North Shore Lagoon

This place was a pleasant surprise--really! I had heard the place was a combination swimming pool and tiki bar. It sounded lame to me and I was expecting one of those bars that you can swim up to. Boy was my wrong.

Yes, there is a large pool...but it is downstairs. Upstairs, overlooking the pool, is the bar and restaurant. The interior is well done. I traversed one side of the place to the other, checking it out. I was impressed.

The bar though was the focal point in the center of the long, narrow restaurant. The drinks were a tad disappointing, but it could have been an off day (or maybe it was just a substitute bartender?). For photos of the place (and a look at other Seattle-area tiki spots), feel free to visit my blog. The link is here:

https://monsterago-go.blogspot.com/2018/03/im-freaky-for-tiki-13-super-seattle.html

CHEERS

Great looking place but would be better if staff knew something more about tiki. The decor reminds me of the pictures I have seen of historic Trader Vic's restaurants. They do have a branded zombie mug (limited edition, logo on the bottom) that is now polynesian styled. Food was good, but menu had very few exotic themed items. Moai and banana trees at the entrance were a nice touch! This restaurant is just one part of a repurposed school that became a unique hotel and dining complex. Worth visiting.

Found the decor to be above average, and the food was really good. But the drinks and service were seriously lacking. The menu listed specific by label ingredients (such as Appleton VX rather than Jamacian Rum). Although i was at first impresed that they did this, i became upset when the drinks arrived and the clearly werent using the ingredients listed. As a good tikiphile, I have a home bar will and often make drinks with the exact labels they listed on their menu....so i know what they taste like and that they were missing or swapped out. I think that similar to Clifton's that the bartenders rotate from other bars of different themes on site. Im not sure if the guy behind the stick had ever even made a mai tai before. He was just using "pre-mixes" and adding rum. But had know level of experience to know what these drinks should look and taste like. Was probably used to just serving beer at the next bar over. When called out for the mistake, they became defensive and argumentative. Very dissapointing.

The decor is amazing, 10+ there. Good service and it's fun that it has a view of the pool. Very popular with families which is nice to see as a parent, there seemed to be a lot of people have celebration dinners. The Hawaii 5-0 burger didn't agree with me and I had a very icy pina colada. Had to go to the gift shop across the parking lot to get a mug, which was annoying and they didn't honour the discount the waitstaff said I'd get for buying a drink. I'm glad to have seen it and the decor is amazing. If I lived in the immediate area I'd give it another try, but I don't know if I'll go out of my way on my next trip to WA.

McMenamins is a company that reclaims historical buildings in danger of being demolished, saves them by repurposing them filling them with restaurants, bars, theatres and other family friendly gathering places. It even has an Olympic sized pool. The community reached out to them hoping to have it saved. Saved it they did! North Shore Lagoon has a bit more of a multi cultural twist on a tiki bar while still maintaining the tiki mood that you’d want in a tiki bar, right down to surf rock/exotica music, dim lighting and repurposed woods and bamboos as far as the eye can see from all over the world. They offer a great menu of quality food. But most importantly the cocktails- FABULOUS. My Zombie was wonderful and they have a HUGE rum selection. Noah offered me tremendous service and even gave me an oral tour though the bar telling me where all the woods and sculptures came from. I could not be more happy I drove an hour round trip out of my way to check this off of my Critiki list.

My wife and I have been talking about coming here since the place opened but were put off by the negative Yelp reviews, however, tonight we decided to give the place a try and were definitely not disappointed. The decor is first rate, from the live banana trees out front to the subtle details that you will miss if you are not specifically looking for them.

We started off with two classic tiki cocktails, the Jungle Bird and the Mau Tai, both were, large, excellent and at $11 each pretty reasonable. We then proceeded to dinner, Dragon Boat appetizers (spiced pork meatballs, pickled daikon and carrot, cilantro, fried shallots and sriracha mayo all in a lettuce leaf), followed by the Thai Chop salad with chicken for my wife and the Hawaii Five-O burger for me. The burger was great, cooked exactly the way I like it, and topped with grilled pineapple, ham and mango-habanero sauce. The salad was epic, being based on cabbage rather then lettuce and was large enough that my wife could not finish it all.

After dinner was finished, we moved on to desert, I had the Kahlua Creme Brulee and my wife had the pineapple upside down cake. Both were pretty good, but the creme Brulee was not fully or properly caramelized on top so the shell was kind of chewy rather than the crisp, crunchy sugar shell on generally expects on a creme brulee.

In general we had a really great time, there were, however, a couple of negatives. The first is that it took a long time to get dessert even though the place was adequately staffed and not that busy. Secondly, my wife, who had an excellent view into the kitchen did not like that the kitchen staff were not wearing uniforms and were not using hair restraints. Finally, one of the waiters who helped us had terrible B.O. which is something I absolutely detest.

I would also like to say that Jacob the bartender was ultra-great and really worked hard to make sure we had a great time.

Went to the North Shore Lagoon for the first time this evening. They've done a great job with decor and environment, and service was prompt and very friendly. They have a good rum selection and a nice selection of "traditional" tiki drinks. I enjoyed a Mai Tai and a Zombie, and a special called "Kokopelli's Smirk". All were good or better, but not over the top fantastic. Food is above average pub grub with some nods to Asian/Polynesian. The music was at a conversational level and a mix of exotica, reggae, and surf rock. There were plenty of noticeable tiki statues, and a lot of masks that were more African, S. American and Asian than Polynesian, but all blended well for an exotic atmosphere. We were there somewhat early on a Saturday evening, and most of the people we saw were there for a novelty and a night out, and didn't seem to be tiki-philes. I imagine that was true at many places during the "Golden Age" of Tiki too. Their menu has a good intro and a page in back about where their decor and such came from. Overall, a lot of love and integrity went into making this place. It is unique and interesting. We hope to return some time, and may plan a stay at the adjoining hotel, and swimming in the Olympic sized salt water in-door pool that the North Shore Lagoon bar and restaurant overlook.

I live in Seattle which is 45 mins south of Bothell. The North Shore Lagoon is totally worth the drive! The decor and vibe is pretty much spot on. The Bar is actually above a pool that people are swimming in. The zombie is the best I ever had!

Here is my full review of the North Shore Lagoon:
http://www.tikiwithray.com/tiki-bar-review-1-north-shore-lagoon-bothell-wa/

The place is decked out with impressive decor, and what tiki classics they had on their drink menu were well balanced. The one mug in house at the moment (for the Zombie) is some sort of a… fish man? that doesn't seem very traditional, as far as mugs go, but is weirdly charming in its own way. (I assume there's some sort of McMenamins link to the design.) The bar itself gets filtered daylight from the skylights in the pool area in the afternoon, but as the sun sets, it gets a comfortably dark feel with tapa and fish float lamps.

McMenamins new North Shore Lagoon is definitely a candidate for any tiki-file’s bucket list. The Lagoon is actually the smallest of three restaurants on the sprawling campus of the Anderson School Hotel which is sort of an eclectic theme park featuring several indoor and outdoor attractions. The tiki bar isn’t small though as it runs the length of it’s companion Olympic size swimming pool which is seen from a tree house view. Seems like a natural location for a tiki festival although the facilities are not inexpensive.