Less than two months after opening, Ballard Best BBQ (5463 Leary Ave NW) is now closed.
The restaurant, which took over Mr. Spot’s Chai House, celebrated its grand opening the middle of November. Now, a “For Lease” sign hangs in the window and the curtains are drawn.
Also closed in downtown Ballard is Moo Berries (2019 NW Market St), which opened less than a year ago. (Thanks @ajrogers for the Tweet!)
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I thought I saw that Emerald City Smoothie in the Canal Street Condos on Leary closed. Anyknow know if that is peramanent?
Now it has the stench of BBQ and patchouli you’re gonna have to get rid of…..
I was about to go to Emerald City two days ago, when I pulled it up on google maps to look at the hours. I was shocked when I saw Permanently Closed in big red letters when I found it.
Interesting. The early reviews on Ballard Best BBQ were scathingly negative, so I’m not entirely surprised, but the $$ involved in starting a business is so high, it’s unusual to walk away from something like this so quickly.
What about Knotty Bodies Espresso? The shack is almost competly gone.
No big surprise. “Ballard Best” was always empty and lacked any sort of ambiance. And the name was stupid. And mooberries… well I never found a reason to go in there, what with d’ambrosia just a couple blocks away.
djalberts, I think the smoothie fad has safely passed at this point.
Went to this place shortly after they opened… it lacked any sort of clear direction – was it a Mongolian BBQ place or American BBQ?
See ya.
Korean-style frozen yoghurt is a completely different thing than gelatto. The problem is that neither incarnation of Moo Berry was a particularly good example of the form.
And it didn’t help that 2010 never had a summer. In hot weather, I’m more likely to crave a light, healthy Korean treat rather than an indulgent Italian one.
So where is Full Tilt ice cream going to set up shop? I heard somewhere that it would be near Market and Leary, maybe one of these spaces?
Really? Are they opening one in Ballard???? Yay vegan ice cream!!!
Right on man, vegan ice cream. Now there’s something we’ve all been craving, not. I hope it’s going to be run by gay Caspian whale refugees. Then I’ll go man. Next we’re gonna get a “toast-on-a-stick” on Market St! Vegan toast though please.
We need a real ice cream place in Ballard. Zak’s has decent ice cream. Molly Moon’s is supposedly coming, but their ice cream is pretty lackluster.
Ah, the internet…where the shield of anonymity has caused civility to die. Isn’t progress wonderful? Now you never have to let an opportunity pass to take someone down a peg.
Is someone else expressing enthusiasm about something that you personally don’t like (though, most likely you’ve just never tried it)? Then by all means, let them know. Make it clear that their personal choices, which don’t affect you in the least, are nevertheless unacceptable to you.
Tell them quickly, lest they think for a second that your silence implies that you approve. And use plenty of sarcasm…that’ll really put them back in their place.
Will they have bacon ice cream then?
Yeah, seriously.
FWIW, Full Tilt’s vegan flavors — which Bill hasn’t tried, of course, and which aren’t all Full Tilt makes — use an unbelievably rich and delicious coconut-cream base. This is not your hippie uncle’s vegan ice cream!
I’ll admit that I haven’t tried it, and am not a vegan so I’m probably not the target market here. I’ll also admit that having tried a couple vegan things like a pastry here and there, that some of them can be quite good and others, well, not so much. The challenge will be how to let the vegans know you’re there without scaring off the “regular folk”. I’d be happy to eat ice cream there if it tastes good. I won’t however pay a premium to eat something bland.
In order for them to make it, they’ll have to make a huge effort to overcome the vegan stigma. If it is that good, and not just “good for a vegan ice cream” they’ll have to give out a ton of samples to get people in the door.
I wish them the best, but hope they don’t kid themselves on the marketing power of being vegan. Ballardites could do with eating more stuff that isn’t as bad for them.
I think the rent there was also ridiculously high, so at a certain point the owners must have done the math. I didn’t make it in there, so I can’t comment on the quality, but it’s still a little sad to see a legitimate business go away.
Full Tilt makes many flavors of traditional dairy-based ice cream, and just offers a few vegan flavors. So don’t worry — the “regular folk,” as you call them, will have plenty of non-vegan options. I’m not clear why people would be “scared off” if there weren’t non-vegan options…most people eat plenty of vegan food items every day without thinking of them as such.
Your observation about some vegan food being good and some not applies to non-vegan food as well. Unless you’ve never had a sub-par non-vegan pastry? I can’t speak for all vegans, but personally, I am not willing to pay a premium for something “bland,” either. It’s odd to me that there would be a potential association of vegan food with being bland.
Full Tilt has a rotating menu of about a dozen flavors, usually with one or two vegan flavors. It’s not an entirely vegan shop by any means, so no need to be scared away.
I don’t think coconut cream is really all that healthy: one cup of coconut cream has almost 800 calories. One cup of regular ol’ vanilla ice cream only has 275 calories. It is tasty, though.
Full Tilt has excellent ice cream for those of us who can’t handle cow’s milk. I’m really hoping they do come to Ballard.
