Since 1948 people have been eating fish and chips at the Totem House. The restaurant, which sits just across the street from the Ballard Locks, is a yet another neighborhood victim of the economy.
Everything inside is being removed and hauled away. Chairs, the kitchen stove and even the teepee is being dismantled. The owner declined to talk with us, but the sign on the door says it all: “Goodbye friends,” the first line reads, “The economy has overtaken us. We will miss you greatly.”
Nora Charles first posted this in the forum and Cate responded, “I remember my family getting their fish and chips and sitting on the hillside above the locks eating it – must of been forty-five years ago. Hard to see something left from childhood disappear.”
Mechelle Bush has been coming to the Totem House for years. She stopped by Friday afternoon after seeing the sign on the door, not really believing that the Ballard institution has closed. “In the summer, in the winter, I’d stop by and get chowder on the way home from work. Yeah, I’m gonna miss it,” she tells us. “I feel bad for them. A lot of good memories. It’s just tragic.”