Salish Grill — Restaurant in Port Townsend

1/12/25 After eagerly exploring several restaurants online in the Port Townsend area, we were thrilled to choose Doc's Marina Grill, which is soon to become the Salish Grill.

Here is a little bit of history about Doc's Marina Grill (copied & pasted). The original use of Doc's Port Townsend location was to house the nurses for the military. Once the military vacated Point Hudson, it became the showers for the Point Hudson Marina. It sat vacant for many years until T's Restaurant decided to sculpt it into one of the Port Townsend restaurants that now characterize the area. Can you imagine the sorority feeling the place must have had back in the 1940s when the nurses lived there?

As hubby and I perused the menu, we couldn't help but notice the slightly higher prices. In today's world, dining out is often considered a luxury; for many, it truly is.

Doc's Marina Grill (soon to be Salish Grill) boasted a diverse and enticing menu, with each item sounding delectable. However, my commitment to maintaining a healthy diet and picking and choosing my eating battles meant I had to resist the temptation to indulge as much as I would have liked.

The restaurant had a warm and relaxed casual feeling, and so did the view. Phenomenal! It's hands down one of the best views we've had for a long time.

I was happy our server, Naia B., was friendly because the hostess really wasn't.

What we ordered, my hubby had the Salish Burger and clam chowder as his side; by the way, I tasted the chowder, and it was delicious. His burger featured beef, bacon, cheese, onion, lettuce, tomato, and pickle on the side. The side he chose was a cup of their in-house clam chowder. He said it was tasty and delightful.

I had the Golden Beet Arugula Salad; sorry, I had them hold the beets. My salad had Twin Sisters Whatcom blue cheese, pomegranate seeds, pistachios, and a sweet onion vinaigrette. My tiny complaint was the lack of blue cheese, pomegranate seeds, and pistachios. Yes, there were a little bit of each one, very little, but not enough of any. The salad was good nonetheless.

Again, our server, Naia, was friendly and wasn't overbearing or hovering, but she didn't forget we existed either. Overall, she is a great server.

One thing that threw us off: on the receipt, there was a 3% service charge. Now, the restaurant thoroughly explains why the extra charge, that is located on the bottom of the receipt; this charge goes towards taking care of their employees health benefits. I'm sure it's due to the cost of wages being raised, and generally over all higher food prices. I am letting people know ahead of time, that this restaurant explains it fully.

The area surrounding the restaurant was more historic military-style housing or buildings, with a few other businesses located in them, as well as the marina and a lot of RV parking spots. What a fabulous place to park your RV. Right on the water and you're within walking distance from Old Town (or downtown, depending on how you see it), Port Townsend. A win-win! Check them out when you visit. I love Port Townsend, and the history is fascinating!

Plus, you can shop locally and enjoy this beautiful little historic town with breathtaking views!

Thank you for supporting small local businesses, and always remember, Be kind to ALL living...

We had a very mediocre dinner over Memorial Day weekend. First, the good: my wife's clam chowder was delicious and my cocktail (Empress gimlet) was good. But that was about it. My wife ordered a soup and side salad, and I ordered a dinner salad. Her salad, arugula and beet, was bland and the arugula was not very fresh at all. I ordered the ahi salad Nicoise and it was borderline terrible. The seared fish was fine, as was the asparagus. But the salad was mostly giant leaves of romaine lettuce, some roasted steak fries (described as fingerling potatoes on the menu), and tremendous amounts of overly sweet salad dressing. The dressing was literally pooling on the plate and would drip off the lettuce if I picked it up. I told the waiter about it when he (finally) came to check on us, but I was more than halfway through the dish at that point.

And then we ordered dessert, a berry crumble. After we had been waiting for about 15 minutes, our waiter told us that the kitchen was out of the berry crumble but had strawberry rhubarb. We don't like rhubarb so asked for the check. He then came back about 5 minutes later and told us they had found (?) a berry crumble, and said it would take 4 minutes, if we wanted it. 10 minutes later, it appeared and was not worth the wait. It came in a ramekin dish and all we could see was the ice cream on top. As we tried to dig into it (which was hard because there was so much ice cream), we found very little of the crumble.

There are way better options in Port Townsend. We will...

I came there 3/2/19 around 5pm with my wife and infant daughter. the reception lady told us that there were no tables for the evening but we took a look inside and 50% were empty. She replied that they had many reservations. We really wanted to eat there so we asked how long would it take to get a table after one of the current customers. She replied it would be about 30min and we said we would wait. Hearing that the lady got annoyed and she pointed to one of the vacant tables saying that we could just sit there. We sat down wandering how much time we had before someones reservation, when a waitress brought us water we asked if the table was reserved and the lady replied it wasn't. completely confused we looked at each other thinking what the reason was that they didn't want to give us a seat in the first place we strangely suspect it had something to do with us bringing a baby. Anyway, we weren't comfortable there anymore and we ended up leaving and eating somewhere else. I give 2 star review cause we've been here the previous year and the food was good. We're planning on returning to Port Townsend in the summer and if we give Doc's Marina another shot and our experience will be better that time I'll be happy to revise my review. Until that time, we're really...