Last week, we reported on an unsavory episode involving a major Seattle restaurateur offering “constructive criticism” to an “unnamed” Capitol Hill restaurant. We thought there might be a healthier way to go about it. You know, like in CHS comments.
So, remembering the constructive part, let’s chat. What constructive criticism do you have for a Capitol Hill food+drink player that you would like to see succeed?
We’ll start. Regent Bakery, we think you’re kind of fun but opening at 11a is too late unless we’re talking second breakfast. Also, you need to post a menu for the cafe side of things so people know you’re more than a bakery. See? Constructive!
I have followed your borderline anti-business articles and suggestions for too long. This article is setting up to be another terrible thing for hard working small business employees and owners. Isn’t there anything else to report on?!
Your onion rings are yummy, but can you find a way to get the coating to stay on?
I think this can be done without becoming a shitstorm. Borderline anti-business? I usually hear the opposite. Also, please don’t sockpuppet and leave multiple comments with different usernames. I’ve removed your other comment.
The only reason I knew it wasn’t just a bakery was that the proprietor told me as he was ringing up my purchase. Some signage might be good.
Carrie, if you can’t accept criticism, you shouldn’t be starting a business. Criticism is how we learn and improve.
Let me know what business you run that is not concerned with your customer’s perspectives and needs… so I can avoid it at all costs. You should try working for the government instead.
Me too – I went there the day after they opened thinking it was a bakery that served Chinese desserts/pastries and was surprised to find things like danish, croissants, tarts, etc. Only as I was leaving did I realize the Chinese food was the cafe/sit-down side. I liked my sausage roll and I’m happy to go back, but I probably would’ve spent more if I’d known the first time.
Jamjuree – I like your food but your spice levels are so inconsistent that despite ordering the same dish with the same star level, my food the last time I ate there was so spicy as to be completely inedible. Please try to be more consistent because I miss your chili chicken and your tasty lady lime drink.
@ Smith, sorry for coming in to your place to order drinks and food, but maybe visit the customers more then every 20 minutes (ummm & you’re pretty?!)
I have to put on a coat and brave sub-60 degree temperatures in order to eat your fantastic food. Turn up the heat!
A couple more exciting seafood options would really do a lot to make the menu meet the expectations of a Seattle steak house. Some rockfish, ling cod and lobster tail would flesh out the menu very nicely.
Also, I think the steaks could use a bit more salt / pepper while they’re aging – the texture was pretty nice on my steak but the flavor didn’t pop.
This is the treatment you get when you refuse to advertise in this blog. Keep up the good work!!!
They really just need an automatic door closer. I think they’re the only business on the planet without one. It’s become a running joke whenever I go there.
One more suggestion… for the Feed Bag. Please post your prices for dog food. It’s not only considerate, it’s the law.
I would like to thank Altura for opening up in the hood. Definitely my current favorite in Seattle both for food and service. Good luck and may the force be with you.
Little Uncle you rock too. Please open up a proper restaurant with seating as soon as you feel comfy.
You are insufficient in number. Please spawn more restaurants. Thank you.
Yelp, urbanspoon and various other media outlets already provide a place for people to offer constructive criticism. While I don ‘t think your suggestion is anti-business, I don’t think small businesses need another place where everyone is telling them (and all their potential customers) what they are doing wrong. Imagine if the rest of us had a public panel at our jobs where anyone who came in contact with us could write up their possibly totally unsubstantiated beefs with us and we couldn’t delete things that were unfair and/or untrue. I feel like the small businesses are already getting slammed with enough “constructive criticism” to put the best of them in a therapists office.
more space in your restaurant. i realize that rents are high and you need to get as many people seated per square foot to meet your monthly overhead commitment. but please, give us more room. when i’m paying an average of $17/entree i don’t expect that i’m going to be knocking into my neighbor’s body. if you have to charge a little more per plate, fine, but we need more room.
i love how many restaurants are embracing social media and posting about menu updates and specials and would love to see more places do it; and do it more often. it’s the photos and teases of new menu items that are going to get me in the door. if i go to your website and see a menu from november (when we’re in march) i’m less likely to be tempted to visit you.
