2 new small-town WA hotels are worth venturing off the beaten path

ROVING BETWEEN WALLA WALLA AND COLUMBIA COUNTIES - Sometimes you go to a new city for the food, culture, nightlife and concerts. Other times, the quiet draws you to a remote location with nothing but your thoughts. I'll propose a third option for your next Washington getaway: the charming small town.

Way out in Eastern Washington, roughly four and a half hours from Seattle by car, Dayton, Columbia County, and Waitsburg, Walla Walla County, have just enough to intrigue. Each has a great hotel and bar. There's food and hiking or biking nearby. And there's a different kind of quiet.

I was reminded of the alluring charm of the small town when I found myself in Dayton after sunset in March; on that cool spring evening, the brightest light on the street was a ticker tape sign blinking from a darkened office showing the current commodity price of wheat.

Precious few streetlights and one stoplight illuminate Main Street, which doubles as Highway 12 running out of Dayton to the southwest and northeast. Diesel trucks barreling through town were the only sound that night. I stood there in the dark with a bag of tacos, staring at a massive mural from the movie "Stand By Me," wondering if I was the sole occupant of Hotel Hardware for the evening. It was at once calming and slightly eerie.

The 15-room Hotel Hardware building was constructed in 1890 by Jacob Weinhard as a lodge and hotel. A portrait of Weinhard hangs in the lobby near a taxidermied bear named Paulie Two Paws. Over the past 136 years, the building has housed a hardware store, a grocery store and a series of bars before being purchased in 2023, when the Victorian-esque Weinhard Hotel was transformed into the modern Hotel Hardware. Rooms start at $120 per night.

Check-in is no-contact; you'll receive a personal code to unlock the door, entering the hotel by pulling on an outstretched golden handle. There is no one at the front desk. There's not really a front desk at all.

Padraic Slattery, who opened Hotel Hardware in 2024, jokes that Dayton is like a lightbulb.

"It's on, or it's off," he said while shaking up a tiki-inspired Flood Zone cocktail in the Bobcat Room. Slattery mans the bar a couple of nights a week at the hotel; the hotel also has a full kitchen, and Slattery says he's in talks with a chef to open a regular restaurant.

When the Bobcat Room is closed (and it often is, especially on weekdays and in the winter), all is quiet at the Hotel Hardware. Slattery assured me I wasn't the only soul in the hotel that evening, but I was solo in the Bobcat Room - where the cocktails were on par with any I've had in Seattle (for a few bucks cheaper).

The two nights I spent in Dayton were decidedly "lightbulb off" nights; the Liberty movie theater was between showings, and restaurants closed by 8 p.m.

Slattery spent nine months revamping the hotel, trading Victorian charm and antiqued furnishings for a vibe that mixes cheeky furnishings with a classic look: stirrup-shaped brass door knockers, deep leather club chairs, bidets in the bathrooms and luxe feather beds.

There's a seasonal rooftop seating area with a fire pit and, downstairs next to the Bobcat Room, a small retail shop with natural wine, craft beer, bags of coffee and fancy potato chips. If Slattery is around in the morning, he'll make you a very good latte - which is handy because there's no coffee option in the rooms.

Dayton by day means breakfast at Locally Nourished, a massive old storefront that combines a coffee shop and restaurant with retail and a community gathering space. You can find antique home goods and thrifted clothing beside new odds and ends, jewelry and plants. There's also a thrift store downtown to remind you how old things can find new life in Dayton.

"The fun thing about this is that we can be creative, I can pivot on a dime," Slattery says. "That was a silver lining coming to Dayton and there is some optimism here."

For a stroll on a nice day, there's the Touchet River Levee Trail right in Dayton, a 2-mile paved trail that starts at Flour Mill Park on Main Street and travels through a patchwork of private and public land, hugging the Touchet River.

Want to get out of town? Drive to Palouse Falls, the official state waterfall, about a 40-mile trip north; about 20 miles south is Bluewood ski area, which plans to launch mountain biking in summer 2027.

About 10 miles down Highway 12 to the southwest is Waitsburg, which is just as sleepy, if not sleepier, a town compared with Dayton.

"You needed a flashlight when the sun went down," said Joe Roberts, co-owner of Waitsburg's Royal Block hotel, reflecting on a visit in 2021.

Roberts and his partner Tiina Jaatinen bought what would become The Royal Block in 2021, spending months renovating the building into a wine bar and boutique space with five rooms. Opened in 1888 as a hotel, the building has had many lives: Serving as a mercantile, pharmacy, beauty parlor, pizza place, movie rental shop and more over the decades, it had stood empty for more than a decade before Roberts and Jaatinen bought it.

The rooms seamlessly blend the building's old bones - exposed brick, floor-to-ceiling windows and hardwood floors - with striking art from Roberts' personal collection, all bolstered by Jaatinen's eye for sleek, minimalist Finnish design. There are no TVs in the rooms; Jaatinen hopes guests think of the stay at the hotel as an "analog sojourn."

"You come to Eastern Washington, and you're looking at these sprawling hills and all this space," she says. "We want you to feel that too."

Waitsburg's two-block Main Street is much quieter than Dayton's. The Post Office gets most of the town's traffic. In terms of sustenance, there's a small grocery store as well as Wolfling Coffee (which makes an excellent biscuit) and Bar Bacetto to tempt visitors.

Bar Bacetto (with plates approximately $12-$36) closed in 2024, then reopened last year. Helmed by James Beard-nominated chef Seattleite Mike Easton and his wife Erin, it's an 18-seat space that turns out the same caliber of incredible pasta Easton was known for at Seattle's Il Corvo. There are also gorgeous salads, fluffy focaccia and panna cotta so good you'll dream about it after you waddle back to the Royal Block (I'm speaking from experience).

The wine bar at the Royal Block is lively until around 8 p.m., and they'll soon have a little competition: Atelier Waitsburg, a tasting room from winemaker Todd Alexander and his wife Carrie, is scheduled to open later this spring.

Otherwise: Relax. You'll feel like you're in the middle of nowhere, with little to do beyond taking a stroll through town. Check in at the Gaudy Gals Vintage Gift Shop and Duke + Remington, a letterpress studio and retail shop.

Of course, Walla Walla is about 20 miles away, if you're looking for something a little quicker-paced. But Jaatinen says it's easy to be "Waitsburg-ed," getting drawn in slowly by this quiet town where it's easy to just be.

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