Highliner Public House

This place will change your idea of what a pub can be. The current owners have made this into my favorite neighborhood spot for several reasons.
Always clean, nice bathrooms, great location, free parking, family friendly, reasonably priced and nice interior with lots of large windows and a patio.
18 tap lineup is sure to please and includes 2 ciders.
Many televisions for sports watching and sound volume is moderate and comfortable, so it’s not an in-​your-​face obnoxious bar scene.
Food is very fresh, dishes are artisan quality and not just limited to burgers and fried things. Generous portions and consistently delicious.
Fresh seafood that is AFFORDABLE enough to go here more than once a week.
Family friendly dining room means you’ll see kids on occasion but thankfully the ones in this area are well-​behaved and the acoustics are good enough that you aren’t bothered by the sounds of everyone around you.
Be patient with your service staff because they staff lean but are efficiently attentive. Just know what you want when they come to you and be respectful of the limited time they have when the place is full.
Free Wi-​fi

I want to liken this place badly, but the food is so inconsistent and sometimes just down right weird.
My service has always been really good, even when the place is packed for Seahawk games. It’s really casual service, but it is a pub after all.
On to the food.
Ceviche –At fisherman’s terminal seems like a good idea, but maybe the chef should taste good ceviche before deciding on a recipe? It claims to be peruvian, but I missed the connection in what I ordered. The plantain chips were great, but the chewy fish and frozen corn was not. I saw that it came with corn and I was thinking crispy Cuzco, but got what appered to be frozen corn and large chunks of raw carrot. I love a properly marinated escabeche of carrots, but that’s not even close to what I got.
Fried oysters– were lightly breaded with cornmeal and properly cooked but really greasy and the batter seemed dark liken the oil was old.
Cobb Salad– It had celery and wilted large pieces of green leaf lettuce ?
Wings– It was like they were boiled unil the chicken was falling off the bone and dry, then refried. While the skin was crispy, the weird mushy texture was not my thing. Also they had some weird syrupy balsamic reduction at the bottom of the ranch. At first I thought it was bad then realized it was intentional and decided was just a bad idea not spoiled.
The Reuben– Classic, can’t mess it up right? Wrong.
I was really excited because the menu said they made their own and it was either ale, or cider braised, I can’t remember, but it had a sickly sweet taste that I could not get past.
Like I said, I desperately want to like this place, because it’s close and in the neighborhood, but the food will definitely keep me away when I’m looking to grab some food with my drinks. For a burger, or fish and chips they are probably ok, but my family has forbid me from suggesting this place for dinner anymore because of the past experiences with food.
Just drinks, this is your place, dinner I would skip.

I can’t believe I wasn’t aware of this gem, located in the Fisherman’s Terminal. A wonderful homey, sea-​accentuated environment; family friendly but with great food. Grilled salmon and chips was excellent, some of the best I have had in the city. Good rotating beer selection on tap, including some more obscure ones. Highly recommended as a casual spot with high quality food, beer and ambience.

This place rocks. Great dockside ambience. Fresh local beers. Great service. Fish tacos, shrimp cocktail, and the Nachos are to die for and reasonably priced.

Stopped here for lunch and a beer. Great clean and airy atmosphere. Pub style food. I had clam chowder which has a unique fresh flavor. Great selection of local pacific Northwest brews. Nice friendly service

Had the salmon special. Delicious, fresh salmon pan-​seared in a blackening spice that tasted almost like curry powder, roasted beets, greens, squash, and finished off with a Brown butter sauce. This dish was perfect and definitely not what I was expecting out of this place. I’ll be back! Thanks.

The food was good and I had the mac n cheese with pulled pork. This place gets a boost mainly because of the excellent service received. Food is on par for a public house.
Atmosphere is good but it isn’t on the water. TVs are bountiful but limited to just under 40″. While they host all Seattle games, it doesn’t exactly exude the idea of my place to go for a football game.
All said a good place for lunch.

Stumbled upon this place by chance on a Sunday for lunch. The place was mostly empty. Their mimosas are only $ 5 on Sundays which is a pretty good deal. Decided on the BBQ pulled pork and mac and cheese. The dish comes with corn bread and cole slaw. The BBQ pork was really good, but the mac and cheese was just ok. I kept thinking I was eating yesterday’s reheated left overs. The service was wonderful though. Very friendly and attentive staff.

I’m a big fan of The Highliner Public House. The staff is great and it’s been a pleasure having them host all of us Buffalo Bills fans on Sundays. It’s obvious that the staff are Seahawks fans, so they shouldn’t lose any local street credibility, but they are all nice folks who are willing to accommodate some delightfully sad fans who root for a non-​Seattle team. The food is good and the place is clean. Boston, Miami, and New Jersey all stink but I doubt that that has anything to do with The Highliner.

