Philly Ya Belly - Everett — Restaurant in Washington

Some close friends who I trust saw my original review and urged me to give this place another shot. They assured me that the hag who originally ran this place had sold it to better people and moved on. I decided to take them up on their challenge and give Philly Ya Belly another chance. I was very pleasantly surprised. The new owners are wonderful and the food quality is much improved. I stated in my original review that if new people bought it from the sea hag, they should rename it so those of us who she angered would know she was gone. They didn't but it sounds like they've been there long enough by now to build a loyal customer base who doesn't remember that the first owner commuted to work on a broomstick.

So the service is better, as for the food, it's much improved. Surprisingly, my favorite thing on the menu are the Garlic Cheese Fries. I could eat a literal bucket of them. It wouldn't be good for me and might kill me but I'd die happy. The cheese steaks are OK but not superior. The meat is much better than the gristly mess that it was under the Wicked Witch of the North West's time as owner. I'd say it's a little too tender. A little more texture wouldn't hurt. The best cheese steaks in town are at Tat's so that's the standard I'm using. I prefer my sandwich with Whiz but I have to ask for less or the sandwich comes floating in it. I suppose that most people prefer a lot so I guess this isn't a bad thing. New owners or not, there's still a pretty wide gap between my idea of "light onions" and theirs. I like onions on my cheese steaks but not 1x1 inch chunks. I like them small and well cooked with the meat. To be fair though, Tat's does the same thing when I ask for light onions. The bottom line is that I'm lifting my no-fly recommendation on this place and I've honestly been back about four times since my initial...

This place is pretty decent. I wanted to try the ferryboat from Kingston to Edmonds and made this place my destination to give me a reason to go. It was a bit of a drive in traffic after you get off the boat and I was really hoping this place would be amazing after all the effort. It was just OK. We ordered two of the Chicago style phillys and a large order of garlic cheese fries to share. In hindsight, I kind of wish I had just tried a traditional philly and just some regular cheese fries, but the Chicago style version just sounded too good to pass up and the pictures on Yelp of the garlic cheese fries looked really good too. The sandwiches were big and came out quickly and nice and hot. The problem was the sausage inside these sandwiches is way too overpowering and hid all of the other flavors of the steak and the cheese. There was a ton of garlic on the fries, so if you like garlic, this is for you. I am just fine with garlic, but it was too much for me. Combine the garlic in the sausage with the garlic on the fries and all the cheese, and it was just bomb after bomb of garlic and salt. It was very rich. I will say the fries themselves were really good and crispy. If we go again, I'll try something a bit more traditional so that I can judge the steak better. Also, when we sat down, there were ants on the floor underneath our table. I think this place is just run of the mill and nothing amazing, and not really worth taking a ferry to get to, but, if I'm ever in the area, I'll try it again. I wouldn't suggest that this is a great place for phillys, but if you are craving one, I would say you could...

The Phillies are delicious, but good luck if you have any requests like different cheeses! The staff STRUGGLES to understand the words "add" and "both".

The Phillies come standard with American cheese, but they have provolone and Cheese Wiz available and supposedly allow you to get any combination of them for an additional charge. In practice though, if you say "add provolone" they will SUBSTITUTE provolone in for the American cheese. It happens to me every single time. Every. Single. Time. I've tried saying it different ways with mixed success, no way has worked every time though. I've tried repeating myself over and over, and asking the woman taking my order to repeat after me. She still messes it up. I've tried emphasizing "BOTH American AND provolone", she still messed it up. I've tried treating her like an idiot and repeating "YES American, YES provolone, YES American, YES provolone, YES American, YES provolone, write it on the box, YES American, YES provolone"... she'll still screw it up half the time.

Yesterday I managed to get her to understand me, she even wrote "+American +prov" on the box... but the illiterate dude working the grill couldn't be bothered to read, and I ended up with "substitute provolone" despite being charged extra for adding it.

It is exhausting trying to get these people to understand a simple request that they offer on the menu, and I hardly come here any more because of it. I don't know what happened with their staff, but this lady started working there a couple years ago and she's...