This Guy Found a Canlis Menu

You would be smiling too if you had one of these in your hands.

The Saturday clues are especially challenging, since Seattle's social media-savvy, fine dining-loving corporate workforce isn't stuck in their offices. Finding a Saturday menu demands a certain combination of luck, proximity, smarts and old-fashioned hustle.

Meet the fantastically named Devon Bacon. The 24-year-old UW employee saw Saturday morning's clue, "605 X 138 = 62" come out on Twitter at 10 a.m. By 10:13 Bacon was at the foot of the Space Needle with the menu in his hand. In case you were wondering, the landmark is 605 feet high and 138 feet wide. And do we really need to tell you what the "62" signifies?

Bacon has a November reservation and says he's still addicted to deciphering the clues, though he feels its unsportsmanlike to pursue a second menu. He explained to Seattlest exactly how his victory went down.

How did you start following the menu hunt?

I heard about it last Wednesday and thought it was a cool idea, but the likelihood of me finding one of those is pretty slim. Plus at that point most of the clues were coming out at middle of day when I was at work. Friday on my lunch break I looked into it a bit more and decided to go to Twitter to search "#canlismenus". The energy of the competition was so contagious.

I was having dinner with my friend over in Ballard Friday night when the clue came out. I was kicking myself once I so disappointed it took me so long to figure it out. Once I figured it out there was no way I was making it there from Ballard in time.

So were you stalking Twitter on Saturday?

I woke up at about 8 a.m. on Saturday and immediately jumped out of bed. My first thought was that I needed to get to Twitter to see what's going on with clues today. It was a sick obsession at this point.

I saw Brian [Canlis] said the clue would come mid-morning. I thought to myself, "what does mid-morning mean? Do I have time to take a shower or should I skip that?" In my head I thought mid-morning meant about 10 or so.

I sat at the computer and opened three tabs on Twitter: @canlis; @bcanlis and #canlismenus. I just kept clicking through the tabs, hitting refresh. I figured if I'm just waiting for the clue to post, I may as well just sign up for a Twitter account.

Tell us about your win.

At 10 the clue came out and as soon as I saw it I knew it was the Space Needle. I had no idea what 138 was, but I knew 605 was height. And 62 means one thing in this city.

My building is [in the Denny Triangle] so I was right nearby. I ran down to my car, tore out of there and raced up 4th. I stuffed my car in the first parking space I saw so I wouldn't have to circle. The payment kiosk has never taken so long; I debated whether to run and not buy parking.

I sprinted to the Space Needle and saw four or five people that were obviously looking around. I started circling around where the columns come down to the ground. The beams make a right angle and there's a bolt sticking up from each one. I thought those would be a really good place to hide something. I thought the menu would be rolled up because I read on Twitter that it was rolled up when it was hidden at the Blue Moon Tavern the night before.

I circled the columns and as I ran past one I saw a flash of brown out of the corner of my eye. I stopped, turned around and it was rolled up and stuck at the base of a column next to one of the giant bolts.

Did Brian Canlis jump out of the bushes and do a little dance?

The menu was hidden down a flight of about three stairs. When I came back up the stairs he was standing there. I recognized him from his Twitter profile. He said, "nice job, if you're on Twitter make sure you Tweet that it was found." And as suddenly as he appeared, he was gone.

Have you ever been to Canlis?

I haven't. It's been someplace that I've always wanted to go, but the price always put it at the bottom of my list. It's never a place that comes up when you're sitting around with your friends on a Friday night wondering, "where should we eat tonight?"

So who are you taking?

I have a reservation for November 13. I'm taking a friend of mine who I've known for years. She's a big foodie so she'll appreciate something like this. I wasn't going to take somebody who didn't know what Canlis was about.