I've been to the Spotted Owl once before with a girlfriend and decided to bring my SO to check it out. I'm a craft cocktail lover, he is as basic as they come. So from my perspective: it's a cool little bar, hidden in the basement of a historic building. I enjoyed the menu with it's story of Cyrus. My SO didn't give a damn about it and mostly found it confusing. For him, the cocktails had too much happening. For me, I liked the various combinations, I thought they were unique. We chose seats at the bar and James was our bartender (I am 85% sure it was James). I chose the Jeweled Knight, which has a bourbon base and I thought pistachio and saffron sounded interesting. It was a good cocktail. I can't say that I could pick out any of the flavors individually. He picked out the Caribbean Gin & Tonic (he's been on a G&T kick). He thought it was fine, but preferred a plain Gin and Tonic, without the almond and lime. My second drink was The Rhubarb Office. I enjoyed that one quite a bit. Though, I was hoping for the smoked salt to come through and it didn't.
We did end up moving from the bar to a bench/table. The bar seats were pretty narrow and uncomfortable. So if you have a butt, beware. The tables are made from old doors which was pretty neat. The bar also has a cool stained glass picture behind it.
Overall, save this for your friends who like fancy, off the beaten path type places. It was a little too fussy for my easy going companion. I will say, I LOVED how eclectic their music selection was. Every genre came on while we were there.