The Bad Seed — Restaurant in Spokane

If could rate 10 stars I would. My roomate and I decided to make the trip out to visit the Bad Seed when she saw a Tiktok video about the "texmex haunted library bar hidden gem in spokane." We are both big fans of all things spooky, and we love a unique dining experience. All of our expectations were exceeded. The food was so. Good. They don't have a huge menu, but what they do offer has customization options, including different meats as well as the option to make things vegetarian on request. We started with the queso and chips appetizer and it was soooo good! A huge serving with smokey cheesy wonderful queso wuth feta crumbles and lime juice on top. Our server Brandon was awesome. We are not drinkers, so he recommended this house made mocktail of Lemon Almond soda. It was excellent, like drinking a refreshing lemon poppyseed muffin. For the main course we each got the two tacos platter that came with two sides. I got the Brisket taco with peppers and red enchilada sauce, and the shredded pork carnita taco with cabbage and Chipotle sauce. My roomate got the grilled chicken with Mexican street corn and ribeye with potato and feta. We each sampled all four flavors and looooved them. The chicken and carnitas were especially good, but the brisket was really close. The meat was so melt in your mouth good. Our sides were Mexican street corn and black beans, and Rice and Potatoes. We split these as well and agreed HANDS DOWN that the Mexican street corn was the best. It. Was. So. Good. Next time we go, I'll probably just ask for two servings of the corn lol. The rice and beans were fancy and cool, and the potatoes were really good. By the end of our meal we were both stuffed, but we ordered the flour-less chocolate torte with berry compote to go and drove the 3.5 hours home. By the time we dug in, it was still delicious despite the time. It was so rich and gooey and chocolate heavy. If you like chocolate and are gluten free, then you will loooooove this.

The atmosphere. This is such a fun place with interesting decorations and a sick vibe, especially as the sun goes down and they light up the candelabras and the red lamps and stuff. There is a bar section where nobody under 21 is allowed, and general seating. A big party with kids came in towards the end of our visit and they seemed like they were having a good time (but beware, the decor is super awesome and cool and spooky and the bar section includes 3 huge beautiful vintage paintings that include nude ladies so if you don't want your kids seeing that, sit in the side room if you can, but come early cuz this is a bar;)

All of that food, and our total was: $67!!! Awesome price for the service and food we got! We tipped big so it came close to 90 but it was so worth it because of how accommodating and quick our server was.

My one and only complaint was parking was a bit weird. They don't have a parking lot and are in the middle of a residential area, but this is not their fault. There's nowhere to put a lot, and having to park down the block is a fine price to pay for the chance to eat in this cool old building.

All in all, 100% recommend visiting this place. Everything we ate was fire, the servers were awesome, and the atmosphere was so unique and fun....

Best bread pudding I've ever had. It had apples in it, and was lightly pan fried into sticks, so it tasted like a combination of apple fritter, french toast, and custard. Served warm, with a side of ice cream, a caramel drizzle, and a few candied jalapeno slices, I was in heaven. It was just a special when I visited, and I think they ought to consider giving it a permanent place on the menu, possibly offering different fruits/fillings in different seasons to keep things fresh. Strawberry rhubarb with a little chili powder maybe? Or candied pecan? They're onto something with their bread pudding, and I would love to see them experiment with it.

The location is great. The Bad Seed is located inside of a historic city library. The building exterior is a little plain, but well preserved. Given its age, I can see why they would be reluctant to make significant changes.

The interior is a little odd, decorated with mismatched classical paintings from multiple eras, a little taxidermy, some native carvings, Victorian candlesticks covered in wax, ornate gold goblets, and table lamps with flickering faux-candle LED bulbs in them. The rafters are all carved and painted, and I'm not sure if they're original from when it was a library or if they were part of the restaurant renovations. I don't really see a theme, and it doesn't give me a strong Tex Mex vibe.

Not everything on the menu was actually available. The menu was clearly printed on printer paper, so I'm not sure what the barrier is to printing new ones.

The food was well cooked, but could have used some diversity of flavor. The tacos only came with 1 tortilla, which promptly fell apart under the weight of the brisket, though it seemed to hold up ok to the other meats. Usually, street style tacos have two tortillas, and they're definitely generous enough with the meat portions to use two tortillas without throwing off the balance. I think my tacos could have used some acidity, too. Chipotle is a heavy flavor that lingers for a long time. I found it to be a little overpowering, but I have that experience a lot...

So today we decided to try here for the first time. We love to try new places and support local, small businesses. Outside looks neat but the inside is very dark at night. Staff was definitely friendly, dining area wasn't very clean unfortunately. We had to wait on a table to be cleaned and then were seated at a wet table. Ordered Sprites and water and the Chips and Cheese appetizer. Sprite was terribly flat and water tasted like what I would get from my garden hose. The Cheese dip had decent flavor and was extremely rich. It became very glue like after about 15 minutes. The chips had a tasty seasoning but unfortunately everything else seemed to have the same seasoning on it. Also, when the appetizer was brought out the large tostada chips slid off the plate and the server started to use her bare hands to slide them back on. Which I intervened quickly to do myself. I also witnessed the main cook handling what appeared to be ready to eat foods with bare hands. I ordered the Shrimp, Pork and Cheese Grits. Shrimp was delightful but the Pork, AuJus and Grits were tasteless. Grits had zero cheesiness. I had to get a salt shaker, which was filthy just to add flavor to the rest of my food. Dish was a honestly a huge disappointment. My wife tried the 3 taco entree. She chose one of each taco except for the Tofu. She said everything on the plate was one note. Just different textures. I really wanted to like it here and had people I know recommend it. Not sure if this was an off day but we will never know as I can't see us ever going back after today. Good people, poor...