Disappointed with new Portage Bay Cafe in Ballard

As a local Ballard-ite, I’ve been anticipating the opening of the new Portage Bay Cafe for a long time.  To help me with the honors, we had some friends in from out of town and we set off to enjoy a much hyped (on my part) brunch on their first Sunday, July 12th.  My eggs benedict was good, as always, but I’m afraid that was overshadowed by too many other problems. 

1) They have a very small lobby area and on an unusual rainy July day we were forced to stand outside in the rain for about 30 minutes;

2) After receiving our coffee we had to ask repeatedly for cream and then when that arrived we had to practically beg for sugar at which point the waitress brought over about 3 packets for a table of 7 people;

3) When we asked for a side order of bacon, the waitress replied with okay, i’ll bring 2… (Okay, now when i’m not eating breakfast and blogging about it, I work in sales and appreciate a good upsell as much as the next person, but upselling bacon? I mean, doesn’t bacon sell itself?);

4) One person in our group asked for fruit instead of potatoes, but unfortunately the fruit never arrived until we were about to leave and asked for it in a “to-go” box

5) There were no paper towels in the bathroom and

6) In one of the side orders of bacon, there was a big hair.

Anyways, not too pleased with the first trip to the new Ballard PBC and its clear they have some kinks to work out with the staff.  I’ve loved the other PBC locations for long enough that i’ll give it another shot, but think that with the growth of multile locations they are unfortunately losing some of the quality control that has made it so good. 

- Mike

PS – if anybody from PBC is reading this, won’t you please start offering shredded hash browns!