Buckley's in Belltown — Restaurant in Seattle

Ordered a bloody mary, I LOVE bloody marys, they are one of my favorites. I'm from Wisconsin, we drink bloody all the time and with chasers, though that's not really my thing.

This one came with a sloppily salted rim, celery stalk and a skewer that had an olive, part of a pickle and a pepper.

I couldn't drink it. It was too salty and tasted bad. My boyfriend thought it tasted smokey.

It took 10 minutes to get the attention of the bartenders, there were 3 guys behind the bar, black shirt, green shirt (he said his name was Todd or Tom or something that started with a T) and red shirt. Red shirt didn't acknowledge me and green shirt who served our drinks to or table tried to shove me off on black shirt who was cocky. When I told him it was too salty and tasted off he said "well its supposed to be salty and spicy" as he gave me a dirty look and dumped it down the drain.

First of all, yes, bloody marys generally are not sweet, they are salty, I know this. But the salty that my drink was, was beyond acceptable unless I'm going to wash it down with gallons of water. This only had a weird salty flavor, no other flavors. No flavor of Tabasco or Worcestershire or tomato juice or a bloody mary blend. Second there wasn't a hint of spice anywhere, nothing about it was spicy, nor did I even order it that way. I love spice. Third, why on earth are you so cocky and irritated that I didn't like the drink I ordered? Its not as though I brought it back half empty saying I didn't like it. You could see that I ate the celery and sipped it a few times. I wasn't trying to get away with anything, I was simply trying to have a drink with my boyfriend while visiting the area.

I've only ever met 3 bloody marys I couldn't drink, this was the third.

After the counter exchange with black shirt I swapped my drink for Malibu and coke and told my boyfriend I want getting anything else from this establishment. We left for other places in the area that were much friendlier, the service was...

The good, mediocre, and the bad:

We live nearby, but hadn't yet been to Buckley's as we're not big "sports bar" people. We did a search for "best burger in Belltown" and Buckley's came up tops. We had two different burgers and they were, indeed, very good. The burgers start at $15 and go up from there, so you would expect them to be good. The local beer (9lb porter from Georgetown Brewing) was also good. We're only granting the second star for the good burger and beer. The service was also fine.

Now it starts to go downhill. This is a sports bar--I get it. The volume (coming through a dedicated house sound system, not the TVs themselves, was at such a volume that two of us, sitting directly across a table from one another, had trouble carrying on a conversation. But, if that's what sports bar patrons want, and I'm guessing many must, so be it.

What drove this place completely off my list for any future consideration or patronage, was the note buried in the middle of the second page of a five page menu (see photo.)

This note says, in effect, "we're going to sell you food and drinks for the prices on the menu, slap you with a nearly-hidden 5% surcharge to boost our profits, and then still foist most of our labor costs off on you by not sharing any of this with the employees." This is not about tipping (we still left 20% quite happily.) This is about deceptive pricing. Every business in Seattle has to conform to the same minimum wage laws. Every restaurant in Seattle also has to pay rent, utilities, insurance, labor, food costs, and so on. When Amazon recently raised the minimum wage they pay to their employees, they didn't suddenly stick a 5% surcharge on the end of every invoice. These things are called the costs of doing business, and every business deserves to operate both competitively, and at a profit. If your labor costs go up (or your rent, or anything else), you might have to raise your prices. Just do...

Food - ⭐️⭐️ Drinks - ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Service - ⭐️⭐️⭐️ Atmosphere - ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Accessible - ⁉️ Patio - ❌ Dog friendly - ❓

Great atmosphere and a solid setup for watching sports. There are plenty of TVs, and they’re welcoming to out-of-town fans, which made it easy for us to settle in and enjoy the games. We liked it enough to come twice during our visit to watch some football.

Beer selection was decent, and on our first visit, the service was great. Our server knew the menu well, gave us good beer suggestions, and was genuinely kind and helpful. The food, though, was just okay — nothing spectacular but fine for a sports bar.

Our second visit, unfortunately, wasn’t as smooth. The server seemed a bit inconvenienced by our questions and didn't know much about the beers available. We ended up snapping a picture of the menu to avoid any more back-and-forth. She also forgot our food order, and when it finally arrived, we wished we’d skipped it — soggy nachos with a plastic cheese sauce that just didn’t hit the mark.

A couple of tables opened up while we were there, and patrons from the bar area moved over to the open spots, only to be turned away by our server because they’d bought drinks at the bar. While I understand the policy if tabs are open, it seemed a bit unnecessary once they were settled.

TLDR: the atmosphere is great if you're there for the game, but service quality can be hit-or-miss, and the food could use some improvement. It’s a bit crowded if you have accessibility aids and wheelchair users would find it difficult...