Please bring “Buddha’s Hand” back to your cocktail list. That was my favorite drink on the Hill!
Also, the chef with the glasses and flesh tunnel ears makes super good sushi. Please convince him to work more nights. :)
Everything else, keep the same. You rock.
“Imagine if the rest of us had a public panel at our jobs where anyone who came in contact with us could write up their possibly totally unsubstantiated beefs with us and we couldn’t delete things that were unfair and/or untrue.“
there is such a thing; it’s called the entire Internet. if i have a problem with the guy working at the at&t store there’s nothing stopping me from creating a web page specifically to criticize him and how he does his job. then it’s out for the entire world to see. this comment thread isn’t unique in the world of criticism.
Your food is really good, and I’m glad you’re so close on 15th. Though I keep wishing you were just a little less expensive.
Please offer some late-night (9pm+) half price entrees or happy hour menu so cheapskates like me don’t have to drive over to the U-District. :) If so I would eat there all the time!
Just wanna say that I LOVE your late night happy hour. Thank you and keep it up!!
Seriously. All staff that has contact with customers should be trained well. Couple of pet peeves: when you ask for a wine recommendation, and instead of the server offering to ask the chef, or wine steward, or someone who actually knows what they’re talking about they instead offer a completely out of tune suggestion, or something like “Well, I like the chardonnay” with no mention of how it will or won’t go with the food you have ordered.
In faster food establishments (not fast food chains, but lunch spots etc..) training staff in food safety. A glove is not inherently clean! you can’t touch money with it, and then touch my food with it! And if you blow your nose, or touch your mouth, you have to wash your hands before touching food, please!
Bring food out in the right order, and if you are a “small plates” kind of place, that doesn’t mean you should bring all the small plates out at one time crowding the table and causing some things to get cold while we eat others.
Places with great service to emulate: Poppy, Olivar, Altura, 5 Fish Bistro
Join the 21st century. This means having a webpage that content-rich and easily accessed on a mobile device. This means hours and location on the front page, not behind some cheesy animation with music and an illegible mission statement from your chef. For the love of all that is holy, this means you do not just put up a .PDF of your menu.
I can’t tell you how often this can make the difference in whether I eat at your place or not, especially if I am a visitor in your city and do not have the benefit of word of mouth.
I completely agree – CHS has always been super supportive of small business, and I for one thing it’s a great idea to start a sensible forum for critique, from both sides of the counter.
Finally – all you Capitol Hill folk can see that Chinese isn’t all greasy nasty shit holes. And yes, Chinese pastries come in forms of danish and croissants.
I can not figure their hours our or which days they are open. I’ve given up…
Call me old-fashioned, but I was brought up that a server or busser (a) should not clear place settings until everyone in the party is finished, and (b) should not stack dirty dishes while standing by the table. The former will make other members of the dinner party feel like they need to rush (or, in the alternative, make the person who finished first feel like a overzealous glutton), and the latter is a noisy and unappealing distraction.
That is all.
I agree. I live on the same block and my first impression of the “bakery” was that it’s too pricey to survive here long-term.
I’d love to see a very good Chinese place open on the hill, just a place like any place in the I-district, but $1-3 more per dish and using better ingredients with those $1-3 per dish. Not greasy, well trimmed meat, very fresh ingredients, very flavorful, very spicy.
I was hoping Bako, Chungee’s, or Chino’s would be this, but none of them are. Doesn’t seem that hard, does it? Charge just a little more, make a little better food. I’m sure it’d be popular.
Try the Regent Bakery & Cafe. It’s a pretty good (but stealthy) Chinese restaurant. Servers are pretty good, too. Just wish they would open earlier in the day from breakfast buns …
Instead of serving lots of small chunklets of fish (that look like chicken McNuggets) why not serve a proper English-style, single, big piece of cod (or haddock)? Having said that, I’m still a fan of the Pike Street Fish Fry … but I don’t need the deep fried lemon (what am I meant to do with it?).
Have you tried Five Fish Bistro? Opened recently on Broadway, very good.
