Brave Horse Tavern

I really enjoy good mustard. This place has excellent mustard and multiple types. The pretzels here are delicious and so are the beers. While this location is slightly louder than I enjoy it is still a great place to hang out. I came here with a large group of friends and the service was friendly and fast while accommodating all of us.

Good service, a couple shuffleboard tables to entertainment, and a decent amount of TVs as well. Food and drinks were good!

So I recently raised my rating for Brave Horse to 4 stars, but need to take it back down to 3 stars after the most recent visit.
First, while I made a reservation for brunch a week in advance, they sat me at a table in the bar that has no waiter service! I finally realized no one was coming and asked if they could assign wait staff to our table of six, but was told they could not. This seemed very strange given I had a reservation! Luckily they were able to move us to another table.
However, it was a waste as the actual service on this day was so unfriendly, we might have been better off without service. :) She was pretty unfriendly to us and despite the fact that we kept ordering drinks/​food throughout the game, we always had to ask for service vs. her checking on us.
Finally, the food quality was not great this time. Several dishes came lukewarm/​cold and the bacon was inedible. The food was so bad that one person who came late decided to wait to eat until later in the day at another restaurant.
This was the counter opposite to our last brunch visit (also during a Hawks game) where we had an awesome table, service, and food. So I probably would go back again but would love to see a little more consistency in their approach!

The Brave Horse is like that super hot girl in high school. Looks great, you feel good being inside it, but she’s not very attentive and kind of self centered.
The ambience is pretty nice and the long communal tables make it a pretty relaxed atmosphere. The beer selection is great. Probably around 20 on the menu, most of them from around the PNW. The food, from what I’ve had is pretty good (EXCEPT…DO NOT ORDER THE TATER TOTS WITH JELLO SHOTS. It’s not $ 4.9 like it looks when you initially read it because you’re not paying attention, it’s $ 49. It really comes with jello shots and they are terrrrrrrible). But the service at the bar is kinda weak, in my experience.
Overall, it’s a little overpriced but that’s perfect for all the blue badges in the area.

I’m an addict when it comes to this place. The pretzel’s are amazing, I love the fried chicken, and the drinks are always impressive. Great for happy hour, but it can be overrun by the Amazonians, so be wary on weekdays.

i always have great experiences here. been here several times already and always enjoyed their food as well as their drinks.
If you’re in the south lake Union area, this would be a gray place to have HH!
I recommend going here for brunch also, they have quite a selection and it’s satisfying. Always leave here with a happy tummy.

Everything was good except the pretzel and pimento and cheddar order. The pretzel was delicious, well salted and quite fluffy. However, the cheese sucked! It’s not melted… Who does that? It’s like chunky and not dip-​able. Like come on bro, who orders and pretzel and cheese and can’t dip it?
Not saying I wouldn’t come back, but I would highly recommend asking for real melted cheese, not this chunky shit.
But, really great place.

Their burgers are very good. Dare I say, perhaps the best burger in Seattle?

Again I Love Tom Douglas and his food quest is awesome! I’ve done it twice and love having the gift card to eat on Tom! I decided to spend it for brunch at Brave horse! Had the French Toast and my hubs had the eggs Benedict pony style. The Bloody Scotch man was really good and so was the mimosa.
I must say that I came here for happy hour during my birthday month and found a hair in my pretzel sauces. My waiter could care less and maybe because he was the bartender but I just wanted someone to care and apologize. Only one guy finally came over and apologized and made sure that it was taken off our bill. Literally I only broke off 1 piece of pretzel, so it was easy to see I didn’t finish it or even half of it.

Nice, festive beer hall in the middle of South Lake Union with a solid beer selection. We went here for Happy Hour and it was great! The artichoke-​jalapeño dip and pretzel chips was a great appetizer and the High Water Samoa Cookie Stout was fab!
This place is nice for Amazonian shindigs and the servers are really friendly. Not to mention, it’s a super convenient location for those who work on the Amazon campus as it’s in between the Ruby and Dawson buildings.

Been here many times and keep coming back. The beer selection is rotating and always good-​both on draft and in bottles. Food is great, and the pretzels are to die for.
For those of you complaining about how the menu doesn’t cater to your specific taste… shut up and bow down at the restauranteur demigod that is Tom Douglas.

I love coming here after work for drinks and small bites, it does get super crowded though. So come early for seats! I love the pretzels they have (great on the happy hour menu) I personally love the onion dip the best. Great food and great beer.

