5th Street Bistro

Really happy sharing the Crab Mac n Cheese and the large House salad. Just right on a rainy day before getting in the ferry line.

Fantastic lunch spot. Beautiful, bright dining room. Dungeness Mac & Cheese is superlative.

Great Happy Hour! Excellent calamari, lime shrimp, steamed clams and a seasonal salad. All reasonably priced! Wait staff was excellent and attentive

Waited an hour for breakfast even though there was only three other groups of people in the restaurant. The waiter was distracted and talking about his english accent with guests. He gave that table most attention. He didnt even take our order until 30 min after he sat us down and took orders from the two tables who arrived after us before taking our order. The salmon eggs benedict was a disgrace. The salmon was dry and flavorless. The worst part was the poached eggs were completely overcooked and appeared boiled. The steak and eggs meal my husband got was pretty good but the steak was barely luke warm and tasted like bbq.

The food here at the hotel restaurant is excellent (I had my wedding at this hotel in 2013 and the food was stellar) but the best part of 5^th street bistro is their late-​night happy hour from 9 – 12 in the bar… Drinks are a dollar off and they have fantastic food for very reasonable prices! Garlic fries, cod bites, calamari, veggie wrap, burger, hummus plate, etc. and it’s all from $ 4 – 8.

We’ve been here the whole weekend and finally stopped in for drinks and desserts: Chocolate Bombe and Crème Brule. Both were amazing and my Naughty schoolgirl drink should have been a dessert too. Heavenly even though it was touted as sinful. Excellent service and nice intimate atmosphere.

Stood in front of the bar with credit card in hand. Smiled and greeted the staff. Just wanted one drink. Not one person behind the bar even acknowledged me. They seem to have went out of their way to ignore me.
So…we took our money elsewhere…

Scallops were excellent as was hummus plate. Stuffed mushrooms were also very good. You’ll be well taken care of if Sean O’Bannon is your server. He did an excellent high class job. I would avoid the veggie wrap, it was mostly lettuce. Happy hour prices (until 6:30pm) are very reasonable

The best clam chowder ever. Each bowl is made from scratch. Chunks of thick cut bacon in fresh cream. The clams come in shell. Super delicious. The garden salad was citrus fresh. Knowledgable staff-​good service. One of the top 5 best places to eat in Anacortes.

It was suggested that we come in for drinks when Stacia was working. She was amazing. The craft cocktails were amazing! We will be back!

Decent food, well meaning, but poorly trainer wait staff.
The filet mongo was overdone and the pork NY was underdone. Inspire of that the food was pretty good. The staff tried hard, but just does not know how to deliver professional service. This is a training issue, not a staff issue.

We really enjoy that the menu provides a great deal of variety, yet isn’t lengthy. Their 3 course meal for 2 of $ 24 is fabulous and the food is consistently great! The new addition and upgrades really bring this facility to a major winner for Anacortes! Excellent wine list. The only reason I didn’t give it 5 stars is the room is small and can be loud when there are a few tables. We are fans!

Again, 5 stars! No doubt one of the best places in Anacortes.
My wife and I spent a wonderful evening at the Majestic Inn the weekend AFTER Valentine’s Day weekend. (Yeah, we either celebrate early or late, never on the actual day, since crowds are ridiculous and service is strained everywhere.)
We had dinner at the 5^th Street Bistro. As I’ve written before, it was awesome! Everything was excellent. We shared an order of the garlic fries, which were the perfect balance of flavors. Not like some places where they just dump garlic all over the fries at the end. My wife commented that, «These were the best fries I’ve ever tasted. Nothing needs to be added to them. Perfectly spiced.»
I had the Blackened Cod Bites, and they were so good that we came back on Sunday and I ordered them again! My wife stuck with her staple at the 5^th Street Bistro, which is their amazing Mac n Cheese.
I also ordered the Salmon spread, but it was the Blackened Cod that really made my weekend. The spread was really good, but I’m telling you — get the Cod!
We shared the Chocolate Molten Lava cake, which was superb. Really, we haven’t ordered one item at the 5^th Street Bistro that we didn’t thoroughly enjoy.
Now, the service. It’s astounding what a difference crossing a street can make. What do I mean, you ask? Samantha at the 5^th Street Bistro was great. Personable, attentive, knowledgable. She was a great server. Not once did we have to ask for a water refill, another glass of wine, etc. She was on top of it! And when we returned on Sunday (yes, it’s that good), Camas was just as good. A really nice guy. The service at 5^th Street continues to impress us.
But if you cross the street and head over to the Brown Lantern, you’ll see what I mean about service. The service there is horrible!
We’ll be making more trips to Anacortes, and the 5^th Street Bistro will always be on our agenda.