Do you realize how silly you sound? This is like saying you’re wary of the new coffee shop because you saw a carton of soy milk on the counter. Or that you’re not sure about that new Thai restaurant because you saw tofu on the menu in the window. Is the V word really so terrifying that you won’t try their non-vegan offerings, which make up the vast majority of their menu, unless their given to you for free? Why don’t YOU make the tiny effort to overome YOUR vegan stigma?
The conversation in this thread is precisely what scares me off from places catering to Vegans. I’m not afraid to try new food (nor am I willing to restrict my food for religious reasons), but I cannot stand the attitude of people who feel superior for what they eat and try to foist it on me.
No, no, no. You use coconut cream to make it in much the same way you would use regular cream to make regular ice cream. (A cup of pure heavy cream would also have 800 calories.)
Good, rich coconut ice cream has a similar calorie content to good, rich regular ice cream. It’s high in fat, but most of the fat content is medium-chain fatty acids, which are classified as saturated but are in key ways different from the indestructible molecules we normally think of as “saturated.” Coconut is also surprisingly high in dietary fiber.
How do you know if a person is a vegan?
Answer: don’t worry, they’ll let you know.
Full Tilt is hardly bougie about it — keep in mind that this is an ice cream shop that started as an all-ages rock venue with pinball machines in White Center.
In their case, the vegan flavors could just as easily be shorthand for “safe for the lactose intolerant,” which is actually why I go for them. It’s the closest a lactose-intolerant person is going to get to the taste and texture of regular ice cream — sometimes sorbetto or Korean-style (active culture) frozen yoghurt just won’t cut it.
From a marketing perspective, though, “vegan” is usually better than “won’t make you poop uncontrollably.”
oh, molly moon is horrible! bad ice cream, bad business practices. i’d not go there if you paid me.
actually, there is a toast place on market street. silly monkey.
who is foisting anything on you? all i hear in this thread is ignorance of full tilt as a buisness and how crappy vegan food is.
ah, thanks for the clarification. I’m no longer scared.
Okay, I was trying to be nice to the vegans…most “vegan” labeled food I’ve had wasn’t nearly as good as the non vegan labeled food. There is one pastry that I occasionally get that is labeled “vegan” and is better than the rest. That is the exception and also one of my favorites.
I’m well aware that lots of food that people eat every day is acceptable to vegans, but the problem is when things that are not normally vegan are somehow attempted within the vegan rules. The results are often mixed at best.
And for the record, I’m not a Twinkie eater or have to have a ridiculous amount of sugar or fat or salt for me to appreciate something. Since I don’t have many dietary restrictions I can simply choose the best version of something that I want. It is only in one case that it is labeled “vegan”, and far too many of the foods I enjoy would be banned under the vegan limitations.
Very well then, carry on.
Also, thanks for explaining where the name came from.
guest, Face it, a lot of people have tried “vegan” food and not liked it.
I’ll admit to the ignorance about this place that isn’t even here in that it was only presented at first as a vegan ice cream joint. For most of us a vegan ice cream parlor isn’t the first thing we’re likely to crave. Since it’s been revealed that it is mostly a regular ice cream shop with a couple vegan options, then obviously it’s not that big of a deal as far as marketability.
I actually think it’s a great idea to have a couple vegan, vegan friendly, lactose free, etc options as there are people who have issues with it, but from a pure business standpoint I think a vegan only place would be a tough sell in this neighborhood.
For the record, I don’t have a “vegan stigma”, but I do have enough experience in trying out a lot of bland food under the vegan banner to the point that I won’t exactly go searching it out when I’m looking for food.
That ignorance was generated by the only initial mention of Full Tilt as a vegan option.
Serious question. How do you feel about Mighty O (especially fresh from the Tangletown bakery)? I practically won’t deign to eat other donuts because theirs are so much better.
If you’re talking about baked goods, I actually do get what you’re saying. Not because vegan goods are by their nature inferior, but because Seattle offers a horrible representation of vegan baked goods. Aside from Mighty-O and very few other exceptions, the vegan baked goods commercially available in Seattle are awful, particularly those from the usual suspects like Whole Foods and PCC.
This is actually something that I find upsetting for exactly the reason being exemplified here — people eat a vegan cupcake from PCC, find it foul, and assume that’s what vegan baked goods are typically like.
I used to live in NYC where the vegan baked goods are both abundant and (generally) delicious, and am a vegan baker (hobbyist only) myself, so I find Seattle’s lack of decent vegan baked goods to be quite puzzling.
Don’t have an opinion on those as I don’t eat ’em.
What about the Scoop? Snoqualmie’s ice cream is decent
BTW I heard Full Tilt might come to an end with the US DOJ prosecuting them for their connection to Full Tilt Poker. The RCMP/GRC raided their colocation in Khanawahkee (Quebec) and found that they were funneling their profits (from the vegan place) into the online casino biz. RIP FULL TILT ICE CREAM, but haters gonna hate and crooks must go.
Hah! I love how this article was about a BBQ joint and all the stupid ass comments are just people trashing vegan food, then vegans all together. This blog sucks.