(SpoCOOL) A Spokane Blog

As you may or may not know—and consider me in the latter group until just recently—Keith and Janice Raschko, the duo behind One World, now owns the Checkerboard Tavern (1716 E Sprague Ave). The bar was established back in 1933, and has quite the history behind it, including holding the longest liquor license for an establishment in one location in Washington state. Wednesday peanut nights will, apparently, continue with the new owners. I have no idea what that actually is, but they also add Wii tournaments the same night, and that’s pretty great.

Currently the menu is showing nice potential with vegetarian options, and, soon, vegan options. And our pretzel was served with a pretty dang good mustard.

The beer selection too, is going in a direction that is looking good. Sure, it’s not huge, but with the excellent Clem’s Gold on tap and Laughing Dog IPA on bottle.

Checkerboard Tavern still feels old school, and hopefully that won’t change, even though the clientele inevitably will start skewing younger after the grand opening on March 17th. That’s probably not a bad thing, as the place is big enough for everyone. And the checkerboard tables are awesome for the competitive among us.

Also worth noting is that Down to Earth will host Green Drinks at the tavern on April 13th. Consider this your early notice.

And so this is it: two more players dropped out, two were crowned winners, and three were finishers. Not too shabby, really.

Who couldn’t take it? Mark kept his promise and crashed out on a pizza. Hey, he’s only human. Then we have Becky who might technically have made it, but she didn’t check in. Thus she is out. Hey, nobody said 7vs7 was a game, this is serious business.

The Winners:

Monique: She plays the game hard and we like that.

Andrew: Truly did end it with a stylish (and local) meal. Spokane Food Blog Editorial Board went along to oversee that Andrew didn’t run out to Carl’s Jr., and we can testify that Sante rocked together a dinner for the ages.

The Finishers:

Paul: Not sure why he thinks I was the one that came up with doing the early drawing of the winner, but he is wrong. As usual.

Geneva: Also points out the greatness of Sante. And that this is the last 7vs7, but more about that in a bit.

Moi: I can’t help but wonder why we didn’t eat more at Sante. I mean, seriously? What the hell? It’s awesome!

And furthermore:

We’ve been hosting these week(-ish) long challenges for almost two years, and have decided this, the fourth competition, is it. I mean, really, we’re all probably burnt out.

Of course, we’ll still have challenges, but they’ll be short and to the point. Coming next: Team SFB has been challenged by Team Blue Spark to a spicy food contest. Our team of four players is being assembled as we speak, and if you feel you have what it takes, let us know and we will take you into consideration.

Yes, we take this very seriously.

We’re rolling through the last day of the contest, and, well-what-do-you-know, Bart! Is! Out! Are we surprised? I mean, really? Are we? This is the man that has gone crashing out on a Miller before. I guess it really isn’t easy being green.

And word has it another person will go out today. That’s right, Mark claims he later today will fall prey to the 7vs7 Assassin: Bennidito's.

To make this a little more interesting, we are upping the ante here: We have already pulled two (potential) winners! The first name that came out of the hat was Monique followed by Andrew. If they stay in, Monique can pick one of the lovely coffees DOMA provided as contest prizes, and Andrew will get the one Monique didn’t pick. Should any of them drop out we have pulled the rest of the group’s names from the hat to determine who would replace the quitter. Just for fun we’re keeping that list secret for now.

As for the players progress…

Andrew did not fall for the temptation—a bottle of the Abyss—I put in front of him.

Paul furthers his mancrush on me by comparing me to Twin Peaks’s agent Cooper. Kyle MacLachlan is definitely a lesser version of me, I think we can all agree on that.

Becky has gone from burning things to dealing drugs. Yikes…

Geneva reminds us that Sante is both local and awesome. Why nobody has just camped there for five days is beyond me!

Monique, I think, would rather eat dirt (local, of course) than lose this contest.

And yes, I’m still in it! Because I’m a winner. And winners don’t lose.

Challenge? What challenge? Get a DOMA Americano from Coffee Social—I don’t want to experience a life outside of DOMA, thank you—and you can buzz through the day quite nicely. Yet in fact not everybody has such an easy time with that, as…

... she’s out!

Gaeyia: Sorry, but we require some communication each day. A tweet. A blog post. Something. You might call this being out on a technicality and you might be right. But let’s not take the anarchy route, people!

The law abiding ones.

Andrew: Being sucked into Inglourious Basterds is fine, as long as it’s misspelled correctly. A part of me feels today is Andrew’s time to fall, however.

Bart and Paul: Bart and Paul must have sampled some of the less savory ‘shrooms in the area, with Bart preaching the apocalypse and Paul vesseling Mitch Hedberg.

Becky might actually be a pyromaniac.

Geneva points out some of the many great things from Main Market as well as SFCC’s interesting free produce offerings. Oh, and also a new hot foods challenge: Team SFB vs. Team Blue Spark.

Mark is in it. And he writes short posts.

Monique: She is in it. And she seems a bit competitive. Who’d have thunk it?