We ate here for breakfast in 2÷13÷15. There was only us and another table and one server waited on us both. He was very attentive and checked on us several times which was nice — that means fresh coffee! :) Great service, delicious food (the potatoes were to die for) and the coffee was really good! We will definitely eat breakfast here again on our next visit to Anacortes

Got into Anacortes 7:30PM Sunday night. Our usual haunts were closed. What to do?
Almost went to Frieda’s but thought we might as well try the Majestic, hadn’t been in years.
We weren’t expecting much but were VERY pleasantly surprised.
The food is GREAT. We’ve been in the food and beverage/​hospitality business for 35 years and I can recommend it with out reservation.
I had the pork tenderloin with mashed potatoes, broccoli and an apple chutney.
She had a PAPPARDELLE with sausage. Desert was molten chocolate lava with coffee ice cream and our server brewed us a fresh pot of decaf.
Can’t say enough good things about it.
We’ll be back.

We’ve lived in the Skagit valley for over 5 years, and it took me until today to finally find a good eggs Benedict in Skagit County. These were not the BEST I’ve ever had, but they probably make the top 5. The crux is the hollandaise sauce, which was outstanding. My wife went out on a limb and tried the Crab Cake Benedict. We both agreed on the hollandaise, and that the cakes are better left on their own.

Went here for small bites with the girls. Yummy stuff. We had the blackened cod bites, stuffed mushrooms & ribs. Excellent happy hour prices. Was nice that it wasn’t to loud. Great place.

I came here on a Fall Saturday afternoon with a group of friends. The Bistro/​Pub was closed until 4 (we arrived at 3:30) but they served us anyway. The staff was cheerful and friendly.
The Bistro has two locations, one on the main floor of the historic Majestic building and one on the top of the newer building just north of the Majestic. We’d hoped to sit outside at the rooftop Bistro, but with temps around 50 and a cool breeze blowing, we thought better of it. In spite of lots of heaters and a very cool table fire feature.
We all enjoyed clam chowder (with real clam shells for proof!) It was rich, creamy, made with nice chucks of potato. In the end, the clam shells were more trouble than they were worth (how to get the creamy goodness out without making a fool of oneself).
I also had a hot Baileys coffee cocktail, very nice.
All in all it seems like a nice, upscale bistro with good service and good food.

I RARELY give one star reviews. I don’t like to do it, because it means I had a really bad experience. Sadly, this was the case at this restaurant, and as a guest of the hotel who LOVED my stay, it really is very sad.
We stopped in for drinks at the bar earlier in the day, and chatted with the bartender, Jeff, for a while. He was really nice, and we ended up perusing the dinner menu and talking to him about it. He got us really excited to come back and try the prawns and the crème brûlée. We also realized that the menu offered three courses for two for $ 30. For about 5 minutes I thought it was $ 30 per person and was pretty happy to come back, but THEN i realized it was for TWO PEOPLE and I was shocked, and SUPER excited to come back.
We headed down from our room for dinner at about 7:30pm and the place was pretty busy. We got a table and our menus, and were quickly paid a visit by our server. She wasn’t the friendliest person and seemed like she just wanted to go about her job and get it over with, but she wasn’t a bad server in any respect.
We both ordered their house salad, bf ordered the steak with mushrooms, and I ordered the prawns… or, well, I tried to. They were out of them. They were out of a main entrée dish at 7:30pm. HOW DOES THAT HAPPEN? I asked if I could get the scallops on the prixe fixe instead, and she went to check. They said yes, but that they’d have to charge me $ 2 extra. Really? You don’t HAVE to charge me that. You’re out of the dish that was basically the reason we came here for dinner, and you’re going to charge me more for ordering my second choice. Awesome. (Of note, later in the evening I watched another server wait for a couple to order the prawns before telling them they’d ran out. This is f’ing terrible service.)
Oh, and then we made our dessert choices — I got the strawberry angel food cake, and my boyfriend ordered the vanilla crème brûlée. Or, at least, he tried to. She said (again telling us AFTER we order, not before) that they only had one left and she would have to check. We requested — okay do that now please! (though kindly, not in a demanding tone).
A while later she brought over our salads, and told us that the crème brûlée was gone. #1 — HOW DO YOU RUN OUT OF CREME BRULEE AT 7:30pm??? #2 — Why didn’t she come tell us after we ordered it, instead of waiting? What if — since they were out of the TWO reasons we came for dinner — we didn’t want to stay? She didn’t give us that option.
The house salad had a maple vinaigrette, spiced pecans, cranberries and cheese. We got it, and I could have sworn something was missing. I didn’t really think about it though, and we started eating (we were hungry). The salad was SWIMMING in fake-​tasting mapley dressing. Like, dripping it. It was gross. But, I was hungry, so I kept eating, and began to really notice the lack of something. I couldn’t find our server so I popped over to the menu stack and was quickly reminded that our salads were supposed to come with pecans. A different server saw me looking and asked if she could help me, so I mentioned our salads were missing the nuts and she had our waitress bring over a little dish of them. She was apologetic, and the nuts were boring, but they helped.
She then brought our entrees. Mine — scallops with rice pilaf and asparagus. The scallops were fine. A little tough around the edges and not superior flavor, but they were fine. The rice pilaf was NOT rice pilaf — it was a bed of jasmine rice, with absolutely no flavor, and nothing else. The asparagus was disgusting. Terribly undercooked, slathered with oil, and entirely lacking salt. I ate the scallops and left everything else on my plate. My boyfriend got the steak with mushroom sauce and garlic mashed potatoes and asparagus. The asparagus was the same as mine — gross. The garlic mashed potatoes must have had NO garlic in it, and a pound of butter instead. All we could taste was butter. The steak — oh man, the steak. It was cooked fine, but that’s all I can say in the positive category. It clearly took a bath in montreal steak seasoning before getting cooked, and had no mushroom flavor whatsoever. There was about a tablespoon of finely chopped mushroom on top of it, but a sauce was nowhere in sight.
I’m running out of room here, so I’ll cut to the chase with dessert. We both got the strawberry angel food cake (which our server called strawberry shortcake), and it was in no way, shape, or form angel food cake. I’m a baker, and I know what angel food cake is. This cake was not it. I don’t know whether they made it in house, or bought it at the store, but the latter would be better I think because if it was the former it means the chef has NO CLUE what angel food cake actually is. It was tasty, don’t get me wrong, but to blatantly misrepresent something you’re serving is absolutely awful.
Short story long, do not waste your time and money. This food is awful.