Went here based on photos and reviews found here, on Unilocal.Buddy and I sat at the bar, and ordered a round of drinks. Despite not being really busy at all, was hard to get one of the bartenders to look our way to order another round. So, when we finally had enough of that, we asked if we could grab a table (the place was super empty). We were hoping that a server (and more comfortable seats) would be the elixir needed to cure the current mood.
Nope.
We went off to our table, and were rightly ignored there until we went back up to the bar and asked for a server. We ordered some food, silly us thinking that ordering more would get us better service, and beers. Food came out, and it was just okay. The smokey wings were to be hot, but the sauce was ladled into the bowl, then the wings placed on top. No mixing, just wings sitting on top of sauce. Worst part? Didn’t see the sauce until we were about done with the wings. Sigh.
Service never improved, so off we went, in search of a better place to spend our time and money.

Fun place! Love playing darts when I am here! Love the western theme and brunch selection!

Probably my favorite place to play shuffle board, darts and meet people!
Great beer selection, food can be easily shared and large communal tables.
Current obsession: tots and Jell-​O shots. YESSS!
Honorable mentions: fried cheese curds, burgers and brunch

I’ve come here a bunch of times and always have a good time! Those pretzels, man…
They make a good cocktail, along with having a wide selection of beers. I also got rose this last visit and it was tasty and reasonably priced! I love the pub fare, too. Hand made pretzels with the trio of dips, burger, fries, it’s all good and high quality Tom Douglas style!
If you’re lucky enough to hop on the shuffle board table, do so!

Ohh, Brave Horse. I’m struggling a bit with how to begin.
Those coming here expecting the «Tom Douglas Experience» should go elsewhere or lower their expectations. Tom wanted to open a gastropub and well, he did it. Just like many, many others in Seattle. It rises to the occassion, but don’t expect to be blown away.
The food is fine, and the burgers are good although it’s quite easy to run up the tab with burger add-​ons. The pretzels are worth getting, though I believe the happy hour version is smaller.
Speaking of happy hour, SLU has better options that perhaps aren’t as imposing as this large building with it’s (admittedly lovely) west-​facing bank of tall industrial-​style windows. Brave Horse is a HUGE let down on the happy hour front, offering a very limited selection of drink and food specials. Really, you can’t even throw a dollar off all beers on tap?
But, this is the heart of Amazon country where new hire orientation every week packs hundreds of new transplants into brand new office spaces, so expect this place to be packed every day of the week from 4:30 — 6:30. No matter that even Cactus next door has a better happy hour — Brave Horse is yuppie heaven and they’ll keep coming.

I’ve had this Tom Douglass restaurant on my to-​try list for a long time. I had especially high expectations because its garnered national TV attention, and the fried chicken at one of his other places, Serious Biscuits, is so good. Their burger also made some «Best Burgers» lists. I probably would not have been as disappointed had I not expected greatness.
They used to have a Sunday dinner Fried Chicken special. They now have added it to their menu as Beer Brined Buttermilk Fried Chicken. It was a chicken thigh, breast and wing, served with bacon sugar snaps and corn bread. The batter on the chicken was so thick and over-​fried that it cracked on the first bite and fell off. The sugar snaps too were over cooked and picked up too much bacon fat, making them feel greasy. The corn bread, on the other hand, was very good. For good fried chicken, biscuit and gravy, go to Serious Biscuit.
The BHT Burger was very ordinary. The meat was cooked to a well doneness and the flavor was overwhelmed by the garlic smell and taste.
Perhaps Douglass’ priority is empire-​building, rather than seeking and maintaining quality.

When I first moved to Seattle, my goal was to eat at all the Tom Douglas restaurants. Then he just kept opening more and more, and my wallet could not keep up. Sadness.
Anyways, had to come here and get the Sunday Fried Chicken Dinner. It did not disappoint. I had 3 large pieces of chicken that were crispy and tender, but slightly overfried. I forgot to ask if the side dishes had cheese in them. Unfortunately, both of the sides were super cheesy. Luckily, my server was super accommodating and replaced one of the sides for me free of charge. So they get an extra star for that.
Brave Horse food fell slightly short of my expectations, but nonetheless, I had a great time playing shuffleboard.

Any place that will serve a hefty Bloody Mary and a Rainier beer back is on my good side.
I didn’t want to like it. My feelings for the South Lake Union neighborhood mirror my feelings for Vegas. I see the appeal but it doesn’t always appeal to me.
However, my prejudiced feelings can be overridden by good food and good drinks. Service was nothing special. They mixed up our orders a little bit but I can get over that.
Everything we ordered was quite delicious. I finished my Bloody Mary and ordered another one like the glutton that I am… And of course I didn’t finish that but still. I never order more than just one of those babies.
Overall, I’d come back.