Harmon Brewing Co & Restaurant

Spread out over the course of the past few years… I always return. I really like Harmon and I find myself in the area frequently. My server has been epic and my meal top notch.
Vegan selections and mods to please.

Went in on Friday, at 5p, no wait, no line. Beer was good. Food was below average. Ordered bangers and mash, nacho platter, kids burger, and the ribs. The BM was good, the burger was burned and charred, the ribs were dry and flavorless. The nachos had BBQ pork on them, (?). Service was ok, didn’t see our waitress much after food was delivered.

Spinach steak salad is amazing. Cool bar with sports on and good music playing. Will definitely come back to try more food on the menu.

Went in May 1^st, Sunday, with my best friend. Both of us were hungry, but we didn’t realize that until we started eating. I had the Brewer’s Burger, and he had the Turkey Melt.
I personally thought the burger didn’t look as big as it sounded, but changed my mind when I ate the burger halfway. I can eat a lot, but man was I full! Friend said the same. The Kobe beef was great inside the burger, fries were ok.
Will want to order the appetizers next time like the nachos. I kept staring at them because a table next to us were enjoying them so much.
Our server, Herb, was excellent and kind as well. Thank you to him for checking on us and serving.
Mariners lost to the Royals; thought they’d come out with another victory but then they wouldn’t be the Mariners. Lol!

I came here on a Friday night with a few friends. There was no wait and we were seated right away.
I ordered one of their cocktails, — which was pretty cool because of the different coloring in the drink. It was pretty tasty and I could tell they didn’t skimp on the alcohol which was good.
For food, I got one of their sandwiches, the cobb club. The sandwich was huge! It consists of roasted turkey, bacon, lettuce, tomatoes, avocado and gorgonzola cheese with a pickle on the side. I really enjoyed the sandwich, however the turkey was kinda dry. You also had a variety of choices for your side dish like sweet potato fries, garlic fries, tator tots, or regular fries. I got the garlic fries which were tasty, crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside.
Overall, service was great, our waters were filled and we were checked upon during our meal. This is a great spot to unwind and catch up with friends.

Been sitting here after my meal for as least 15 minutes. Server is nowhere to be found. There’s only 2 other tables here, so what could be taking up their time?
The only thing this place has going for it are the fries. Those are good.

Came for lunch/​dinner after marathon. it took forever to get service and another wait for food. The fish n chips were very good. The salads were «ah» and the Cobb sandwich was decent.
Not sure worth the money but ok.

Got a certificate for this place, so wanted to try it out.
Got the happy hour steak nachos-​WHOA. SO MUCH FOOD! The steak was well marinated and the chips were cheesy, but slightly dry-​I used my spicy Bloody Mary in between bites to get a «salsa» flavor. The boyfriend ordered a Tacoma Dome Dip: Similar to a French Dip, but you add cheddar cheese, fried onions and horseradish sauce. He LOOOOVED it. The combo of the horseradish and the sandwich he said was perfect. Also their speciality is their garlic Parmesan fries. Normally I would ask for ranch dressing, but they suggested a black pepper aioli to bring out the flavor of the fries, and it totally worked. Our server, Devin, was super helpful with suggestions and really attentive and nice. He let us know about the daily specials in case we come back-​which we definitely will!

So at this point I think its safe to say that I am kind of done with place. My last trip was not great. It was a Sunday and didnt seem particularly busy, but service was mediocre to bad and the happy hour menu seemed too expensive still. I use to hold a special place in my heart for this place, but no more. There have been a few too many issues for me to really think of this as my bar in Tacoma. Tacoma is full of great bars and great food experiences and this place ranks too low on both.
1. The food is too expensive — I have hit a ton of bars in the Tacoma area and each bar experience varies. There are some bars that have great food for a cheap price (Red Hot, Top of Tacoma, The Forum) There are some bars that have Great food for a more expensive night (McMennimens (not in tac, but soon), Dirty Oscars). Now I love Top of Tacoma, but would never expect to pay Dirty Oscar prices. Harmon’s is just that. High prices, but good food, not that good of food. A dining experience for my wife and I is a lot cheaper at TOT than Harmon’s and I honestly think the quality/​flavor is a bit better. You drop the prices a bit and I have a lot less to complain about.
2. The beer is ok — I dont want to use this a point, but i feel it is necessary. I drink a lot of beer… not as much as I used to and my beer tastes vary quite a bit. I have recently discovered that Tacoma actually has a pretty dope brewery scene. I think out of the 6 tacoma based (gig harbor as well) breweries that I have visited Harmon is at the bottom of the list. Odd otter is just up on the road on the light rail train stop and is smokes anything Harmon’s puts out. Go the opposite direction down So Tac. Way and you hit little brewery called Gig Harbor Brewing. They have 5 beers on tap and they all are better than most of what harmon is putting out. Now dont get me wrong. Their beer is fine… reminds me of a better Ram, but they are just not on par with surrounding breweries. Hell 2 on the light rail track that I know are better.
You know I was going to bring up service, but for the most part the service isnt bad. Out of all my trips I have only had a few issues with the service. Honestly you could even skip the beer paragraph. The biggest issue is the price. I just dont like spending that kind of cash on mediocre. Since I am not a monster I do want to mention if you have a large group I dont know if there is another place that could house a huge party.

