Help Build Bar Laa
37% there — and we need your help. Our goal is $100,000 by July 15. One month to open the doors. Every contribution counts and moves us forward. Updated weekly.
Bar Laa. A small cup. A long story.
An agave spirit forward bar built on rituals in small cups. Coming soon to Capitol Hill, Seattle.
The Story
Everything I have been building toward.
Bar Laa is a standing-room-only bar on E Olive Way in Capitol Hill — a small, intimate space under 500 square feet being transformed into a gathering place for this community. No seats by design. When people stand, they shift, they turn, they bump elbows with strangers. Conversations happen that wouldn't otherwise.
The program is agave and terroir-forward — every spirit selected for the story behind it: where it comes from, how it is made, and who made it. I want every person who walks in to leave knowing more than when they arrived. Debauchery is not the point. The point is connection. A long story in a small cup.
The Space
How Bar Laa came to be.
A few years ago I heard that Kate Opatz had landed the lease on a tiny, beautiful space on E Olive Way — formerly home to the beloved Crumble & Flake Pâtisserie. I knew immediately it was right for what I had been imagining.
Kate opened that space as Laurel, a gorgeous coffee and cocktail bar she named after her mother. After more than a year of running it, she made the honest and courageous decision to pivot. She remembered our conversation. She called me.
Renovations begin now. Bar Laa opens Summer 2026.
Why We're Asking Seattle
Bar Laa is built for this community.
I do not have capital. What I have is thirty years of knowledge, a concept I have spent years refining, the perfect space, and a partner in Kate who believes in this vision enough to hand me the keys.
Bar Laa is built for this community. It only makes sense to ask this community to help build it.
Every dollar raised goes directly into making this bar real — the renovation, the equipment, the inventory, the design, and the operating cushion that gives a new small business a fighting chance. Nothing more.
For Every Contributor
Be first through the door.
Every contributor will be among the first through the door. The first days Bar Laa is open will be for donors only — a private opening before we welcome the public.
You will not just have helped build this place. You will be the first to inhabit it. A private evening — your record on the turntable, your name in the room before anyone else.
Where the Money Goes
$100,000 to open the doors.
Every dollar goes directly into making this bar real. No overhead, no middleman.
- Remodeling labor
- $5,000
- New bar top
- $5,000
- Consulting
- $10,000
- Starting inventory
- $15,000
- Operating reserve
- $25,000
- Plaster
- $3,000
- Paint
- $2,000
- Acoustic treatment
- $2,000
- Lighting
- $2,000
- Sound equipment
- $3,000
- Design & marketing
- $5,000
- Bar supplies
- $3,000
- Contingency
- $20,000
- Total
- $100,000
The Mission
Bar Laa will donate a percentage of every sale to organizations working to restore bat habitats. Bats are among the primary pollinators for agave. Without them, there is no mezcal, no tequila, no program like this one. Giving back to the ecosystem that makes this bar possible is not a footnote — it is part of the story every bottle tells.
We're looking for all kinds of help.
Barter, free labor, special skills — if you have something to offer, we want to start that conversation. No ask too small, no idea too early.
Laara@barlaa.bar
@barlaa.barBar Laa embraces hospitality as an art — an act of compassion.
Bar Laa is a space for a moment of reprieve, the story behind the spirit, a small ritual in a cup, and an opportunity to talk with a neighbor.
We'd love to introduce you to the place, the producer, and the process.