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The Hi-Life

May 4th, 2008 · 8 Comments


The Hi-Life (American)
ChowFoods.com/HiLife
5425 Russell Ave NW (map)
(206) 784-7272

CitySearch.com: “Dinner choices from this quarterly menu are all substantial and not overly fussy…”
NWsource.com: “Another swell joint from the brain trust of Chow Foods…”

1 Star2 Stars3 Stars4 Stars5 Stars (37 votes, average: 3.51 out of 5)

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Tags: Restaurants

8 responses so far ↓

  • 1 trevista // May 5, 2008 at 3:55 pm

    love the food, great happy hour and the staff rock. would be nice to get a bit more bang for the buck though… and who’s great idea is it to CHARGE a customer to cut their cheeseburger in half for them?!?!?!

  • 2 Carolyn // May 5, 2008 at 6:14 pm

    great lunch place but watch out, they close in the late afternoon before the dinner menu starts, so a late late lunch place it’s not!

  • 3 Michael // May 5, 2008 at 9:14 pm

    I think this may be my favorite place for breakfast/brunch in Ballard.

    Also interesting for dinner, if you go there with a small group you can do a kind of big shared platter type thing which is pretty cool. Every time I’ve done this it has been really good, for some reason I’ve enjoyed salad dishes here more than usual.

  • 4 angrignon // Aug 6, 2008 at 12:15 am

    Horrible on a Sunday morning for breakfast. Been there three times across a period of a year. The delay to be seating I’m not bitching about, thats normal for a Sunday late morning.

    The service was slow to take the order and then to receive the food. There were at least 4 other tables around us that sat down anywhere from 10-30 minutes after we placed our order who got their food first. No joke. This happened 2 times of the 3 we were there.

    One of the times we complained and got tons of attitude from a staff who could care less.

    This place is ran by a company that owns several other “trendy” restaurants. According to rumors, they run their staff rough, have high turnover and generally are bad to work for. They try to work on the camp appeal of their settings but in the end deliver a crappy product.

    Of course, its marketed to the trendy emos of Ballard, so they’ll do fine.

  • 5 m // Aug 12, 2008 at 12:26 pm

    Pretentious and overpriced - typical of Chow Bros restaurants. No thanks.

  • 6 John // Aug 12, 2008 at 9:02 pm

    Breakfast is amazing! The choices are are diverse and the quality is high.

  • 7 JJ // Sep 13, 2008 at 7:50 am

    Awesome breakfast. Dinner menu is bland and overprice. Great atmostphere.

  • 8 Lee // Oct 20, 2008 at 3:05 pm

    This place is crazy on Sundays, wouldn’t recommend it then, but otherwise they do good work. Its a must do for wine lovers, they have almost 30wines by the glass and 100 by the bottle. Good selection which is always changing, and great prices

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