Brother Joe – Georgetown
Recommended by: Nobody. We mentioned our tradition of stopping by in Georgetown whenever we have a trip out of the Seatac Airport in our Square Knot Diner post. We thought we’d try Brother Joe down the street as a change of pace.
Description on Lighthouse Roaster’s website : One of Seattle’s original roaster cafes, Lighthouse has spent more than twenty years creating a loyal following of coffee lovers by treating the coffee buying, roasting and drink-making as a noble call
Description on Brother Joe’s website : What we do. Truly Great Coffee and Teas, Weekday Breakfast and Lunch, Weekend Brunch.
Address:5629 Airport Way S, Seattle, WA 98108
What we ate/drank: CHILE VERDE Hatch chile and tomato braised pork over cornbread with a fried egg, cotija cheese, crema, and cilantro. $13, KALUA PORK ‘LOCO MOCO’ Braised pork with bacon, jasmine rice, miso slaw, sunny side up egg, and aloha gravy. Herkimer – Oh Miso Coffee, Mocha
Comments: We mentioned our tradition of stopping by in Georgetown whenever we have a trip out of the Seatac Airport in our Square Knot Diner post. This time around we made a detour to another Georgetown establishment. We went to Brother Joe for the first time, which is right down the street. Upon entering it appears to be a coffee-centric café with its huge visual infographic coffee menu(We’ll get back to this a little later), but they actually have a kitchen and have a pretty big selection of breakfast dishes, sandwiches, wraps and salads.
You order your drinks and food at the counter, take a seat and they’ll bring it out to you. The counter area has an old weathered vintage – vintage fridge, weathered wall, exposed bricks. There’s a pretty big dining area that serves close to maybe 30+ people. This area has a rhino theme with huge gold rhino trophy head, rhino painting and book ends. The rest of the wall space is filled with different animal portraits dressed in human clothes. Our two year old daughter was both amused and confused to see a cat in a cowboy outfit.
We ended up sitting in their little “living room” section, which basically looks like a mid century modern sitting area with a leather couch, coffee table, shelves, a floor lamp, seating nooks in the window and a couple of chairs. My understanding that this is normally used as a waiting area on the weekends when it gets crowded, but we ended up going on a Friday morning, so they told us it was fine sitting there.
The coffee used here is Herkimer Coffee and as mentioned above there’s a huge visual menu of their coffee drinks, which is definitely needed due to some of the one of a kind specialty drinks, such as:
- You Know Chata? -Cold brew with rice, vanilla and cinnamon
- Black Rhino – Espresso affogato with a cardamom and chocolate fudge ice cream
- Holy Mole Mocha – Espresso with Mexican chocolate, chiles, orange zest
- Oh, Miso Honey – Espresso with orange blossom honey-miso caramel
- Off-White Velour – Espresso with salted caramel, white chocolate
- Egg Coffee – Drip coffee with egg yolk and condensed milk
My wife got a regular mocha, but I tried the Oh, Miso Honey. To be honest, I was expecting a little more flavor, but it was fine. We also ordered food and this is where we were pleasantly surprised.
Unfairly, we had low expectations since our mindset was a coffee shop that happens to serve food as an afterthought, but the meals stand on their own. All sauces and syrups are made in house. We had the Chile Verde and the Kalua Pork Loco Moco. As mentioned in our Watson’s Counter post, we’ve had a lot of Loco Mocos in Seattle and although not as good as Watson’s Counter’s, it was just a small notch below, but still very delicious. Brother Joe’s take on the dish uses braised pork instead of a beef patty, but we really liked their variation it. The addition of the miso slaw and bacon along with the standard Loco Moco ingredients of a sunny side up egg, rice and gravy gives it a one of a kind twist.
KALUA PORK ‘LOCO MOCO’ Braised pork with bacon, jasmine rice, miso slaw, sunny side up egg, and aloha gravy. Score: (4.75/ 5.0)
The Chile Verde was a closer to a traditional dish, but delicious none the less. The menu says the pork is over cornbread, but ours came with fried potatoes, which to be honest we prefer. To have tortilla and cornbread seems a bit redundant. Glad they gave us potatoes instead.
Square Knot Diner has been our defacto Georgetown breakfast destination ever since Carmela at Roxy’s Diner suggested it, but after visiting Brother Joe, it’s given us options now. We will for sure be back after our enjoyable experience here.