Whenever I see proper in London I go somewhere else.
Props to Pinto for quality sushi and great service!
Just a suggestion for almost any restaurant I have been to on the hill, red wine is being served WAY too warm. Not to name names here, but if you serve wine that is stored right next to your kitchen, or above your bar, or basically not from a basement or wine fridge, you better bring a bucket of ice with that bottle of red when you come to my table. And believe me, I have no shame in asking for one.
Just a suggestion, otherwise food on the Hill is generally very tasty if not always priced so well compared to other cities.
-brian
I agree….I just drove by there at 6:30pm and it was pitch black….?
Here here. It’s great. Probably the best Chinese food in Seattle proper. I’ve found just about every Chinese restaurant within 10 miles of us to pretty much serve slop aside from Spicy Talk Bistro in Redmond.
A request for every restaurant.
Please list actual hours on your website. “to close” is not helpful late at night, it is 11:00pm on a Tuesday – are you open or not?
Please have your menu online. It is so helpful if I have a group of undecided folks. If you don’t have a menu online, we skip over you and look at the places that do.
Roger this — the Five Fish is extraordinary. The batter is spicy, the pieces of cod are huge. I wish they were still doing the handcut fries, but that might have been cost-prohibitive — if they do real well, maybe they’ll go back to doing them instead of the cheap fries they’ve been using.
Here’s something. If you are a restaurant that offers takeout or phone-in services, and you have an online menu … put your phone number on the dang menu! It’s irritating to decide what you want, then have to go to the home page or contact page for the phone number.
Cod? Haddock?
Sorry, but once you’ve had Halibut Fish ‘n Chips, you’ll accept nothing less. So, uh, where can I get Halibut Fish ‘n Chips on the hill?
And please fix the door. Everyone seems like a jerk for leaving it open, but it’s just that every other business has a door that automatically closes. It’s too cold for that jazz.
Other than that, I love you so hard.
After 11 years of living and eating here on the Hill, you guys are still my all time favorite — unpretentious, delicious, friendly, generous, and still a bargain. The best blue cheese salad dressing this side of heaven (and I say that having trained with an Italian Cordon Bleu chef who made an amazing blue cheese dressing, but yours is better).
A tiny request: tasty as it is, there’s so much garlic in your pasta dishes that I have to triple-bag my leftovers in the fridge to keep the flavor out of my coffee cream. Can you maybe tone it down a smidge? Just a smidge?
XOXOXO
Six Arms: You’re beer is tasty, you serve up decent bar food and I love your tots, but why is the service sooooo damn slooooow??? Seems like there are consistently too few servers, who tend to forget about you or parts of your order. For what it’s worth, the service at the bar tends to be better. Perhaps it’s a McMenamins thing; I’ve noticed it at other locations, too.
Poppy: I love every single thing about you.
To the storefront on Broadway that has housed Jup Jup Jup and countless other Thai restaurants: I believe you’re cursed. Throw in the Thai towel and try something entirely different. How about a Turkish style doner place or falafel? Please no more Thai, Mexican or pho!
The lemon is my favorite thing about that shop– they are delicious and tart and the rind is easy to eat after being fried.
I agree with previous posters that with some small but fundamental changes, Regent would totally explode. I have eaten there about three times now, and the food has been consistenly great every time. The staff is attentive and polite, and the decor and ambiance is modern and comfortable.
So here’s the constructive part…ADVERTISE THAT YOU SERVE CHINESE FOOD FFS!! It’s baffling that you don’t. “REGENT CHINESE CAFE AND BAKERY” instead of just ‘regent cafe’ and some chinese characters on the door. Your food is great! Your pastries and baked goods are awesome, but on the hill it’s the chinese that’s going to make you successful.
For my part, I’m going to continue to eat there, and encorage other people to do the same.
We go there a lot. One or two (one’s fine though) all-day breakfast choices perhaps?
The only “constructive” criticism I have for Capitol Hill Restaurants, and other businesses, is that business owners should clean the side walks daily to attract a larger share of the clientel. Am I the only one that prefers to walk down Broadway or 12th vs the the dirty Pike/ Pine corridor between Boren and 12th. In case you wonder I am spending my money where I am walking.
