King’s Hardware

If you have a large group for birthday celebrations or something along those lines, I strongly encourage you to make reservations well in advance. This place gets maddddd packed on the weekends, especially after dinner time /​beginning of the usual time people go out.
Came here a couple of times, and for this particular visit, it was in celebration for my friend’s birthday. Overall, props to the wait staff! They did an excellent job at managing the food/​drink orders for the group, especially with people coming and going or just switching spots. Also, our water pitchers were constantly filled and our tables were cleaned on regularly basis. :D So thank you King’s staff for your hard work!
As for the place itself, the bar out front is dim and noisy and is more ideal for smaller groups. In the back, I find the patio to be more bright, warm and ideal for larger groups. Drinks here are the normal range (like $ 5 beer /​$ 10+ for cocktails/​shots) and are yummy! As for the food, it’s ok. A few friends and I ordered: Chicken strips w/​fries, Irish Nachos, and the sliders. For the sliders and chicken strips, I found these to be a bit too salty for my taste. As for the Irish Nachos, these were basically fries drenched in various toppings on top. It was my first time trying food here and after seeing the happy faces of people eating their burgers, I will try the food again on the next visit.
Honestly, you can park yourself here for hours and just chill. I always love swinging by King’s and will continue to do so whenever I’m in the area.

I do not recommend this place for late night drinks. Here’s what happened.
We were closing down the bar on a weekend night. Showed up around 11:30. It was pretty packed. We had several rounds, played some games, then at 1:40pm, without warning (except for turning up the lights a bit 30 seconds before), an employee walked over and shut off the skee ball game we were literally in the middle of playing and the other employees started yelling loudly, «We’re now closed. Everybody out!» It was so abrupt I kid you not, there were about 40 people outside on the sidewalk very confused why they were kicked out of the bar.
I’ve been at many a bar closing over my years. But this was by far the most abrupt and rude bar closings I’ve bet been at in over a decade. It took an otherwise great night and practically ruined it.
My wife, who had gone to the bathroom just moments before they pulled the plug and started yelling at us, was in the bathroom for 3 minutes. She said in that span of time she had male employees come into the bathroom twice and yell the bar was closed it’s time to leave. I mean come on guys. You managed to pull the plug on our ski ball game, yell at me to leave without any warning (thought most bars closed at 2, not 1:40), then walk in on my wife in the bathroom to yell at her to leave. Not cool. Very not cool.
I’ve been to lots of bars over the years, this was my worst experience with a rude staff. I will never, ever come to this establishment again. And if just one person reads this and decides not to go, I feel I’ve done my job.

Used to be a great place where working class could go and have a beer but now the beer is expensive and happy hour is not that happy. Guess all of Seattle is changing for the worst. Thanks a lot Amazon and all the other companies and all the a-​holes who moved here.

I recently just threw my best friend a surprise party at King’s and had a phenomenal experience. The communication was great and they were very accommodating and helpful to me and the group of about 35 people. You can reserve the back half of the patio for free. Everyone again was super friendly and I had a wonderful experience. Would highly recommend for this sort of function.

King’s Hardware represents everything I have missed about American bars during the past five years whilst I was living it up in the UK. Exposed brick. Mismatched chairs. Warped floor boards. Skee-​ball. Bloody mary’s. The list goes on and on and on.
Visited King’s around 1 o’clock on a sunny Saturday afternoon. Having heard and read so much about their amazing patio, my expectations were set about as high as they could get and I was, therefore, a bit let down by the utter lack of view. The patio is nothing special and I’m not sure how it made the Thrillist’s list of top patios in Seattle. None-​the-​less, the weather was a splendid temperature and the entire patio is non-​smoking (yay!) and covered so as to handle any inclement weather.
Ordered a bloody mary. It was delicious. I really loved the pickled bean and asparagus sticks. It was definitely the best bloody mary I have had in Seattle and the best I have had in a long, long time. And at only $ 8 a pop, I felt the value for money was worth two high fives.
Ordered the buffalo wings. Really tasty. Buffalo wings just do not exist abroad as we know them in the ‘Merica, so, double yum.
Also ordered the Tijuana burger with chicken with tots. It was a bit on the pricey side, $ 11.95 + 2.00 for chicken which, oddly enough, amounted to $ 14.95 on our bill. Hmm. The tots were super tasty and there were a lot of them, perhaps a half of regular-​sized bag of tots you’d buy at your local supermarket. The chicken burger was, em, a chicken burger. It tasted excellent to me because it has been over five years since I’ve eaten such a sandwich but if you’d asked my old self six years ago what I’d thought of the chicken burger, I would have said it was just ok, tasty but nothing special.
Service was not great. The husband and I are in a rut of being seated at the Bermuda Triangle of tables in the restaurant were we are promptly forgotten soon after our order has been taken. I’m starting to think that this is more of a Seattle thing and less of a bad luck thing.
Overall, a super place as far as dive bars and greasy American food goes. Will definitely return sometime soon.

