Santa Rosa Nightlife

Stark's Steakhouse, in an historic old restaurant building in Santa Rosa's West End, just on the western edge of downtown, is a classic, old-fashioned 40's-era restaurant and bar. It focuses on classic mid-20th-century American cuisine and atmosphere.

One part of the building has the bar, a nice, ritzy bar and lounge where one can go to just get a drink or have a full meal in a classic setting, often with live piano music, strings, etc.

The bar focuses on classic cocktails, some standard like the Manhattan, and others almost forgotten, like the Vieux Carre, along with whisky/whiskey and whisky-based drinks in general. In this day of sweet, colourful, fruity and other flavoured vodka-based cocktails, this bar is unusual in that it has a relatively small selection of vodka and a large array of Scotch whisky, bourbon, and rye.

In my opinion as a serious cocktail drinker, this is hands down one of the two best places in Sonoma County, perhaps the entire North Bay, for getting good, serious cocktails, the other being the bar at Cyrus in Healdsburg.

Dress Code: There is no dress code as far as I know, but one should dress at least in nice casual clothes.