Rainier BaseCamp Bar & Grill — Restaurant in Graham

This is basically a school cafeteria disguised as a good restaurant, with a decent hangout spot/atmosphere and somehow more chaos behind the scenes. Called for a to-go order, ordered the Caesar wrap and the bacon/lettuce/ranch wrap, was told fries would be a 45 minute wait (?!) and was offered a bag of plain chips instead and given a 5-10 min wait on the order. 25-30 min later the wraps are done. Meanwhile I’m watching the most bland-looking mediocre burgers being served to other guests. Pizza looked fine, nothing special.

Should have taken a look at the wraps before we left, and take a peek at the pics I took of them. The chicken Caesar might have had 1/30th of a chicken breast that you had to sift through piles of lettuce to find, couldn’t taste it. The turkey bacon ranch wrap had ONE (1?!?) single, thin-sliced piece of turkey, and a few crumbles of bacon that were again hard to find. The wraps are 70% flour tortilla in composition and id fully expect a gas station to serve a better wrap at $6-8, not the $12/wrap we were charged. To top it all off, they choose possibly the worst bags of plain chips to serve that are incredibly over-salted and add nothing to the meal.

The entire time I was there the kitchen was chaotically trying to serve everyone’s food, and watched several gaffs before getting my wraps. I don’t blame them as this is a crowded restaurant due to the lack of other choices at the base of Ranier, but goodness. I would recommend having a long wait at Wild Berry down the road before I recommend anyone eat at BaseCamp. Outside atmosphere is pretty nice and vibey though which is the only thing bringing this review up from a...

Tasty pizza and ice cold brews simply don't make this place what it is. The people that work there make it far above average. We went up to Rainier in an attempt to find our friend who had died in an accident on the mountain. An awfully daunting task. On Saturday night we needed a phone to call to people in Seattle and notify them of our progress. We arrived at what seemed to be after closing and asked to use their phone to make an important call. They understood and let us use the phone for as long as we needed, even sold us some sodas while we talked on their phone. Very grateful for that. The next day as we came back down from the mountain we stopped in for some pizza and beers. The service was very good and the pizza was delicious. Most of all an individual who was either the owner or a manager came up to us and expressed his sympathies for our loss and explained that he had lost a friend on the mountain many years ago as well and knew what we were going through. He then presented our entire team with beers on the house in a show of solidarity. We never asked for anything free, but the acts of the staff were very accommodating, kind, and went above and beyond a regular pizza joint experience. I just want to seriously thank the staff for what cannot be described as "service" but as true human compassion and...

Headed to Base Camp Grill after waiting at a different spot in Ashford and getting zero service. No "hello", "we'll be right with you", nothing.....nada. After about ten minutes of uncomfortable eye contact in a mostly empty room, we left. (We showered!! I swear!!) Turns out they did us a huge favor! Base Camp was happy to take our money and delivered some serious deliciousness for the win! I had the double cheeseburger and couldn't eat it all (drip down your hand, elevently napkin juicy burger heaven), my brother had the jalapeno burger and swears they tried to kill him with the pile of jalapeno slices on the burger, he had to take most of them off (he's kinda whimpy like that). Best part was I order a hot dog for my pup who was waiting in the car and they hooked her up with some free treats as well as a perfectly cooked dog (split and grilled-perfection. For a dog. Big smile.) Night and day compared to the joint we tried previously to spend some money. Staff were quick, friendly, and know how to feed a hungry hiker (and their dog). Only downside is they are seasonal and will close on October 2nd. We'll try to get back in there before that happens and now we know where to stop when passing...