After a long day of exploring Tacoma, with our longtime friends and recent Tacoma residents, they suggested dinner at Harmon Brewing. They went on to describe in detail the delicious garlic fries, but they had me at brewery.
We got there and I ordered a stout. It sounded so nice but in retrospect I should have went with a taster. I tend to be impulsive and jump right in with beer. The beer was good, but a little heavy to start with.
Unfortunately everything started to fall apart when we started to order food. I went for the Brewer’s Burger, I despise the use of «Kobe» beef in a burger patty but I always go with the «signature» burger so I can give a place an honest assessment. I excitedly asked for the garlic fries as my side, only to be told that they are out. «Are you out of fries?» I responded. «No just the garlic topping.» She replied. «But it’s 7:30 on a Saturday» I silently protested in my head. I went with regular fries instead. Collective Souls crushed. My buddy ordered the half chicken, and she again ripped our hearts out saying they were out of biscuits. He requested bread instead, also out… She offered onion rings as an alternative and he accepted.
All would have been acceptable if the food was decent. But my burger was overdone to the point of being burnt. If I actually thought it was Kobe beef I would have fainted in my chair. I sloughed down half of it and left the remains in my buddies fridge.
The real nail in the coffin was that we actually got billed the $ 2 up-​charge on the onion rings. Seriously? I could maybe see it in my case, no garlic for the fries probably doesn’t warrant free rings, but my buddy who struck out twice and was then suggested rings? There is no way you should be charging him for that. I know some might be saying «But she just has to punch the order in»! Well she has been breaking garlic loving hearts all night she should be ready to throw some comps out in the name of customer service.

This place was packed for lunch but we found seats at the bar and ordered their 11^th Street IPA, which I loved, and at 8% it may as well have been their double IPA (it wasn’t…we asked). This was a full bodied, hop-​packed IPA with a tinge of citrus and nice, malty backbone.
As we were starving and needing some sustenance for the rest of our day, we had lunch here too. I had the Reuben per the bartender’s recommendation, and it was phenomenal. This was not your average deli pastrami and sauerkraut. Topped off with some onion rings, I felt rejuvenated and ready for more beer drinking. The staff here was great, and even with it being so packed, the bartender chatted with us in the spare moments.
They have a neat «ski» theme going on here. The taster trays are served on mini skis and this must have been a hang out for the locals when they were finished on the slopes. This place has been around for a while and definitely recommend trying it.

GREAT PIZZA! Terrible service, get your pizza to go they have a drive thru.
Drove down from Olympia for an early dinner tonight, arrived around 4PM. Out of the 30 or so tables available to dine at today at least 10x needed to be cleared and cleaned probably from lunch. We were the only ones in the restaurant besides the two employees one of which was taking a nap in a booth. After an hour we were ready to go adding one more dirty table to the total as none were cleaned while we ate.

Is bad service the name of the game with Harmon? Their tap room had one waitress doing all the work. We came here first because we had a groupon for Harmon not realizing it was for the tap room.
We were seated after a short wait and then we proceeded to wait for our waitress. And we waited… And waited. And waited… We sat for probably close to 10 minutes before our waitress finally came over completely unbothered by how long it took her to get there. We ordered food and beer. It was at that point we were told we had the wrong Harmon.
We decided we would stick around anyways because we hard ordered the food and I could cancel the groupon. Well we waited for about another 5 minutes for our beers to come before my friend convinced us that we should just go to the other Harmon.
We had to wait a few more minutes till we could find our waitress (no beers in hand still) and cancel our order. We quickly left.
I’ve had bad service before, but this has to be some of the worst.
¹⁶⁄₁₀₀