I’m going to really go out on a limb here and give a pub five stars. Those of you who follow my reviews know I’m not easy, and I hope I’m not going easy on these guys, but I think if I gave them four just because they weren’t fancy, I wouldn’t be fair.
THE ROSES: Located at Fisherman’s Terminal, Highliner Public House is part of a surprisingly broad spectrum of eateries at a Port of Seattle property (it is truly a wonder why they don’t have this kind of selection at Shilshole!). HPH is the ‘pub’ end of the spectrum, but for a pub who’s clientele includes the fishermen who call Fisherman’s Terminal their homeport, this is definitely NOT the seedy dive you’d expect a working mariner’s bar to be. HPH has delightful atmosphere, is open and airy, yet has the maritime air about it you’d expect. HPH boasts a very nice selection of local microbrews at very good prices. For a ‘fishermans’ pub’, the kitchen is amazing! The menu features a broad selection of appetizers, sandwiches, burgers, and entrée specials, all at surprisingly good prices. My BBQ burger was done to perfection; juicy and flavorful, topped with an onion ring, and served with a right-​sized pile of delicately fried shoestring fries that were expertly seasoned and garnished with a little cheese. Granted, a lot of their raw materials probably came of the SYSCO truck, but they execute with this stuff extremely well. Service, while not ‘warm & fuzzy’, is very competent. The whole place is very clean, especially the bathrooms (not easy for a pub, where you don’t buy beer, you rent it).
THE THORNS: None.
THE VERDICT: This place is a real ‘under-​the-​radar’ sleeper of an establishment! It’s like a Disneyfied version of a ‘waterfront dive bar’ that provides a great selection of beers and very well-​executed foods for the discriminating palate, but priced to be easy on the working mariner’s wallet.
WHY FIVE STARS? YOU GAVE FIVE STARS TO CANLIS, AND THIS ISN’T CANLIS! True, but we’re talking apples and oranges here. In its particular niche (pubs that serve food), HPH isn’t a cut, it’s several cuts above the norm; quite possibly the best in its category, hence the 5-​star rating.
I heartily recommend this place!

We have been regular customers at the Highliner for a couple of years now, we don’t drink so mostly go for the food and the staff. The kitchen has always been hit or miss, you never know if the fish will be over cooked or really good. It’s a crap shoot. But you could always count on a good burger, until now. My husband wants his burger medium well, unfortunately the people working in the kitchen now have no idea how to cook a burger medium well. Last time we ordered burgers we got two very rare cheeseburgers, we were told the cook was new and got slammed. (They just scraped the cheese off my burger and sent it back to me.) This time his medium well came to the table as barely medium (all pink throughout) when he sent it back they argued with him on whether or not the burger was medium well (it was really pink, it was pinker than my medium burger). They claimed that was medium well. The server actually brought the burger back to the table and argued about it. There was no yelling on our part or bad language, but my husband was a bit annoyed at being lectured at by the server on what constitutes medium well. (which by the way is a burger cooked with little to no pink, they should google it.) Just cook it more, don’t come out and argue with the customer over how they want to eat their burger, right? I grew up in restaurants, worked in them from age 12 (parents owned several) so I was a bit surprised about how the burger incident was handled by the staff, usually the staff is very nice, very professional, this server was new and a bit arrogant.
Then the owner (turns out he’s a real piece of work) gets all upset about being told the burger wasn’t right and tells my husband to never come back. That sending back the burger infected the other tables around us (infected???) and we should go abuse some other place. This happened while my husband was paying the check up at the bar, after I had finished my burger, so something like 20 minutes later. Since he hadn’t had a chance to insult me yet, he made a point of coming to our table and doing just that, me who had eaten my burger, hadn’t said boo to anyone and he made a point of getting in my face too. He was a total jerk, so not going back will not be a hardship. The thought of giving that _​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​guy any more of our money is more than enough of a deterrent. I’m sure he won’t care about this review, he seems like the kind of person that doesn’t give a crap how he treats his customers as long as he gets their money.

This past Sunday 10/​11/​2015 I stopped at the Highliner late afternoon for a bite to eat. I asked for seating where I could plug in my cell while I was eating, as it was about dead. The pleasant guy at the door complied and directed me to a window table with a plug near it. (much appreciated)
A female server seated me at a dirty table with a drink and food menu and never came back. A gentleman at a table to my right had been there before me. He finished looking over his menu, looked around, and left. I don’t know if he decided to eat elsewhere or if no one came to get his order.
After about 10 minutes the bartender came by and asked if I’d been helped. I said no, and gave her my order. Someone else brought me the half order of nachos when it was ready. He set it politely on the table and asked if I needed anything else. I asked if I could please have a napkin and some eating utensils. I end up needing a fork or something because if nachos are sloppy I want to get all the goodies onto my chips. Once he returned with them I was good to go.
I loved the nachos. The pear cider was wonderful. The service, except for the bartender who first helped me sucked. There were other tables but it wasn’t busy. I don’t require very much but a smile is free. I don’t think any of them, other than the guy who delivered my food, smiled the whole time.
I watched the employees while I was eating. They all looked tired or bored to death. Not conducive to a pleasant dining experience for any customer who happens to notice.

