Collections Cafe

We love the Collections Cafe! After visiting the lovely and amazing Chihuly Garden and Glass Museum we stop by the café for a delicious meal. The staff is very welcoming, neatly dressed, and always willing to ensure that we get a table either through a reservation or walk in. The menu is classic Americana, with a variety of delicious, fresh, and well-paired fare. My husband loves the clam chowder and I go for the crabcakes and salad. They also have classic burgers and french fries. Yum! And...they serve on real dishes, and flatware. Not a piece of plastic in sight. Thank you! What really makes this café special is the number of collections displayed by Chihuly. From fishing lures to old radios and accordions. Wow! This place is cool! A shining gem at the bottom of the Seattle Space Needle!

It’s a cute little place to eat while visiting the Chihuly Garden and Glass. The interior is really neat with the alert work inside the tables. Overall the food was good, but a little pricey. Definitely good if you’re here for the one time while traveling and not having to leave the property while waiting to go to the Space Needle. I got the Macaroni and cheese, minus bacon because I don’t eat meat. It was good but not as creamy as I had hoped. But the garlic fries were extremely good!

I've been to Collections Café twice, once for dinner on a weekday and once for brunch on a weekend. I highly recommend the brunch over the dinner. The dinner options were okay, but nothing that really stood out as special. I may just be spoiled from Seattle's extensive ingredient list at most higher end restaurants though. For dinner, I remember our group of eight all ordering either salads, pasta, or sandwiches. None were very memorable. For brunch, I enjoyed the Belgian waffle with berries and a side of breakfast potatoes and a cappuccino. The waffle was perfect, and I loved that you could add your own toppings (whipped cream, syrup, berries. The cappuccino was also very good. After trying it, my friend was sad he had gotten the coffee with milk instead of the cappuccino. I thought the coffee with milk was good too. My friend got the dutch pancake with fried eggs and potatoes. The pancake wasn't really a pancake though. It was more creamy and liquidy in the middle, and very thick. The eggs were eggs. A bit overcooked because we like them runny. We both agreed the potatoes were too salty.

The Collections Café is inside the Chihuly Garden and Glass Exhibit. Admission to the exhibit is not required to eat there. The Dining Room is open until 4pm. Reservations can be made ahead of time, but we ate there after going through the exhibit without making any. The name of the restaurant comes from this being the place that houses many of Mr. Chihuly's collections. He liked to find the beauty in everyday things. Even the dining tables have showcases for pocket knives, bottle openers, used shaving brushes, Mexican Silver Ashtrays, African necklaces, silvered inkwells, fish decoys and plugs, tin toys, vintage glass Christmas ornaments and fly-fishing reels. Hanging from the ceiling is his accordion collection. In shelves on the walls are transistor and plastic radios, alarm clocks, 1950’s cameras, colored and silvered glass juicers, silvered glass bottles from Venice, doll-house furniture, toy cars and some with house trailers, and ceramic dog collections. It is quite a place. It is also about food, and we found it expensive. Two sandwiches and a bowl of chowder were $38. It was a convenient location for lunch before we went on to see the Space Needle.

Cozy and yummy! This small restaurant has a very unique decor. The staff are friendly. The food is delicious and fresh. They have a fun activity worksheet for the kids and a kids menu. They con of this place will be - they take a very long time to get your food and their table knives couldn't cut the meat well. Over all - it's a lovely restaurant, very relaxing and delicious food!