Not the coldest beer in town. Disappointed with beer temperature otherwise OK.

Really enjoyed their wings and cocktails. The place has a great patio. Loved everything about the place, except the bouncer. I stepped out to add to my meter and he was a complete jackass about it for no reason. He was rude again later as well. Please have him calm down or get a new one. That’d be a terrible reason to not go to a great place.

We hosted a birthday party for around 20 people on back patio on Saturday night and King’s was the perfect venue. They were super flexible with arrangements, let us bring in our own cake, and was able to accommodate multiple checks with no fuss.
The King’s burger is always a winner and the cocktails were tasty and affordable. Happy hour beer specials are pretty fantastic as well.

I’ve had great luck at this place. If you get here after 10 there is usually a line at the door. No cover, but they keep the number of people inside pretty stable. Their drinks are good and inexpensive. The bartenders in the back are my favorite. This is probably the most hipster, Seattle-​y bar you can find. It’s a very woodsy atmosphere but without any country twang.

King’s Hardware is huge. I didn’t even know there was a back room, let alone another bar and back patio the first 4 to 5 times I went there. It can get real hoppin’ on weekends. I’ve seen the whole place packed out, standing room only, and no tables available. It is pretty much an awesome party when you walk in those front doors. Tasty pub food, cheap beer, more taxidermy than you can shake a stick at… and SKEE BALL. The sacred holy grail of bar awesomeness! If we were all a little more honest with ourselves, we all want feel like we are at Odyssey 1 when we are at a bar.

More like a three-​and-​a-​half star review, but bumping it up for the vibe.
Kings hardware is more like a divey bar in contrast to the classy cocktail bars surrounding it.
It’s generally full of twenty-​somethings, and it’s almost always pretty crowded. It has a hipster vibe to it, but the crowd makes you feel this is the place to be.
It’s a pretty big place. The décor is very standard dive-​bar types. Wooden chairs, rickety tables, the works. They do have some cool antiques on the walls, if you like such places.
I’ve been here a couple of times, and in most of them, it’s pretty difficult to find a table since they’re all full. In the winter, tables in the patio are generally available. They have heat-​lamps, but it’s not well insulated, so gets really cold.
Service is pretty poor here. It’s generally so crowded that the servers hardly have space to move. It’s faster to get a drink from the bar, and then find a table to sit at, than wait for a server for too long, and then go to the bar anyway. They do have some bussers picking up empty glasses to keep the tables clean, so that’s a good thing at least. The bartenders are sometimes rude, and don’t really care about the service.
They have a good drink selection with many local beers on tap. Their mixed drinks are pretty strong too, so they don’t cheap out on that. The cocktails are pretty decent, nothing special, but not too bad.
The place is generally so crowded that you’d rarely get space to keep the food here. In the times we’ve gone early and gotten a table, the food has been ok. The appetizers are not too great. The salsa is tasteless, so don’t get the chips and salsa. My friends said the burgers were pretty nice, but I didn’t try them.
The prices seem a little high for a place like this, and other than their popularity, they have nothing to justify the high prices. They do have a happy hour, but I don’t live in the area so never tried it.
I would recommend this to anyone who’s not been here yet, and try it for yourself.
This would not be my first choice, unless I was under-​dressed, and wanted a divey atmosphere to sit back with a beer.

Atmosphere: Very hipster. Also fairly young crowd (20s-​early 30s). There is an outdoor patio if you are feeling claustrophobic.
Drink selection: Good; lots of beers, and a selection of cocktails. I had a tasty variation of a Moscow Mule in a silver metal cup. My husband enjoyed his old fashioned.
Décor: Not animal-​lover friendly. Stuffed heads abound.
Things to do other than drink: Yes; a variety of video games such as Ms. Pac Man and also skeeball.
Food: Didn’t try it, but it looked and smelled tasty. Appeared to be standard elevated bar food.
I will be back.

Typical nothing-​special Ballard bar packed to the brim with 20-​somethings. Practically couldn’t move on a Saturday night! Kudos for the cute teeny tiny champagne bottles. Minus one star for dirty two stall bathroom.

This is always a must stop on the pub runs through Ballard. Nice stiff drinks and seating if you get there early enough. I haven’t tried any food here yet but I love their moscow mules. Authentic copper cups really top off the drink.