Went here on my birthday and with my son. The food was pretty good. We had clams as an appitizer and I wish the bus boy would have let us enjoy them a little more. He was polite as he knocked knocked my fork out of my hand while grabbing the dishes off the table — saying may I take your plates after the fact.
I love beer but sometimes it is excessive, so I had a little wine. The red accompanied the seafood well but I had to fish 3 fruit flies out it. Trying not to think how many were imbibed.
This probably would have worked a lot better if I was more of a beef and beer person. There are several local options that I have injoyed more and will go to those places in the future.

Nice bar, loads of beer on tap. Their food is really great and prices are ok. They have an outdoor area and I think dogs are welcome.
The ale house fries are tasty. The chicken guacamole burger is amazing. Staff are cool are there a few TV screens dotted around.
Happy hour is 4 – 6 every day.

Summary:
Quality food, lacking in the rest.
Food:
Had the avocado chicken burger with pickled onions. Quite tasty. Fries (shoestring style) were good too.
Service:
Poor. I was there for 2 hours (watching the Sounders game which they turned on for me so I appreciate that). In that time, they never once refilled my water glass. 20 minutes into the game before they came for my order (about ~10 other people in the restaurant). Never asked if I needed/​wanted anything else.
Value:
Higher than comparable restaurants. More than I should have paid for what I got (it’s what I wanted though so got it anyway). The fish and chips looked a decent price though.
Location:
Open view of the water, easy parking, not likely you’ll be «in the neighborhood» though.
Comments:
Not a good place for TV watching or for not TV watching either. All the TVs (~7) had bad glare so hard to watch on, but not a single seat inside that isn’t facing a tv. They do have a decent outdoor seating area but it faces the parking lot instead of the water.

My favorite neighborhood pub. Highlander offers 15 pulls of thoughtfully chosen beer (mostly local) with 3 dedicated to wine. Plus several cans including ciders. They don’t serve spirits which probably helps aid to the peaceful/​relaxed atmosphere.
The happy hour menu is excellent with 6 for $ 6.00 options to choose from while the dinner and dessert menus offer interesting selections such as the seafood pot pie or Mac and cheese pulled pork combo.
Several large screen TVs are always set to whatever game is playing and kids are welcome.

Seeing as we called ahead for a 30 group engagement party, I was thoroughly impressed with the courteous and prompt service by this establishment. There were pitchers of beer as well as bottles of wine and the waitress and waiters were able to keep track of everything. The meatloaf sandwich was soooo good. Savory and the bbq sauce was a nice touch. The blueberry cobbler was nice and warm and served a la mode, just as it should be. Definitely want to check this place out for hh.

Always walked by this place on my
Way to Bay Café, finally stopped in for lunch. Disappointed to see there wasn’t a full bar, but they have a lengthy list of beers and some wines. Tried their salmon sandwich and subbed a ceasar salad for the fries. The sandwich was good but I would probably get the aioli sauce on the side next time, they put a ton and it was a big mess. The ceasar dressing was just how I like it, lots of Parmesan with a strong anchovy flavor! Yum! They’ve got outdoor seating, nice view of fisherman’s terminal, and lots of parking all around. They’ve got a happy hour menu that’s available everyday starting at 4. Will be back again to try their other menu items, and definitely for HH.

I love this place! After REALLY hating the bar we had previously gone to for football games, our group of dedicated Bills fans found Highliner and came here for the most recent season.
Let me start by saying that any establishment that wants to put up with a bunch of drunk and disgruntled (read: the bills always lose) fans on a regular basis is a fine establishment in my book. We always felt welcomed here, and towards the end of the season they started doing more raffles and whatnot which was fun! Some weeks there would only be 10 – 15 of us (aka when the bills are losing) and some weeks we filled the whole place. They were able to pleasantly accommodate us no matter the size.
I love that they have beer and food specials! All of the food we tried throughout the season was great. They even made special food for my boyfriend who is so annoying and could never decide if he wanted steak nachos or chili… so they would combine it and give him both, leaving him a happy camper. Especially for the location I think it’s moderately priced. You can get pitchers of craft beer for under $ 20 which is better than I’m used to seeing other places.
Great food, great beer selection, great staff, and reasonably priced. Check this place out!

*STILL THE BEST DAMN WINGS IN SEATTLE. Hands down.
*Had the fish tacos too and they were good
*Wish they had wing night still, PLEASE bring back wing night