Sand Point – August 4, 2018

Disclaimer/Update November 2019: This blog post reflects our first visit to Magnuson Cafe & Brewery when it first opened. Since then we have gone back a couple of times. While certain aspects of the establishment have gotten better (i.e. the service), many notes regarding the food are still the same, if not similar since our first visit.

We love a good brewhouse as much as the next person, so Ray and I were especially excited when Manguson Cafe & Brewery opened up in Magnuson Park. Set by the water, Magnuson Cafe & Brewery is housed in a warehouse type building. With an expansive patio area, we could see this would be a hit in the summer. Set in one of Seattle’s largest and prettiest parks, on top of being in a neighborhood made up of young and mature families alike – we could definitely see potential in the restaurant and brewhouse.

Let’s talk about the…

SPACE

As mentioned, MCF (abbreviation for writing and reading purposes) is set in a warehouse-style building. It has two large wooden decks that flank both sides of their main entry-way – one side filled with ample patio seating, and the other side with a more open center and serving as more a beer garden. Inside, there is a mixture of high-top tables as well as some lower ones. Large brewing equipment and fermenters sit on one side of the dining area as the open kitchen sits on the other. The outdoor deck seating is covered, which shows potential for additional seating capacity in the colder months.

If you’re sitting outside, you catch a wonderful view of the water and park that honestly can’t be beat.

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SERVICE

Even giving MCF the benefit of the doubt (we visited within their first month of opening), the service was horrible. It seemed like they were severely understaffed and that their servers were unclear of what they were doing or needed to do. Many servers were young and of course this may have been their first serving experience, but it begs the question of how much training they were given before they were set loose to fend for themselves.

Our server visited us infrequently and didn’t check in enough. It was 20+ minutes before we got our order in, another 15-20 minutes before we got our drinks and food, and then our server was absent for the rest of our experience. We had to flag her down to get our check. Also, we had an unfortunate incident with one of our orders and she didn’t apologize (see below), just said that she would let her manager know. Thankfully they ended up comping that dish.

FOOD

Ray wasn’t as hungry so he decided to order an appetizer while I ordered an entree and we each got our own beer. We ordered:

• Pretzel bites (Ray’s order): The order of the pretzels was small (even by appetizer standards) and not worth their $7 price tag. Ray mentioned that the pretzels were also too hard and were on the verge of being stale.
• Crispy Chicken Sandwich (Alice’s order): Unfortunately there were many things going wrong for this sandwich. The fried chicken in the middle wasn’t crispy enough and there was so much mayo on the sandwich that the buns got soggy as time went on. Also, for its $16.50 price tag, there were minimal ingredients (they charged extra for add-ons like cheese) and the portion size didn’t make it a worthy sandwich. Unfortunately, this was the dish that had the incident our server failed to apologize for.
  
  About ¾ of the way through the sandwich, I unfortunately found a rather large hair in the “fried chicken” that made me stop eating. Again, they were courteous enough to reimburse us for the entree but it was still upsetting and unfortunate to have this experience.
• Beer: The one redeeming factor of our dining experience was the beer. In addition to brewing their own, MCF has many other local beers on tap that were perfect for the warm sunny day that we visited.

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IN SUMMARY

Even though we understood that MCF had just opened, our first experience there was off-putting and left a bad taste in our mouth. There were so many parts of the experience that could have been better. Despite the convenient and great location and concept for this restaurant, we just did not enjoy our time there.

Space & ambiance – Really the only good thing about our experience. Great location and optimal space overlooking the water. Good potential.

Food – So many things to be improved. Not worth the expensive price tags for what you get.

Service – POOR, one of the least enjoyable experiences that we’ve had. There either should have been higher staffing levels or better training for the staff.

Price – WAY too high for the quality of food that you get.

Next visit – Not for a long time, until things have improved at least. There are other brewhouses and restaurants in the Seattle area that we would rather visit.

Disclaimer: As mentioned above, we did eventually visit MCF again and the service has improved. However, it’s important to note that our next visit was much further in the future (almost a year and a half) and there were again some things that just could have made the experience more enjoyable (i.e. the food).