Brickhouse Cafe

Brickhouse Cafe Restaurant Review:

The Brickhouse is a sturdy antidote to the preening nightspots and wine bars situated just north of the baseball stadium, and a few blocks south of downtown's busy thoroughfares. Instead of sleek modern décor and massive mark-ups, this former coffee joint boasts $2 Pabst drafts and a quirky, Swiss Family Robinson-meets-Tudor-style-ski-lodge-in-a-dream-sequence kind of atmosphere: dark-brown wood everywhere, a frond-shrouded loft upstairs, and huge pinecones littering the countertops. There's nothing goofy about the food though. A ledger-size menu reveals some reliable renditions of casual American standards: Anchor Steam-battered fish with fries, a nice burger on a slightly dry roll, and a house-smoked seafood salad with green beans, carrots and watercress. For the salad, owner Fred Reeves catches his own sockeye salmon on annual fishing trips to Alaska. His family's farm in eastern Washington also raises all the beef for the restaurant. Environmentally-conscious diners will be happy to know that the Brickhouse is noted for its "green" practices---including avid composting, biodegradable to-go containers and locally-sourced ingredients whenever possible.