The Paleo-inspired restaurant on Ballard Ave, Carnivore, has announced it is now closed permanently.
Carnivore, located at 5313 Ballard Ave NW, closed for a short time in August/September for a food and drink menu overhaul, but the reopening was short-lived. The owners put a sign on the door over the holidays to let customers know about their closure.
“It is with a heavy heart that we must close Carnivore,” the note reads. “This restaurant’s purpose was to create awareness of how our corporately manipulated food supply, with GMO produce and CAFO factory meat, has caused great harm to our health and the planet. The most important decision each of us makes every day is what we put in our mouth.”
Executive Chef Michelle Pegues tells My Ballard that the neighborhood isn’t what it was when the restaurant first opened.
“Ballard Ave is changing,” she says, saying that the rise in homelessness and presence of drugs and trash in the area, “makes it difficult at our price point to attract new customers.”
The restaurant has been open for a few years — before that, it was the home of Fresh Flours bakery.
Thanks Alex, for the tip!
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Could this be Dan Strauss’s first success story?
Weird that other restaurants can find ways to remain open in the same area. Sounds kind of like pushing the blame onto someone else.
Solid formula to fire up the crazies though.
Reason for anything bad = Homeless people
I know it’s almost comical “Executive Chef Michelle Pegues tells My Ballard that the neighborhood isn’t what it was when the restaurant first opened.” They first opened a few years ago! It’s not like the homeless problem suddenly came about last year. It was a big issue when they opened.
I’m sure this is giving the folks at Hattie’s Hat and Salmon Bay Cafe a good laugh.
She is probably the type of person who would move next to a church and complain about a ringing church bell. “Well it wasn’t ringing when I moved into the house at 2:59!”
As a trained french chef and contractor,the words executive chef gets abused alot.to small of a resteraunt/ cafe to give that self proclaimed name,in 2 years every few months it had a new chef..pretty said.i think a more appropriate word and title would be COOK
True, there are many other places to eat, yet to not see what’s going on and be pissed off is quite troubling itself. I like the fact she said it like it is. Apparently, her only real vote is where her feet take her wallet. This homeless industrial complex is making a lot of people bank, many others blind.
They just had overpriced ok food, But to blame their failure on the homeless is just absurd
I agree,running costs were to great for the seating capacity. Irish
I don’t see any shortage of people coming into Ballard at all hours day and night, especially for the Sunday market. If you ever looked at the menu prices for Carnivore, it was definitely on the higher end of the scale. I’m sure the food was excellent, but the price point unfortunately kept me from dining there.
There was no chance a one dimensional menu like this would last in 2019, let alone one that’s overpriced. Now blame the neighborhood? Yikes! Good luck finding a better one…
That was amazing, Kreskin!
” corporately manipulated food supply, with GMO produce and CAFO factory meat, has caused great harm to our health and the planet”
Maybe people prefer a meal, not a lecture.
Yeah blame the food chain. Blame the homeless crisis. Don’t don’t blame your inability to adjust and change your price point or find another vendor for your food.
How about? You’re Fufu idea of how to cater to a particular customer did not meet who the particular customer was?
You could have changed your corny name to fresh tacos and lowered your price and stayed in business to meet the need of people traveling through Ballard looking for a good meal without paying $19!
What a cop-out. I don’t remember a time when their business hasn’t been soft. They have always been too pricey, and my experiences dining there were solidly B+. That’s not good enough.
Have to agree with you. I ate there twice – they were good, I’ll say A-. But way way too expensive. It was nice to have a low carb option out there as we have been keto for almost 2 years. I am disappointed to see two low carb restaurant options (Carnivore and Lucky Santo) both disappear within a short time. The message, however, is clear: people need more INEXPENSIVE low carb restaurants or we’ll just keep going to burger joints and throwing the buns away. Bitterroot remains a viable option if you watch the sauce.
Too many vegans running around for this place to ever have a chance.
You and I need to get together…
So sorry to hear coronvires did not make it,I’m very sad,as I was the general contractor on the job. Aka IRISH.as an exchef trained in Paris at my younger days,I put alot into the design and planning of it.i had alot of pride in making sure counters and floors were personally done by myself.everything else was my team under my ideas,it was hard to catch nvince the owner Linda with the direction to go.she certainly had her own ideas,I loved Linda as a person,but her business sense certainly was old school.from day one I could not see a 35 seater resteraunt with such high volume of staff ,making profit,but she felt she knew best..I used all reclaimed wood where I could,I put 30 yrs of building and designing bars restarunts from California ,Oregon,to Seattle,I had a private sawmill in Port orchard to do whatever I wanted.i am very very sad, but was waaay over priced and just not run professional enough for my taste.sad so sad.i put alot of man hours in there,o well I’ve moved and said goodbye to Seattle and my friends I am now a resident of Medellin colombia and proud owner of an organic coffee farm and penthouse here so life goes on.i had 25 great years in America and it was time.irish born.i loved and miss having a drink in all those wonderful pubs in Ballard and toulouise and PESOS but I tried to teach Linda Haynes before we open to go a different direction,but she would not listen.i guess she felt her business knowledge was better than my WISDOM .she certainly had her ways.i did my best and proud of the success to do the job I was hired to do.sorry to the lady chef whom did a great job in the end.blaming the homeless was NOT the reason the resteraunt did not survive (sadly those poor people) it was in my opinion.bad management and price point..SLAINTE!! whattsup +573137907109 john irish. johnirish35@gmail.com
As a contractor on the job and former french chef,homeless people had nothing to do with the resteraunts failure,my opinion is ,not enough seating capacity to pay the high rent,and over spending on its kitchen equipment , unnecessary for it’s primitive culture,just very bad management and start up costs,sad but it’s reality.it shall sadly be missed,yet it would make an amazing french bakery cafe!! We are all entitled to our opinion.im happy to say ,I now life in medellin colombia in paradise ,with my cafe finca farm.good luck Seattle and ballard,lots of super memories