Second visit to this place was kinda a repeat of our first visit. It’s a cool dive bar (for young hipsters) but it has lead the employees to think they are king of the world. They are too busy acting cool (talking shit on customers, bragging about how hard they partied, submerged in their phones ignoring the world, — I could go on but you get the point) too provide basic service.
Food was ok but the quality didn’t match the price or service. I like the atmosphere at this bar; cool music, good bar selection, and a few games… I’d wouldn’t mind visiting here again but I’m not in any hurry.

Always felt that kings was aperture standard weekend bar. Come here occasionally with friends but I’m writing this for the best night I’ve had here ever!
My friend and I showed up last Sunday after their movie night. We walked back and saw one of the employees taking down the projector. We asked what they were showing and he said the exorcist and then asked if we wanted to see it. He went ahead and set the projector back up and got us situated.
Who ever you are, you were so nice to do that for and we both appreciate it.
That being said watching. The exorcist in the back room with the lights off, a down poor, and the skeletons flapping in the wind… Holy shit that was a scary good night!
If you are reading this and want to know, yes the food and drinks are good and they got a damn good happy hour.

King’s is a staple of the Ballard bar scene. There really isn’t anything particularly outstanding about it that really pushes it to the top of the list, but it’s not bad per se.
Alcohol is pretty standard. They have a full bar, but you’re probably just ordering drinks that are quick and easy to make (ie rum and coke, gin and tonic, whiskey ginger, etc.) and you’re probably getting a watered down version of it. For how busy and crazy it can get in there, the bartenders are generally pretty friendly.
Food is not the priority here, but it’s still alright. Nothing really to write home about. I think the driving philosophy behind the kitchen here is, «there are several drunk people running around, drunk people like greasy things, let’s buy a grill and a fryer and shove mounds of fatty foods in front of people and everything will be okay». And they’re not wrong. You can get your drunchies here. I would personally recommend walking to Ballard Pizza Co. for food, but if you’re feeling lazy (no judgement, trust me) you’ll do alright with the garlic fries or nachos at King’s.
I do really enjoy the pre-​bottled cocktails they have here. The zombie is pretty good and it will knock you on your ass pretty quick if you aren’t careful. Those are pretty reasonably priced at about $ 7.
If nothing else, the atmosphere is fun. Better than the average bar in Seattle, I would say. People are there to have a good time and that’s pretty obvious. For whatever reason, people seem to be friendlier (perhaps drunker?) here than at most other bars. I feel like I’ve had more interaction with strangers here than at just about every other bar in this city.
When you’re strolling along Ballard Ave and you see a large group of people gathered on the street, you’ve found King’s. You should pop in at least once if you’ve never been.

Ahhh yea… I like this place! Came by to grab a beer and a snack, we decided to sit in the back patio area. Its mostly covered that will provide shade in the summer, but will be still useful the rest of the year. Staff was quick to spot us and give us some menus and take our drink order. So we just got a few beers and some fries to share. Fries came out in a good sized pile, so you definitely get your money’s worth! Delicious ranch dressing for dipping and we were good to go! I noticed a lot of the other tables got the nachos, so that seemed to be a hit. May have to check that out next time.
I like the décor, a lot of woods, some mismatched old style school chairs thrown in as well. Inside has a good amount of space, Big Buck shooting video game, 2 skee ball units, good amount of tables and next door to a adjoining barber shop.
Located on Ballard Ave, so its a good spot to stop by if you are bar hopping. Not sure what the night time crowd is like, but overall, it was a nice chill spot during a later afternoon visit.

I was in a Ballard Bar Hop of some sort! This place was one of the spots on a Sunday Evening that had a lot of people and music! We initially came in, it was loud, but booths were available and people were young and fun. They have an awesome cocktail selection @ this place! My friend got this cucumber drink that was sooooo delicious. And I thought mine was good, at this point it wasn’t memorable, but her’s was!
The location is huge — it goes far back. There were so many seating areas, picnic benches and such. Wish i could’ve tried the food, but regardless, had a decent time @ King’s Hardware! The bathroom is kind of gross, but whatevs! It’s a dive-​ish bar & restaurant

Boyfriend: «one of the best burgers I’ve ever had in his life.» He was very happy and adamant I write this review.
The service was also awesome; our waiter was always fast and friendly.
Very cool atmosphere. Definitely not a place for a vegetarian, which I am. But the nachos I got was good. :) no seafood either. A very deer on the wall meat kind of place.
Happy hour is 4 – 7!