Ratings:
Atmosphere: 5.00
Service: 4.75
Food/Drinks: 4.75
Bang for the Buck: 4.50
Overall: 4.75
Locals Only Factor: “Locals Only” grading-We’ll assign a grading as to how “local” a place is.
-
- Well known or Touristy. Most locals don’t go there unless they have business dinners or visitors in town.
- Most locals know about it
- Locals “in the know” know about it
- Only those who live close by know about it.
- You’re in on the secret. Don’t tell anybody!
Servers recommendations to visit in the future: We met a young lady outside who had a dog. She was waiting for her coffee to be made. Our daughter wanted to see her dog. We told her it was our first time at Brother Joe and if she could recommend any of her other favorite places to eat. She suggested The Hangar Café a few blocks away.
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Square Knot Diner
Recommended by: Carmela, our server at Roxy’s Diner in Fremont recommended Square Knot Diner for really good breakfasts.
T
Description on the Square Knot Diner’s website: No nonsense, straight-up diner food. All ages welcome.
Neighborhood/Type: Georgetown
Address: 6015 Airport Way South, Seattle, WA 98108
Music Playing: Don’t Blame Me by Thelonious Monk
What we ate/drank: Cinnamon Roll, Chile Cheese Omelette, Corned Beef Hash w/Two Poached Eggs
Comments: We have a family tradition of stopping by Square Knot Diner whenever we are headed to Seatac Airport for a trip. It all started when our youngest was born. The first restaurant we ever took her to was Roxy’s Diner in Fremont. Our daughters crying woke us up and Roxy’s Diner happened to be open at 7am on a Saturday. Long story short, we asked our server at Roxy’s Diner, if she could recommend other diners should we find ourselves in the same predicament. She suggested Square Knot Diner in Georgetown. Now, Georgetown is a bit out of the way for us, so we didn’t go there right away, but remembered it as an option if we were ever in the area. We’d never heard of Square Knot Diner before Carmela at Roxy’s Diner suggested it.
So fast forward a few months. We took our daughter on our first flight by plane to Texas. As paranoid first time parents traveling with an infant we left the house far in advance of our flight to account for any issues or delays that might occur. We checked and double checked and headed to Seatac. When we got on the freeway, we determined we were going to be at the airport super early, about 3 hours too early. We remember Carmela’s suggestion in Georgetown which is on the way to the airport and a tradition was born. Now we always build in some extra time to make a stop at Square Knot Diner for breakfast whenever we go to Seatac airport.
Their motto is so apropos-“No nonsense, straight-up diner food. All ages welcome”. This really is a no frills diner that feels like it’s stuck in time. From their old style booths, to the vintage signage and the U-shaped counter that you see in the movies when depicting a diner from the 50s. When we walked in to Square Knot Diner for the first time, I saw the U-Shaped counter and fell in love.
You won’t find any fancy breakfast dishes here, but you will get tasty hearty traditional breakfast meals that are reasonably priced. And true to their word, about all ages being welcome, our server could not have been any nicer, fawning over our daughter when we went there for the first time and in each subsequent visit. We’ve gotten various dishes during our visits, but we always get a cinnamon roll. That’s a given. It’s big enough for sharing and it has the perfect amount of frosting and cinnamon. I can’t forget about the music. I don’t know if it’s standard practice here, but on more than one occasion they were playing jazz. I’m talking Thelonious Monk, Coltrane, Mingus. Picture eating a corned beef hash early in the morning in an old timey diner listening to Thelonious Monk. It was surreal.
The atmosphere, the friendly service, the early hours(6:00am even on the weekend) and good bang for your buck are all the qualities of Square Knot Diner that we enjoy. Square Knot Diner will continue to be our stop-before-heading-to-the-airport tradition. And a special shout out to Carmela at Roxy’s Diner for the recommendation. We would have never have come here without it.
B
Ratings:
Atmosphere: 4.75
Service: 5.00
Food/Drinks: 4.25
Bang for the Buck: 4.50
Overall: 4.625
Locals Only Factor: “Locals Only” grading-We’ll assign a grading as to how “local” a place is.
-
- Well known or Touristy. Most locals don’t go there unless they have business dinners or visitors in town.
- Most locals know about it
- Locals “in the know” know about it
- Only those who live close by know about it.
- You’re in on the secret. Don’t tell anybody!
Servers recommendations to visit in the future: Our server at Square Knot Diner is a resident of the Queen Anne neighborhood and mentioned a little known and underrated spot called, Citizen Café.
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