« Ballard Restaurants

I agree with th posts indicating poor service. Seems slow and non attentive. We went in here with our 9 year old son and got attitude from the staff like kids were not allowed.

Had lunch there today at a lovely outdoor table. Sandwich was very disappointing. It was billed as a portabella panini and instead of a large grilled portabella mushroom, it has sliced up RAW crimini (tiny) mushrooms. Who wants a raw mushroom sandwich?

absolutely the best place, great atmosphere, tasty food. love it.)

We've liked this place in the past, but haven't been in at least four months. The kids like to sit and watch the exhibition kitchen -- usually the cooks give them a wad of pizza dough to play with.

They have changed the menu a bit, and no longer offer my favorite pizza. Oh, well. Beverage service was slow. Ordered the duck proscuitto, it was delicious. The caesar was on the dry side, with store bought croutons. The kids' cheeseburgers were tasty but small, and the fruit was a slice of melon that looked like it was a bit old. The pizza was WAY underdone ... had to send it back to get it crisped up.

I don't know -- we always thought this place was satisfactory (and the kids like it) but I don't hink we'll be going back anytime soon. Just not enough quality for the money, with too many other good choices around.

Boo. Bad, slow service, blah food, overpriced (save for HH). Very much wish something great could go in there, that space inside is fantastic.

Soooo disspointed. We have been there a few times in the past and have liked there biscuits and gravy and a few of there other breakfast offerings. We always have had poor service and laughed at the convoluted menu but we kept coming back because the biscuits and gravy were awesome. Today we went back for breakfast and ordered are normal breakfast and they have ruined their Biscuits and Gravy. Tons of onions very little sausage the biscuits were heavy and gooey and the service was average at best. We will not be going back

We chose this place for a late lunch on Sunday and didn't have to wait to be seated, but then we waited almost an hour for our food. We were so hungry by then I would have expected even cardboard to taste good, but the sandwich was blah and the romaine in the salad was strangely leathery. We won't go back.

Have been here three times for breakfast. Bad, slow service each time. Only one time the food was good. One time we had to send our meals back to be reheated because they were delivered to the table cold. And don't buy coffee here.

Anyway, I miss the old Ballard Firehouse. Great music. Now it's a huge mediocre franchise restaurant. Them's the breaks.

Great space with poor food. When they opened, the food was at least mediocre. They've regressed. My last two trips there were both poor. One featured a pork chop cooked RARE (cold in the middle).

Their formula is uninspiring; take bland preparations of mediocre ingredients and stack them vertically on a plate.

Breakfast is fine. Use your evening dinner dollars elsewhere and get much better value.

High Life is part of a chain of local restaurants that all feature the same format; keep a static menu and another portion that rotates with geographic themes. The themes are just adjustments to seasonings; the cajun pork chop has some cayenne, the Italian pork chop some pesto (or whatever, you get it).

These guys would do well to drop the themes which are always poorly executed, and refocus effort on improving a core menu and focusing on quality control and consistency.

The only thing I've ordered there a few times and found decent was their flat iron steak frites.

3 words.
Mac and Cheese.
The best you can get without having to call your mom and have her make some for you!

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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!

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?!?!?!