Lil Woody's — Restaurant in Seattle

We've eaten here twice now. The first time was lackluster but we thought we'd give it another chance a few months later. Still not impressed. The salmon burger wasn't terrible but was a little boring. I did like the added flavor of the red peppers on it. The onion rings need some spices.

Today we ordered and patiently waited for our to-go order. The cook rang the bell that our order was up. The clerk then proceeded to ring up 2 more customers. I figured after the second customer she would grab our food and we would be on our way. No. She then starts scooping the second orders ice cream. At this point our onion rings have already been in the window longer than the burgers.

Instead of interrupting her ice cream scooping I walk to the end of the counter and ask the 2 kitchen guys if they could please put it in a bag since we had an appointment to get to.

As the kitchen guy is grabbing a bag the clerk (purple hair with glasses) walks back to get something (not for us) and I hear her say "you should have asked me to get that". I get our food from the kitchen guy and as I was walking towards the other end of the counter I pass the clerk and said "it's no problem you...were scooping ice cream". As I'm half way across the store I hear her say "it's a health issue"...to which I reply before walking out the door "then get our order that's in the window before taking more orders and scooping ice cream". At that point we walked out the door. I was fine and not upset about the situation until she added that last smart ass clip as we were leaving.

I never went behind the counter. I merely talked to the two guys in the kitchen because our food had been sitting in the window and we needed to go. I wanted hot and fresh food was all.

I left pissed off and we will...

Kind of makes me sad to do this. This lil Woody's has been my jam since we moved to Ballard. Every Wednesday I come here during my lunch break to get a nice little treat for myself. Since I'm gluten free it has been awesome having a good burger I can eat so easily available to me, that was until today. I came in today and got my favorite burger, the Trotter on a gluten free bun, and was very stoked. The heat has been kicking my butt so I was thrilled to just take thirty minutes to myself and enjoy one of my comfort foods. Sadly those hopes were dashed the second my food came to me. Not only was I given a normal bun, but also my burger had no burger. Instead it was just a soggy mess of toppings void a pattie, served in a bun that would cause me to recreate the scene from the exorcist in the lobby of this restaurant. So I go up to the front and tell the dude behind the counter that my burger has no burger and I'm pretty sure the bun is wrong. He apologized, honestly he was good and tried his best the fault was in the kitchen, and told me he'd get it fixed asap. Minutes later, not a good sign honestly, a burger is brought back to me. This burger is on a gluten free bun and does have a burger on it, but the bun is soaking wet and it's obvious from the messy state of the burger that they just scraped all the toppings off the first burger and chucked them on this one. If it was a gluten free bun I'd get it, but your kitchen should know if some one is ordering that they can't just cross contaminate like that. I didn't have time to argue the point so I tossed my burger and went back to work. It just breaks my heart that I can't trust this place any more. Don't eat here if you have any dietary restrictions, this place could care less about...

Two stars? But everybody loves Li'l Woody's!

Hold up, Kanye -- let me finish...

The food tasted fine. In fact, I would go on record as to say that - despite being kind of pricey for what you're getting - Li'l Woody's produces a quality product and a unique take on fries with the ice cream dipping cup.

However, your service is lacking; your staff couldn't be bothered to care about their jobs; they messed up very basic orders; and - here's the real issue - you have rats in the building.

I went to go to the restroom, and I watched a rat run from the kitchen, up to the top of the stairs. I told the kid behind the counter - who was busy chatting it up with his friends - that I just saw a rat. He didn't seem to be bothered at all.

"A giant rat just ran up your stairs over there? You might want to call someone or...?"

Nope. No reaction at all. This rat was huge, too -- the size of a kitten.

That's just gross, frankly. Hopefully that's been taken care of. I get that it happens in cities; I just hope that employees at least understand why that's not okay in the future.

Their Capital Hill location seems to have...