The 5^th Street Bistro is located in The Majestic Inn and Spa in Anacortes and is a restaurant /​bar that is open for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
I have been a regular at this establishment for the past fifteen months and I have probably been one of the most frequent visitors during this time. Therefore I believe my review is fair and just and reflects the changing nature of the restaurant.
When I first started visiting the 5^th Street Bistro (March 2012) its menu was varied with plenty of choices for one and all. The Happy Hour was exceptional, the wine list adequate, and the main menu diverse. The bar and restaurant were also staffed with happy and skilled servers.
Wind forward fifteen months (June 2013) and there has been an almost 100% change in everything. The bar and wait staff has seen nearly everybody replaced (left to seek pastures new). Now that in itself is not necessarily bad, but in a small town like Anacortes where most places still employ the same staff as last year, it is most unusual and there has to be an underlying reason for it. Then there is the chef. In the fifteen months I have been there, the 5^th Street Bistro is on its third chef. Enough said about staffing.
So, onto the food. There was a time about six months ago when I despaired of the menu. Suddenly it went from being a nice northwestern-​themed hotel menu to a southern-​based ‘grits-​insprired’ offering. The Happy Hour became an Unhappy Hour, with everything suddenly going up drastically in price (with the hours shortened to boot). The 5^th Street Bistro was pricing itself out of the market and also offering food that the local clientele did not want. Unfortunately this also came at a time when the restaurant was undergoing a complete redecoration and was closed /​relocated for almost three weeks. Business suffered and something obviously had to be done.
Recently a new chef has been hired and the Happy Hour menu has been reworked. Prices have been lowered slightly and new items added. A few of the older, original, items have also been added back. I am told the main menu is also due for a complete overhaul along the same lines.
So what about quality? The 5^th Street Bistro suffers because of itself. It is the only restaurant in Anacortes that is open for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and late night Happy Hour. And it does that with few menu changes and a diverse array of kitchen staff who have seen several chefs and cooks come and go. It is no little wonder that the quality of the food from hour to hour and day to day is, at best, inconsistent. I have seen two dishes go out side by side looking completely different even though the customers ordered the same exact thing.
Please simplify! Treat each dining period as a separate event. Make breakfast breakfast and lunch lunch. Change the menu, simplify it, educate the kitchen staff, keep everything consistent. Then for dinner, bring on the A-​Team (oh, and for heaven’s sake get rid of those abysmal ‘home fries’ — they are never cooked correctly, and go cold in two minutes).
Wow! I’m writing a lot and I haven’t even covered half the topics I wanted to. Other suggestions? Employ a dining room manager (or two — one for AM/​early PM and one for late PM) and have them actually run the dining room and bar. Let them make decisions about who gets which tables, ensure sidework gets done, food is to quality, and when servers get phased, etc. Management in this area is sadly lacking. Lastly, change it up a little from time to time — guest beer taps, cocktails of the day, new wines. The list is obvious. Again, a proper manager could make this happen.
I like the 5^th Street Bistro. It’s a friendly place. It serves mostly good food and has mostly good service. But it could be great with just a few minor tweaks. I look forward to the next fifteen months.