Portage Bay Cafe

More like 3.5 stars!There is a spacious parking lot in the back for customers so no need to find to find street parking. Came in around 11:30 on a Friday, there was no wait to get seated. We quickly ordered after we were seated. There were a good amount of other people throughout the restaurant.My friend and I both got the classic eggs benedict. I added tomato on mine. There were plenty of ham slices and the eggs were kind of small. Although the yolk was runny, the yolk itself was so small it really wasn't the main part of the dish. The bread(english muffin?) was kind of tough to cut. Overall was not bad, but nothing too spectacular about this benedict. I have had better. The potatoes were pretty good. Not too flavorful, but plenty of sauce options on the table like ketchup and sriracha.Nothing amazing about this place, but nothing too bad either. Won't be dying to come back, but won't have any complaints if I had to go again.

We came here with friends and had a reservation for 12. Still needed to wait an additional 30 minutes to be seated despite our reservation. This was the case for many other people too, it seemed most of the people waiting around had a reservation for an earlier time. We tried the banana foster French toast and a scramble which we really enjoyed! Our friends shared an oatmeal cobbler French toast and were told the split charge would be $9 on top of the original price - basically just covering a second trip to the fruit bar which seemed a bit expensive. I enjoyed the food and the liveliness of this place but it was also too loud to really communicate with our friends here and our server hardly checked in with us and didn't even ask how the food was after it came out. Overall, I'm glad we tried it and again we enjoyed our food but I don't know if it is worth the stressful parking situation, extra wait times, loud ambience, and lack of service.

This is a MUST try breakfast cafe! We were seated in the covered patio and it is such a cool space! You can still hear and feel the cool air of the rain but you have patio heaters and a covered space- perfect setting. We came on a Sunday morning- early that we were confident that most of the UW students should still be sleeping. . We still had a 20 min wait on arrivals but it's well worth it. I had the special- Reuben Benedict- absolutely delicious- homemade English muffin, hollandaise with dill and seared corned beef. My husband ordered the Rancher's breakfast which comes with pancakes and a trip to the breakfast bar. The breakfast bar is filled with all types of toppings- berries, chocolate chips, fresh whipped cream. Coffee was perfect too! I would totally give this place 10 stars if I could!

Such a great breakfast/brunch spot. The banana fosters French toast is insanely good, large portion, and you get to grab stuff from the breakfast bar. If you want a savory breakfast go for the mole verde burrito. Never been disappointed with their weekly specials either. This place can get very busy after they open any day of the week. Love coming here for breakfast after a night shift.

Are there more stars to give because Portage Bay deserves them all. I was hesitant to try this place out but my friends recommended it, it was UH-MAZINGGGG!!!!I made the reservations which were easy to do, even with the reservation you did have to wait a bit but not too bad. Once seated(we got to sit out on the patio) the server was fast and super friendly. Drinks came right out and when we ordered our food magically arrived within like 5 min of ordering...seriously! You must try the French toast/pancakes or granola because they let you go to the toppings bar and that in itself is an adventure!!! I'll be back for the next round soon!

Portage was so good! The cobbler french toast was ok. Was a little too sweet for me. The shakshuka had great flavor. I hadn't had anything like it. The kick of spice was a good heat level to be honest. Not too spicy. The homemade bread was so good to dip in the tomato based sauce and pierce the poached eggs. So satisfying and yummy! Service was great and they have a nice covered outside seated area for when it gets warmer out. They also have blankets for the outside tables too incase its a little chilly. That is a nice touch.

This place was meh. I actually didn't enjoy the shakshuka. Serving a tomato dish in a metal cast-iron skillet means that the taste is going to be metallic, and the fact that poached eggs are an integral part of the dish didn't help. The server was nice but he had a bad habit of just asking one half of the table what they wanted and then walking away, so we had to make sure we caught him before he left. My friend who got the veggie hash thought it was okay; she wasn't super impressed by it.

My son and I were in town for an accepted student tour at UW. We're from Maine so very unfamiliar with Seattle and the UW area in general so relied on good old yelp to help us find meals. Portage Bay Cafe was one of the best meals we had on our entire trip. Excellent service, great coffee and both of our breakfasts were phenomenal. Highly recommend!

This breakfast restaurant is incredible! We came in on a Saturday before a Huskies game and it was everything we were hoping for and more. We made a reservation (which I highly recommend!) and walked up to dozens of people waiting outside. Luckily we were able to be seated quickly. The ambiance was awesome, the menu featured unique dishes with fantastic ingredients, and our waitress gave us awesome recommendations for food. I ordered a veggie hash, and it was not just your typical roasted veggies. My boyfriend ordered a classic breakfast, which includes a trip to their huge and insane fruit bar! Needless to say, we were so impressed with this breakfast. We still talk about it and recommend it to our friends. We can't wait to be back

If you love fresh fruit, this is the brunch spot for you. Portage bay cafe has a unique concept in which if you order certain menu items, you get a trip to the breakfast bar, which is essentially a table full of fresh fruits and toppings to choose from. I forgot to take a picture of the bar, but every fruit is represented on my photo of the Swedish pancakes. There's also fresh whipped cream, walnuts, sliced almonds, coconut flakes, and other toppings for your favorite breakfast favorites like pancakes and waffles. You can fill your plate as much as you'd like, but you can only take one trip to the breakfast bar per entree, so fill it up high! You can see that you can't even see the Swedish pancakes on my plate anymore after my trip. This fruit isn't like the average fruit you can get at the grocery store -- it's extremely fresh and sweet and I couldn't stop eating them. We also ordered the Seattle eggs Benedict, which is crab. It was yummy and a good savory option to go with all the sweets on the other plate. I recommend going one sweet + fruit bar and one savory option and splitting both entrees with a friend. The only downside to the Seattle Benedict is that the English muffin arrived untoasted, which I think made it a little sad and soggy. It is always busy here, so make a reservation in advance if you can. Otherwise, you're looking at a pretty long wait. Even with a reservation, after we were seated, we waited a long time for the waitstaff to bring us water, collect our order, and bring our food. The restaurant is very loud with all of the busy tables and it's hard to flag down waitstaff. I would normally dock a star but the food quality made up for it. I left feeling extremely satisfied despite the wait.