If you want to attract tourists from the hotels downtown you need to clean up the access to your establishment. Yes that does include all those cigarette butts.
The Pike/Pine corridor has the potential to rival places like the Rambla in Barcelona but not with all the filt on the streets.
Brian, you are so right. Red wine is meant to be served at room temp or cellar temp. Well, back in ancient Rome, room and cellar temps were somewhere around 57-62 degrees. I won’t drink a red served at 72 degrees — it destroys the flavor.
Please, please, please, if we have to pay for the markup on the bottle, serve it so it’s pleasant.
Sage Cafe, you are so incredibly delicious. Unfortunately, you often are not opened when your posted hours say you’ll be. Please stop that.
I have had the exact same experience at Jamjuree. I love them and they are right around the corner from me, but sometimes their “mild” knocks me off my feet!
agreed, but serve some meat with your noodles!
Second!
Last month I went to Sage 15 minutes after they were supposed to be open for lunch but they weren’t open yet. The cashier apologized to several of us customers waiting outside and informed us she’d been trying to call the chef to see where he was. The lady I was standing with said this was her second time attempting to eat at Sage, and it was going to be her last attempt.
for the love of god…
Post your hours on the door.
Regent and everyone! Even if it is temporary!
Carrie,
Businesses fail because they are shit, badly run, bad concepts or in wrong location. Any or all of the above. Egotistical, weird, single-minded owners also contribute greatly to failure.
One thing that DOES NOT cause businesses to fail is CHS comments.
For the most part, jseattle serves up well-balanced neighborhood reporting.
Paul Blake
business owner
For the most part :)
youre asking too much. 10 minutes of training does not a sommelier make. pick at random, then remember if you liked it. wine-pairings is so 90s!
more mushy peas
I like cod! IMHO, Halibut is too mushy when deep fried. Plus, it’s high fat content makes it better pan fried or broiled.
Please also don’t tell me to leave a message with my order on your voicemail if you’re not going to check it. I can’t patiently wait around in the cold for you to not make my order.
I wanted to like Fie Fish – but they also have the little chunklets of fish, and on my first try the chips were flaccid and luke-warm. Will try them again soon.
Keep doing what you do – especially on Monday nights. You are awesome.
Agreed!
I agree too. Pike-Pine is the pits…litter and graffiti everwhere, utility poles packed with old decaying posters (several inches thick because no one bothers to remove them), stickers on every available surface, dirty sidewalks, overflowing trash cans, etc etc. It’s beyond me why so many consider this sleazy area to be”cool.”
Broadway is much better, but only because the BIA contracts with Cleanscapes to clean it up on a daily basis, and this prevents most of the Pike-Pine problems. Kudos to the BIA!!
You are the kind and generous neighbor I’ve been waiting for. Your food is yummy, you are community minded and you donate to my kid’s school. And your staff is so friendly!
Blue Moon,
Your chicken burgers are consistently delicious, especially with mushrooms. Thank you.
That is all I have to say.
Somehow, these 3 things aren’t coming together for most places on Capitol Hill. You might get 1 or 2 of these things working for you, but not all 3.
If the quality seems good, for sure it is expensive. Does service come with a smile? Hahaha, no silly, these places are too serious to be friendly.
If the service is fantastic, it’s a shabby attempt at making up for the shortcomings in their food. Good try though!
If the price is good, you will likely spend the next day on the toilet.
It would be great to see a place find a good balance. I get tired of thinking my options are: Snobby, cheerful crap or diarrhea. I usually just end up at the grocery store. It’s cheaper, more fun, no runs!
Totally agree. I hope they bring bubble tea to this location too.
INDEED. Best restaurant on the Hill, IMO. Actually…now that Zoe is open up on Union and Madison that’s harder to say – the meal I had there last week was CRAZY good. I think they’re actually *better* in the new location. But La Bete is still my true love.
Thanks, neighbor. We love you, too!
Seconded!