Diamond Knot Brewery & Alehouse — Restaurant in Mukilteo

If you know us, we are the type of people who don’t go out to eat much unless we’re travelling. We’ve been travelling for the last month. We eat at home not for any other reason than there are no good restaurants anywhere around us without driving for an hour or more. Another reason is the fact that we're both good in a kitchen, grill, or smoker. That said, when we go out to eat, we often have to judge what we eat against what we make at home or against the best we’ve had at another restaurant somewhere.

Last night, we wanted to take our daughter, Kennedy, to a pizza dinner before we left for home today. We thought about a specific spot in Mukilteo, but they are closed on Monday’s, so Chey mentioned Diamon Knot Brewery & Alehouse (A.K.A. DKB&A) and we headed that way. Now, we’ve ‘been’ to DKB&A a couple of times already by way of the ice cream window, and she recalled seeing someone eating a pizza through the side door.

We got seated and handed menus and found that this is much more than pizza! This is a bar and grill, and they have all sorts of things on the menu. Truth is, we all three had to take a few minutes to decide what we were going to have because it all looked so tempting! In the end, it was the Hog Heaven Mac & Cheese, Steak Dip Sandwich, and the Garlic Onion Burger. Spoiler alert! Great choices, all!

As it turned out, we arrived at about the normal time of the other side filling up which caused the kitchen to get backed up a bit. In some cases, this could have been an issue, but we were in no hurry, and Nancy, our server, was very attentive to us and kept us informed about how the kitchen was managing the influx of orders and that we were next.

A couple of minutes later our food was delivered to us and we dug in. All three of us wanted to try each other’s food to see how it all was and, wow. Without getting too wordy about all of it, let me say this, when we try something that wows us like this all did, we start to pick it apart and get an idea as how to make it at home. Not to make it better at home, but to enjoy it at home because it became a favorite! This stuff was all so good that we’ve decided to leave things alone and just go back when we return in a few months!

I kid you knot (pun intended) the garlic onion burger was phenomenal! I would have never thought to build a burger with the ingredients used in this thing! While the ingredients really don’t seem like they belong on a burger, this was nothing short of genius!

The same could be said for the steak dip sandwich. The sandwich itself is pretty much a Philly cheese steak, but the au jus was something else! I’m not sure what went into it, but it made the whole thing great!

Finally, and this one gets me because I make a great pulled pork and Chey makes (in the opinion of many) the world’s best mac & cheese, why we never put the two together really makes me wonder what’s wrong with us! Again, this was a perfect pairing of two great Southern comfort foods and together they made beautiful music!

As good as the food can be, service will kill a restaurant faster than bad food, at DKB&A, Nancy made sure we were cared for. Our drinks never went dry, and she kept us informed about the wait we incurred. She worked hard for us, and I’ll explain that next.

During the rush, our food was delayed. No big deal in the grand scheme of things, but the Hog Heaven Mac & Cheese came out cold. Nancy took it back and ordered another one for us and brought it out as soon as it was done and she let the manager know and he took it off the bill altogether. That was truly kind but certainly not expected, though it speaks to management’s concern for customer satisfaction.

Final note, while a bar and grill, there should be a family friendly dress code on the grill side. One of the servers was dressed in a manner better suited to the bar side of DKB&A. Again, just our opinion since there was a family there with younger children.

Still, with the issues we experienced, we’re looking forward to returning to continue the menu and see just how good this...

I emailed this to the manager on 1/25/24 to try to give them a chance to respond before posting and they never responded. Therefore, I am posting here.

We are Old Town locals and have lived in the area for six years. Pre-Covid we loved going to Diamond Knot and went there quite often where we started thinking we needed to branch out to other restaurants. However, the food is wonderful and the menu is excellent. However, sometime during Covid things changed and it has never gotten better and actually seems to have gotten worse.

Due to the fact that we love the food/menu, every few months we try to go back and try again to see if anything has improved, but always walk away disappointed. This past Friday (1/19/24) was no exception. We can always count on being there for at least two hours to eat dinner, even when we order right away, which is absolutely ridiculous. The servers always seem to be standing around and rarely come back to check on anything. We were waiting an hour for our food. The table next to us had their meal comped, but I believe they were the only ones. We observed tables being sat and never being helped so they walked out. Not one group was walked back to their table with menus. They were just told "you can take that one back there" and then just sat until the server was able to make it to them with menus.

I am someone who usually nurses my drink the entire time I am there. Everything took so long that I had finished by the time we got our food so I ordered another one when our food was dropped off. I never received it, the server never checked back for the rest of the time we were there even though we tried to flag him down. I was forced to eat my meal without anything to drink and was ignored. When we finally had to ask for the check I asked for the drink to be removed. He said he would and that he would also remove my first one. To me, that was the least he could do. We previously would see the lobby packed, but do not see that anymore with how horrible the service has gotten.

Everything we experienced is either incompetence or laziness. However, this week was actually theft on 1/23/24. My son went in with a group of his friends. He just got a root beer to go. He didn't tip as he was just a take-out soda. He brought the receipt home, which I'm sad to say that I threw away. I saw the pending charge on my bank that matched the receipt at $4.19. However, when the charge was posted it cleared for the amount of $7.19. This means that whoever ran the card added a $3.00 tip. You really need to look at your employees as I have never seen such horrible and dishonest...

Long time regular for about 10 years, but last dined in six months ago and the service that visit was the final straw. I was hoping to see the reviews improve over these past 6 months, as I long for the service that existed pre-covid and would like to return. However, based on the number of 1 star reviews left over the past few weeks it appears management refuses to address the service issues.

As mentioned, I have not returned in over 6 months after the service last time left a profound negative experience. I arrived with family a few minutes before 5pm for Beer:30 happy hour and grabbed a seat at one of the high tops in the bar. It took about 10 minutes to find the bartender to order drinks. Once ordered, drinks came about 5 minutes later. Menus were brought over shortly after. The bartender then disappeared for the next 15 or so minutes and it was now approaching 5:30. When he finally came to take orders, I tried ordering something off the happy hour menu as we originally sat down well over 30 minutes prior, but he said it was 5:31 and happy hour was over. At that point I should have walked out as he appeared annoyed by that. He was also fully aware we were in the bar the entire time waiting to order food. I remained calm and explained the situation and he fortunately relented to letting us order something off the happy hour menu. We also ordered a pizza from the regular menu as well. When the food finally all came out at once about 45 minutes later, the happy hour appetizer was cold and the pizza was different from the one we ordered. At this point we just wanted to hurry up and eat what we could and leave as we weren’t going to sit around and wait even more.

Overall I was saddened by this especially since I had family with me in town for the holidays and wanted to take them here, but left feeling embarrassed having had them experience something like that. I hope management will see these reviews and be proactive about the service issues. Until I see reviews improve, I’ll have to continue waiting...