Crockett's Public House — Restaurant in Maple Valley

I’m only giving this restaurant three stars, but that requires some explanation, because you may rate it higher. We’ll probably be back, because my wife really likes the place.

First, the positives from my perspective: I had the knife and fork crunch burger, and it was delicious. Crockett’s makes their potato chips (pardon me, potato “crisps”) in-house, and they’re very good. Also, the service was excellent! Everyone from the host to the servers was on their game today, and I’m guessing the place is under good management, because they all seemed to be enjoying themselves while they worked. Next good thing to note is that the prices are reasonable. One more positive: the menu is diverse, with some original items, and whoever creates their menu has successfully given ordinary, well-known dishes a signature spin. Bravo! No complaints about any of the above.

But, there are a few things that keep me from giving them five stars, and I recognize that these items are as much personal preference as anything. Hard benches and chairs. The booth benches and chairs are flat, hard, wood. There is no contouring whatsoever, for the back or the fanny. They’re just boards that have been stained and polished. These are “fifteen minute chairs.” Beverage choices. For non-alcoholic beverages, they have Pepsi products, not Coke, so I looked for something else. Dr. Pepper? “We don’t have that.” Iced tea, then? “Our iced tea is uncaffeinated, is that okay?” For me, the answer is no. So I just had water, and they lost a beverage sale. Honestly, I can’t remember the last time I ate in a restaurant and just had water to drink, and I eat in restaurants several times a week. Dimly lit at noon. One entire side of the restaurant is windows. The day was lightly overcast, not sunny, but not dark. We were sitting at a booth a little more than half-way across the room from the windows. There was a hanging light over each table with an opaque lampshade. All of the light points down into a circle in the center of the table. For me, the menu was challenging to read. I could read it, but I had to work at it. You might not care, though. I’m retirement age, and if you’re twenty-something you might not have any trouble reading the menu.

To summarize: great food, great service, but hard chairs, not my first choices for non-alcoholic beverages, and the menu was hard to read. Give Crockett’s Public House a try. My 3 stars might be...

I rarely give 5 stars, you got to really impress me with everything from the details of the dish to the ambience, etc.

Food was absolutely amazing and delicious.

We ordered the blueberry pancake stack and chicken fried steak.

Pancakes were soft thick and fluffy. Perfectly salted and not overly sweet. Great balance of flavor. Butter is whipped and easy to spread. The strawberries compote thing was chopped, and not in big chunks, it was perfect with the pancake.

The chicken fried steak is what really stole my heart. When I say this is the best country fried steak I've had, I mean it. It's difficult to make a perfect one. There needs to be a good ratio of salt, cream, breading, etc. And it hit all those points. Not overly breaded, just perfect. Seasoning was PERFECT. MUSHROOM gravy was perfect, creamy, chunks of mushrooms. The steak itself was tender and meaty. Not too thin, not too thick. The breakfast potatoes were delicious, perfectly cooked, perfectly seasoned, not undercooked at all. The biscuit was delicious, I think I would have loved it with honey and butter but it tasted great with the mushroom gravy too.

I ordered the lavender lemonade, the flavor was subtle, but delicious.

I need to go back again soon, I want to try more of their food and their bloody Mary too, it looked so delicious!!

So happy to have found such a delicious breakfast spot nearby. I'm definitely a fan now.

Only thing I would say is service was lacking in attentiveness and we were never asked until the end of our meal how food tasted. That was the only thing that I would say needed work, but no big deal, we enjoyed our lunch together and since food was so delicious, we had no issues or needs that needed attention, luckily.

Come try it. It was...

Not a place we’d go to again. Our table was dirty. We had to ask for it to be cleaned. There were 3 of us. I ordered an extra crispy waffle with warmed syrup. The title of the waffle is CRISP CINNAMON WAFFLE- the server informed me that they would have to leave it in the waffle iron for longer in order to make it crispy. The server brought the food back-he left I had to grab silverware from another table. 3 people 2 sets of silverware.

Not a big mistake or a big deal….then out comes the food.. I would have eaten the soggy waffle, but the cold syrup… I just couldn’t do a soggy waffle WITH cold syrup. I ate one bite of bacon, one bite of the waffle. I explained to the server, I was just grossed out and I wouldn’t eat the food.

Between the dirty table and the soggy waffle, just no. Next thing I know, the server brought out warm syrup? Lol. What will I put this on? You bring two things of hot syrup after I tell you, I’m not going to eat my meal and you take it away? Lol!

We asked for the check. Of course they charged me for the food.…. So, as a COMP he gave me another soggy waffle togo!? Who is eating a Togo waffle?! We are at a baseball tournament! I was genuinely perplexed.

I was pretty shocked. They charged me for a meal that the server took away from the table. I was shocked the kid brought hot syrup, which was a total waste of food.

Then, after you take the hot syrup away and our check, you proceed to give me a waffle to go? I gave the waffle to a hungry gentlemen outside Safeway. So- I was thankful for that.

It just seems maybe the servers aren’t trained well in hospitality. Very kind, but no one invested in proper training and that falls on the manager of this place, not the...