Sweet Bay Cafe — Restaurant in Bellingham

Beautiful Cafe, But the Wait Times Are a Dealbreaker

This cafe is gorgeous inside — cozy, warm, and picture-perfect. It feels like the kind of place you’d want to become a regular at. The food has a lot of potential (I still think about the sausage links and biscuits), and the staff are kind. But after giving it two solid chances, my boyfriend and I decided we won’t be back.

Here’s why: the wait times are just unreasonable.

The first time we visited, the restaurant wasn’t even busy. Plenty of open tables, no line out the door — but it still took almost 30 minutes for our food to come out. And when it did, my pancakes were raw in the middle with clumps of flour. The waitress was sweet and got them remade, but they took so long to come out again (and were still undercooked!) that my boyfriend had already finished eating. We weren’t offered anything for the inconvenience, which felt disappointing given the long wait and poor quality of the food.

We decided to try again, hoping it was just a bad day. This time was worse. It was a Sunday morning and understandably busier, but the quoted wait time was 20 minutes — we waited much longer just to be seated. Once we sat down, it took ages to even order, and then even longer to get our food. We were there for nearly two hours total. And we didn’t order anything complicated — chorizo egg scramble, pancakes, sausage links.

This time the pancakes were cooked properly (thank you!), but the chorizo egg scramble was bland and didn’t live up to the menu description. Overall, it felt like style over substance. The kitchen is way too slow, and the lack of organization becomes obvious when you’re stuck waiting and watching other frustrated tables too.

I really wanted to love this place. The vibe is there, and some dishes are genuinely good. But unless they can fix the timing and consistency issues — especially on weekends — it’s just not worth the stress. A cute cafe should be relaxing,...

TIP: There are 9 off-street diagonal parking spaces outside the restaurant entrance. Getting a spot will be hard during the busier times, but I snagged a spot at 8:45am on a Friday. TIP: Seats are wood, and not padded. I sat on my coat. I'll bring a real cushion next time.

For a brand new restaurant (we visited on Day 5), it was very good. We did have a long delay after ordering before the food arrived (we had the only active order being cooked at the time) and the drip coffee wasn't super hot so for my first cup (poured into a cold cup perhaps), I had to ask for it to be dumped and re-poured. The latte we ordered was hot enough, though just barely.

We ordered the biscuits and gravy with the (vegan!) mushroom gravy instead of sausage gravy, avocado benedict, and the crusty french toast. All were very good to excellent. We do have a couple quibbles, but nothing serious. For the bennie, there was very little avocado included, especially considering that it's named an avocado benedict. (I do sympathize with the difficulty of getting good avocados sometimes, though.) With the french toast, the menu mentioned honey butter but the plate didn't come with it; our server checked with the chef, who said it was integrated into the dish, but it didn't look or taste like that was true. Please just put a dollop of it on the plate. Also the "cereal crust" was only barely detectable. But, the flavor was very good. Overall we were satisfied with our meals.

Prices were reasonable, and staff were friendly and helpful. (For example, our server prevented me from ordering extra eggs that I didn't need by noting that my entree already comes with eggs - I'm very happy she was familiar...

We ordered the classic diner breakfast, turkey club sandwich, matcha latte and cappuccino. The eggs were cooked perfectly to order, in real butter and extra butter is provided with both dishes. The sausages are familiar in taste as other restaurants. The hash browns were dusted with a chili pepper or cajun seasoning that unfortunately burnt adding a carbonized flavor to the otherwise crispy around the edges preparation. The english muffins were avenue bread and tasted great with the jam. The pancakes were heavy and doughy in consistency we weren't able to finish. The turkey sandwich consisted of turkey meat ground up and pressed into loaves that are then sliced and tasted processed. The avocado was similarly processed, made by mixing avocado with other ingredients and shredded iceberg lettuce that unfortunately made the bread soggy on the underside of the pithy baked solid Parmesan cheese on the outer side. The bacon tasted baked and was not greasy. The option for salad greens as a side in place of fries is a welcome practice and enjoyable to eat. The matcha was too sweet for us but we didn't ask if sugar was optional. The cappuccino...