I too once stumbled upon a hobo camp full of the lesser caste eating be-meated chili beans and I fainted dead away! I had to be carried to a mincing station to be refemmed. That's where I met milo dakkat, the tiny kitty man!

Does anyone want to ""Meat" for Yoga"? Now that is a new non veggie hot yoga cooking group in Ballard.

Meatings have been filling up fast!

Phew!

Painintheasana

mikes chili is disgusting. just sayin'.

It's how the "corpse" pose originated.

milo, is that where the term warm or hot yoga came from.

Friends from out of town were there to eat chili and drink beer. I was there to say "Hi, great to see ya, gotta go to yoga now." Besides, chili before yoga class is kind of a New Ballard thing--ponder that one in triangle pose ;-p

Mike's chili is very similar to Cincinnati chili. If you know what that is, and you've been looking for a Seattle spot to eat it, go to Mike's.

I've had a natural gas leak a time or two after eating at Mike's Chili!

We tried Mike's chili and -- well, it wasn't pretty. The chili is not good at all. @Bob (not that Bob) has the truth of it. Far too greasy, far too watery, heat without flavor. Bleh.

(For what it's worth, the building and interior are totally cool.)

Ballard's Engine 18 must have been somewhere else because the engine Pictured that responded was Engine 20 from the Dravus street fire station on Queen Anne.

Thanks for the comment about eating chili before a yoga class, especially a Bikram Yoga class. My imagination hasn't had this much fun in a very long time!

If you want real chili, you go to Mike's. If you want beans and meat, you go to Ballard Market and get stuff in a can.

And why would you eat chili before yoga?

Lordy. The one time I ate that disgusting stuff was when I had 3-4 bites when I stopped to meet some friends before a Bikram Yoga class. Man, talk about a gas leak!

I love to stop on a quiet afternoon and eat a big ass bowl of chili with a nice draft, but I gotta tell you.

It's really more a matter of the atmosphere as the chili is nasty. Just keepin it real.

A ocean of grease on the surface and an overdose of heat instead of flavor.

There. I said it.

I'll still go back.

Mike's Tavern is a thing of beauty in the sea of modern buildings in that corner of Ballard.

If the basement had blown it would have been quite the funky rocket.

Glad no one got hurt.