Portage Bay Cafe & Catering

Citysearch Editorial Review. With three spacious locations, Portage Bay Café is a Seattle institution for breakfast, with long lines snaking out their doors on any given day. The big draw? A trip to their famous “toppings bar” which features wonderfully fresh chunks of fruit, berries, organic maple syrup, and nuts—all yours for the heaping, with any order of pancakes, or French toast. (Celiacs rejoice—there are also two gluten-free pancake options on the menu!) Portage Bay Café bills itself as a sustainable breakfast/lunch option, with organic eggs, bread, and potatoes being used on the hot sides. Also on the menu: a veritable smorgasboard of various omelettes, Eggs Benny, scrambles, and hashes, all dished up in gut-busting portions. The Roosevelt location is smaller, with seating for around 40-50, and a slightly more casual feel. With a menu this diverse, you can bet their loyal patrons run the gamut for young families to hungover hipsters still sporting last night’s guyliner, and everyone in between.…

Huh?. What's with the long lines?! I thought for sure I found a gem. I finally found a decent priced brunch to attend on those hangover days. Huge portions and a fruit bar full of toppings for your pancakes or thick cut french toast!

After a really long door wait, a long wait to order, and an even longer wait to receive the food... it arrives... Cold poop.

If you cover poop with fruit and whipped cream from the fruit bar, it just makes for fruit and whip cream covered poop.…

bring a hotplate. I was disappointed. Our food arrived quickly but was cold! Toast, potatoes, pancakes and the plate all cool or downright cold to the touch. WTH?!! My corned beef hash was a roasted vegetable variation. My guess, the ingredients are all pre-cooked and tossed in a skillet for a quick warm up before service. In my case too little warm up and too much pre-cooked. As mentioned elsewhere, the corned beefed was sliced lunch meat chopped and tossed into the mix to reheat. Chunks of unseasoned and un-browned potato complete the "hash." The whole was oily, wet, unappetizing and expensive. The pancakes were okay for flavor but cold, again. Service was cheery but there were many plates stacked on the warming table waiting a long time to go out. Weirdly, the warming lamps on the warming shelf appeared to be turned off. Not a place I am going to return to or recommend.…

Not sure what the hype is about.. Imagine trying to re-brand a university cafeteria as a mom-and-pop brunch destination, and you pretty much end up with Portage Bay Cafe. It suffers from this identity crises in that they are trying to be all things to everyone- a mass eatery with community sensibilities. I love the idea of local and organic going to the masses, but the problem is in the the execution of the idea. Consistently hit-or-miss dishes (stay AWAY from the Swedish pancakes), loud impersonal atmosphere (think food service cafeteria), really overworked servers, and a very obvious commitment to keeping things this way. Want brunch? Go somewhere else.…