping of a child.
The bar had just opened for the day, and when Thomas arrived at Latitude, she was greeted by a chaotic crime scene. Caution tape. Police cars with their lights flashing.
Then they reviewed the video captured by Latitude’s cameras. A domestic conflict had taken place in the bar’s parking lot, and a child had exited the vehicle and then walked out of the camera’s frame and up the hill. It was an unfortunate situation, but not a kidnapping and nothing to do with Latitude.
In another incident, police contacted the bar after someone reported a fight. A patron who had visited the night before said he had been jumped in the parking lot. Thomas again reviewed the footage with police, and together they watched as the individual tripped on his way out to the parking lot, face-planted into the hood of a car, and then rolled off the vehicle.
His cousin, who was with him at the time, helped him into the car and made sure he got home safely.
“He looked so horrible that he really thought that he got beat up. . . . He had a broken nose and two black eyes,” Thomas said. Police had to call him back and inform him that the only fight he had gotten into was with gravity and a parked car.
In yet another incident, someone from the next-door Kingfisher tiny house village overdosed in the bar’s parking lot, again bringing the drama of an emergency response to its doorstep in an incident unrelated to the bar or its patrons.
When it comes to Kingfisher, Thomas said she wishes there were more effort put into collaboration and communication by the management there. She said the lack of communication is one factor that has caused friction between Kingfisher and nearby business owners.
This is not to say there are never problems at Latitude 84 itself. One particular tragedy brought the bar a lot of negative attention in 2017.
The bar was already on the off-limits list for service members when a conflict in the parking lot ended with the death of a service member whose wife was also injured.
While the bar has been a staple in the community for more than two decades, the atmosphere has also changed a lot in the past six years, particularly as the team navigated the challenges of COVID-19.
During the period of early curfews, the bar found that closing a little earlier was actually good for business.
Today, it closes at midnight rather than staying open until 2 a.m.
The bar also kept its COVID-era policy of using a sign-in sheet and continues to keep a close eye on who is in the building.
Another change is the music, Thomas said. While Latitude 84 still has a DJ on special occasions, gone are the days of having a live DJ every night.
“There’s a lot of conversations about the music genre that you choose,” Thomas said. She said police have even told her that the type of music the bar plays affects the energy of the place.
Now, when music is playing, it’s because a patron paid to play it through the jukebox.
This change has actually helped build community in the space because it gives people a way to get to know each other through their music choices and adds a broader mix of music.
Community building is important to Thomas and is an important path forward for Hosmer overall, she said.
Recent tragedies in the community highlight just how tight-knit people are.
Thomas knows thirteen people who have lost their lives in the past two months, including friends and regulars.
“I was accustomed to seeing them every day, and the one day I did not see them was the day they died,” Thomas said.
“I’ve been through a lot of seasons, and I’ve lost a lot of patrons,” Thomas said.
Many of her patrons also frequent other establishments in the area, so these losses have ripple effects, but the community is coming together in response.
A fundraiser and donation drive for baby items was held at Latitude 84 on July 10 to raise money for the burial of community member Daron, who died along with Brittnay Smith in a car accident on the Fourth of July.
Both had children, and Daron’s son had been born just a few weeks earlier.
Community members can donate to Daron’s burial fund through a GoFundMe organized by his mother.
“There’s a lot of things that we have to do as a community because it takes a village at the end of the day. . . . Latitude, Hard Luck, you know, all the bars in this respective area,” Thomas said.
Looking to the future, Thomas said she encourages the entire Hosmer community to continue building cohesiveness and working together.
This article paid for by the Hosmer Business Association
