Portage Bay Cafe – Ballard, South Lake Union, University District, Roosevelt
Recommended by: Our server, Angela(?) from Toulouse Petit suggested Portage Bay Cafe as having really delicious locally sourced brunches.
Description on the Portage Bay Cafe’s Facebook: Eat Like You Give a Damn!™ We serve local, organic, sustainable breakfast, lunch & brunch in four Seattle neighborhoods. We also offer to-go orders for corporate events and private parties, as well as hosting private dinner events in our bright, open cafes.
Neighborhood/Type: Ballard
Address: 900 NE 65th St, Seattle, WA 98115
What we ate/drank: See below. We’ve been here numerous times and had numerous dishes.
Comments: If I had to guess, Portage Bay Café is probably the most popular brunch spot in Seattle. Any published list of best/most popular/favorite brunch spots in Seattle will inevitably have Portage Bay Café on it. And if you don’t believe it, all you have to do is walk past Portage Bay Café on any given morning and see groups of people waiting outside for tables to open. Here’s also more proof, Lyft has something called a Lyftie Award of their most visited places by their riders.
In 2018 more riders requested a Lyft to Portage Bay Café more than any other brunch spot in Seattle.
There are currently four Portage Bay Café locations-University District, Roosevelt, South Lake Union, Ballard. The one we frequent most is Roosevelt. This location is relatively new and I believe bigger than the other locations.
Portage Bay Café is the quintessential Seattle brunch experience and one of the main places we take visitors from out of town to. It’s always buzzing with patrons, they have a variety of dishes for everybody, they source locally(in fact there’s a chicken coop right next to the University District branch for eggs). Our visitors all seem to love the experience and feel they’ve gotten a real local experience. The pictures on the wall show their various suppliers of locally sourced product. There’s also a hanging racing shell which pays homage to the rowing culture out on Portage Bay. UW is one of the powerhouses in the world when it comes to rowing and most of their practices happen on Portage Bay and the Montlake Cut.
No doubt, Portage Bay Café’s claim to fame is their breakfast bar with endless toppings of fruits, nuts, butter, real maple syrup, sugars whenever you order. Their breakfast bar menu includes a variety of French toasts and pancakes, which then gives you the privilege of going to the bar to pile on as many ingredients as you want.
Another reason Portage Bay Café is so popular is they are a very family friendly establishment. I’m not exaggerating when I say that on a typical day, 20% of the patrons will be kids. Portage Bay Café is definitely one of the easy choices when meeting up with other families for brunch. As mentioned there is always groups of people waiting for a seat, but one of the more perplexing things is that Portage Bay Café takes reservations from a party of one to parties of ten. So unless people are going to Portage Bay Café on a spur of the moment, they must love waiting in line or building the anticipation of being seated?
Apart from the breakfast bar, there are a variety of meals on the menu as well as specials. Here are a few of the dishes we’ve had over our multiple visits.
THE BREAKFAST SANDWICH 2 organic scrambled eggs*, hill’s pepper bacon, house-made bourbon fig jam, organic arugula, mount townsend creamery new moon jack cheese on house-made potato bread with salad.
GREEN MOLE BURRITO uli’s chorizo & carlton farms pork shoulder carnitas, organic potatoes, spicy bean blend, organic cilantro-lime cream, wrapped in a large, organic flour tortilla. topped with our house-made, green mole sauce & a sunny-side up organic stiebrs farm egg, quest cotija & green onion garnish.
FARMER’S HASH (V**) (GF) Three organic, over-easy stiebrs farms eggs*, a variety of local, organic, sustainably grown vegetables, roasted onions, fingerling potatoes, fresh herbs. served with house-made whole wheat toast and your choice of: $14.50 locally sourced corned beef
CLASSIC FRENCH TOAST organic, house-made challah bread, rich egg batter, powdered sugar garnish.
JOE’S SCRAMBLE your choice of uli’s apple chicken or maple pork sausage, organic baby spinach, beecher’s flagship cheddar, sautéed local mushrooms.
THE BREAKFAST SANDWICH 2 organic scrambled eggs*, hill’s pepper bacon, house-made bourbon fig jam, organic arugula, mount townsend creamery new moon jack cheese on house-made potato bread with potatoes.
The funny thing is that we rarely go to Portage Bay Café when it’s just our family going to brunch. Because of Portage Bay Café’s popularity it’s continually crowded, so we don’t go there often. Their dishes are consistently solid and there’s something for everybody and their famous breakfast bar always makes visitor’s jaws drop, but there’s not a lot of dishes that push the boundaries like recently visited Porkchop & Co., Wandering Goose(RIP 2020), The 5 Spot and Watson’s Counter do. There’s nothing wrong with that. It’s one of the reasons Portage Bay Café is so popular. They make great dishes with sustainable locally sourced product in an inviting atmosphere that has excellent customer service. So we normally reserve Portage Bay Café outings when visitors are in town since we are assured of impressing them.
Ratings:
Atmosphere: 5.00
Service: 5.00
Food/Drinks: 4.75
Bang for the Buck: 4.25
Overall: 4.75
Locals Only Factor: “Locals Only” grading-We’ll assign a grading as to how “local” a place is.
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- 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 Locals recommendations to visit in the future: We met up with friends a recent visit to Portage Bay and they mentioned that Skillet Diner on Capitol Hill is another favorite brunch place they enjoy. We’ll check it out.
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