$ 70+ for just two people later…
I’m a little bummed.
My boyfriend and I came here to watch a Seahawks game. It was a Sunday and happy hour started at 3pm, but we got there around 1 and sat in the bar.
My boyfriend ordered the frisky burger which had bacon and jalapeños. I ordered their stadium nachos. His burger was $ 11 and my nachos were $ 16 (way overpriced as adding the beef was an additional $ 4). He also ordered an amber ale.
My nachos sucked. The ratio for chips and the other stuff was horrible. They barely had any cheese or tomatoes… Or beef… It looked like a lot on the top, but that was all there was. What a rip off. The frisky burger was okay, minus the overly greasy bun.
Happy hour hit so we ordered the $ 8 wings which was basically Applebee’s wings. Fried straight from the freezer.
I’m still trying to figure out how two people ate/​drank $ 70+ worth of food and drinks. Hah. Overpriced, people.

The menu offers great specials and happy hours depending on the day of the week. Husband had the bangers and mash which we fought over when we came home for left overs! Ambiance is family friendly and the noise level is high which was great with our toddler. They offer crayons and coloring pages for kids. Waiters are nice but a little slow especially when you’re with kids. Had to wait 30 minutes before they brought his snacks which require no preparation as they’re prepackaged. Waited for our credit card and receipt to sign so long that we both actually left thinking the other must have signed it.

Food is good here, as is the beer. If you don’t know what beer you want, the beer sampler (served «a la ski» is the way to go as the tastings are generous! The service I’ve had is kinda blaw and they get wayyyy behind when they get busy. It is sometimes less crowded at the Harmon brew pub that’s about .8 miles away to the west, but if you want a full food menu it’s still worth going here.

We love this IPA: Defiance IPA uses Columbus Centennial hops for bitterness and flavor. Amarillo hops for dry notes. Four types of malted barleys make up to grain bill. 6.1% ABV at 70 IBU. $ 3 pint at Happy Hour 3 – 6 PM — right on! House made thick and crunchy potato chips with dips for a munchie. Menu looks great but the dinner bell rings a little later on for us tourists in Tacoma — seems like a happening area, like back in the PDX homeland! Great location in town across the street from the historic Union Station and Washington State history Museum. Harmon pub must be a historic building as well. Very rustic worn wood floors and brick walls, very cool overall!

Just to note, I’m not a student so I don’t know of a student menu or anything related to UW.
It would have been nice for the wait staff to ask or tell me though instead of me reading it here.
Looks like there is construction from their neighbors at this time which is unfortunate. I remember the restaurant looking much cleaner but the back drop of construction just takes away a lot of the magic the atmosphere had before.
The service was ok overall and the food was what it was as usual. I’m sad that they sold out to the current PNW rave about IPA’s and bitter beers since they replaced my red option with it. If they kept a red beer and added an IPA like many breweries have, it would have been nice.
parking kind of sucks as I struggled to find some near by and ended up parking 2 blocks away in the paid lot. Then entered a half empty establishment.
This place is ok but didn’t shine as much as it did when I first visited a couple of years ago.

Yes! I love a good pub with free peanuts in a self service barrel. It offers a friendly welcoming feel.
Great selection of beers, munchies, entrees.
Service is great each time with friendly attentive staff.
I am excited to see there will be coffee, brekie served here sometime soon with the signs inside advertising its coming.
Inside offers a variety of patrons and is within walking distance from UWT. Parking can be tricky but if you don’t mind walking a few blocks to park on neighboring streets, I would recommend coming.
I really enjoy this location compared to their sister location further south because it offers a pub feel compared to restaurant feel.

This is a solid place for some bar-​type food and a fun atmosphere.
My friends and I came on a Monday night and they had HH from 3-​close and were offering a 3oz. steak and fries for $ 3. We ordered some steaks, their nachos, chicken skewers, an extra basket of fries, some beer and wine and had a really good time.
I wouldn’t say the steak was the best I ever had, but considering the price, I couldn’t complain; it was cooked surprisingly well, which I would think would be hard to do with such small pieces. The fries were delicious — crunchy and golden with a slight batter on the outside — and the beer selection was decent. The nachos weren’t my favorite, though they advertise them as being the best in Tacoma… I’ve definitely had better. But service was quick and friendly.
The tables around us were ordering burgers and they looked juicy and tasty. I’ll have to come back for those.