Shelter Lounge Greenlake — Restaurant in Seattle

I live in the neighborhood and wanted to come thru for an easy Saturday night out.

As were seated we discover they’ve gone the way of Chilis and McDonalds and gotten rid of wait staff in lieu of a digital p.o.s. kind of a bummer.

Well we put in our orders on our phones trepidatious about the prospect of our new digital reality. It doesn’t seem to go through. It flashes a “we got your order” screen but goes back to the Cart.

But I check capitol1 and the charge is pending. okay!

5 minutes later the hostess comes back over and announces their internet is out so they have to take all the orders manually. hmmm. Maybe getting rid of your waitstaff wasn’t such a great idea. Anyways before too long our food came out (though my dining partners food came about 5 minutes earlier than mine).

The food was passable. I’ve had much better wings; there was not much spice to speak of. But I’ve had worse wings as well, so… I still enjoyed them.

A person who I assume was the shift manager came by to make sure everything was okay in light of the system being down. and she also eventually ran our cards for us. I told her my charge was pending already but she claimed the system was down so there’s no way it would charge so she ran the card again (hopefully she’s right!)

All that said, I don’t blame any of the staff working there, they are doing their best. But I think moving to a fully digital system is short sighted and unwelcome as was highlighted by our experience this evening. Good, personal service is worth something, especially when the meals are priced in the mid-upper 10s. If you don’t want to wait on people, you could convert to a fast-casual format! Lots of restaurants...

I have tried to give Shelter the benefit of doubt 3 separate times since they opened their Green lake location, but Shelter continues to not GAF about anything. My party of 7 was told by a server after seating ourselves that the servers would not be taking our order and we would have to use their app to order instead. The QR code sitting on the tables literally takes you to an app you have to download just to order food and drink. So dumb. My group ages ranged from 22 to 40 and none of us could get the dumb app to work on our phone or accept credit card payment. The only payment the app allowed was apple pay which none of us wanted to use. I finally gave in after 20 minutes of screwing around with this useless app and walked up to the bartender and had her put in the order for us. The food at Shelter has always been the most disappointing part of the experience for me. The happy hour nachos were sitting in a pool of processed cheese sauce that made all the chips on the bottom soggy and gross. If I was the one planning this bar outing, I wouldn't have picked shelter. It wouldn't have even been in my top 3 for GL and there's only like 4 places to get alcohol here. If you're looking for great service and good food, this is NOT the place. If you're looking for a vodka soda, then...

We recently hosted my daughter and her partner’s wedding rehearsal dinner for 50 guests at Shelter Lounge Green Lake. I can’t say enough good things about the restaurant and Brock, the manager. First of all, the physical space was wonderful. We took over most of the front of the restaurant, so we were able to enjoy the evening breeze from the lake through the open garage doors. The openness of the space allowed people with COVID concerns to feel like they were outdoors.

Brock was a total pleasure to work with, from planning an outstanding menu, to decorations, to all the uncertainties caused by COVID. He cheerfully accommodated all of our requests which included bringing in dessert from an outside bakery, guests’ particular food allergies, choosing local vendors, turning down the music during our toasts, and allowing me to request flower choices for the evening. The food, beautifully presented in a taco bar, was varied, delicious and abundant (they kindly wrapped up the leftovers for us to take home). The wait staff was helpful and friendly. Brock even went to extreme lengths, running to the store during the evening to buy extra pies when he thought we were running low! I can highly recommend Shelter Lounge for events, as well as for a casual...