The Local

This place has zero customer service. However, I give the burger a huge star! The frys suck as all the restaurants do around here. The beer list is okay but the wine list is horrible. Local? Not at all give them the cheap stuff! Lame!

The local is a modern eatery with an excellent rotating tap list. There will be something for every category of beer drinker which is always nice.
After a few visits I find myself somewhat underwhelmed by the food and the price tag. Average+ prices, nothing has blown me away yet. Everything either over or under seasoned after three visits. My palate doesn’t agree with what they seem to offer.
Happy hour wings were spicy (a good thing!) but lacking seasoning and took a good half hour to come out when it wasn’t very busy. Also if the happy hour deal is $ 5 for a half pound… The regular price should not be $ 9 a pound.
Will be back for the beer selection and hope I choose something a little more exciting off the menu next time.

Well that was the most delicious thing I’ve eaten in a long time. Pomegranate chicken, curried lentils, and baked coconut rice cake. Absolutely delicious in a sophisticated, soul food kind of way. My husband had the Rueben which is also brag worthy, and their beer selection is always top notch.
This is an understated but worthy dining experience.

Nice local brews on tap, (not brewing right now).but we had the BEST Ruben in a year at least! Very thick corned beef that melted in my mouth, perfectly melted cheese and the marble rye was great. Saurkrout was great too. So often the Ruben is not done right, or done cheaply. Half was almost too much. would go back just for the Ruben.

I don’t always write reviews for places I visit, but I really think this place is great. Went in for lunch at a recommendation by another couple and we were not disappointed. They were very accommodating and the food was great! I think that may have been the best Ruben I have had anywhere, thick cut corned beef that was so tender and flavorful but very well trimmed with no chunks of fat, great sauerkraut and bread. I couldn’t even finish all my fries the sandwich was so big! I will go back for sure!

Trying hard. Good beer, good salad, the wings are gross. The space is coolish. Something is a miss, but I would try it again.

I really like this place… the food is great… the reuben sandwich is my favorite, followed by the curry fish & chips. I have had a couple of burgers here and they were excellent.
The assorted olives appetizer is up there as well as the soups… very tasty all of them.
I have eaten here at least a dozen times, the staff is always friendly and helpful.
Its a great local place with both the food and friendly service done well, totally recommend you give it a try.

Found this resto on Unilocal and I came here with my family on sunday after dentist appointment. Restaurant wasn’t busy when we first went, but we waited long time for food and water. We had to go up to the counter to get some water. Staff was friendly, however service was slow.
Food was good and portion was big enough to share for 4 of us. We got Reuben ($ 13), Chicken Sandwich ($ 12) and Pork Belly Omelette ($ 12) they were delicious and filling. It was so impressive as the sandwiches were big. Food was good overall. However potatoes and fries were salty. They were okay. Also buns were bit hard and burnt.
We enjoyed everything else here though. Would’ve been better if fries were less salty.

When I arrived I was skeptical about the place, so the waitress came and she was VERY attentive, no matter how many times I called her she was always smiling and gave me an outstanding service.
The menu has no many options so I asked for a steak, immediately the lady recommended the steak they have, I am positively surprised about the food quality, it is good and well prepared.
Good place to go.

This is the kind of place where incredibly, nearly everyone at the bar feels as if their backpack deserves a stool as well-​ya know, to buffer yourself from the people that could otherwise sit there, but instead wait for you to free up twice the amount of seats that you should occupy.
This the kind of bar that plays Phantogram, ‘Pumped Up Kicks’ by Foster the People, of Monsters of Men, and then ‘Pumped Up Kicks’ by Foster the People again for a crowd of 28 y.o.s that probably have no problem with that fact. So, ya know.
Went for the fish and chips. Which were soggy, and yet dry. They’d fall apart between plate and mouth. The fries were bottom of the barrel, less potato more ‘fry.”

Addicted to the totally unique vibe of the Local. INSANELY cool rotating on tap, and a menu sent straight from heaven. Vegetarian/​Gluten/​Dairy free options TOTALLY available (can we talk about their pickled veggies and FRIES WITH THE MANGO SAUCE??!) and my selling point– wine so delicious that I’ll pay $ 8/​glass for it. (Ask for the staff favorite Lemburger (sp?) red wine, it will blow your mind.) Their Rueben is out of this world, according to my man and his Rueben-​centric pallet. On Railroad, so parking is everywhere and you can walk to nearly any other food/​bevs you might desire afterwards. A touch on the spendy side, but if you go for appetizers and drinks, you can make a good feast out of the event! For the kind of establishment The Local is, it has to take a 5 star rank. Yum. Also? The bartenders are freaking incredible. Friendly, fast, open to letting you have a taste of something, attentive and very downtown Bellingham level rad.

De-​lish!!! I had Chicken Schwarma and hubby had the Reuben. Both were good but the Reuben was worth the drive up.

Great new spot for Bellingham. Small but mighty menu and a wonderful selection of micro-​brews and vino from Washington wineries. Service was great and on a Saturday night the restaurant was buzzing but not over-​packed. Highly recommend for dinner! The charcuterie board is a great spread and the burger is a must!

My husband and I stopped at this location for lunch on the way back from Vancouver traveling to Seattle. A limited number of individuals within the restaurant didn’t stop the quality of service and food we received here.
First, they have an enormous selection of local brews. If you can’t make up your mind, they do a taster flight of 6 beers of your choice, 4oz each. When you choose this they bring you a dry-​erase paper where you write down the number of the «taps» you want to try and then you can refer to this as you taste the beers – genius and easy to remember what you chose.
We only tried one item off their menu (the reuben sandwich), but it was delicious! If we lived closer we would go back for more. The abundance of meat on this sandwich was unheard of, and the fries were fresh cut and seasoned beautifully. The sandwich (about 10 dollars) was more than each of us could finish and was enough for a few meals.
We went on our way happy and with full stomachs!

Oh my goodness you have to have the poutine at this place, the best I’ve found in Bellingham so far! It has a rich creamy mushroom gravy over it that is beyond luxurious! To balance out the healthy component after all that gravy there is pickled that are a nice little sharing appetizer. My husband and his friend rave about the Rubens ! From the looks of them they are packed with meat! Local is a great place to take beer lovers as well, although I will say that they have ciders on tap too. The atmosphere is a little rustic yet still gives a warm ambience.

First visit to this delicous local restaurant, and will be going back! The atmosphere was nice, casual with mellow music on in the background to create a nice ambiance. The service was exceptional and the staff was knowledgeable regarding their products.
The first thing we had was a house brewed summer wheat, light, crisp and refreshing would recommend to anyone! Followed with poutine, as expected hearty and delicious! Finally for the main course I had the autumn burger, which might be the best I’ve ever eaten and this is after going to places like lunchbox laboratory and red mill! The fish and chips are also exceptional!
I can’t recommend this place enough!

Wow, this place snuck up on us without a doubt. Even talking to people all the time about where to find interesting beers, I had not heard of this place. Or maybe I had, and the name just didn’t stick, for whatever reason? Anyway, thanks to online beer media pointing me in the direction of little places that serve scarce kegs, here we ended up.
They’re in a nice-​looking section of blocks on Railroad Avenue, with cool medians giving it the feel of an old-​school small-​town business district, which it has probably always been. It’s just bustling more now than it used to – or maybe out-​of-​towners like me are just coming to find it now, finally. There’s plenty of angle-​in parking, and a crazy mishmash of different businesses all shoulder to shoulder in here. They’ve made the space feel new, clean, and bright, but you’re still coming in through that vintage flimsy metal door that tells you it’s 1950s construction. Adds to the charm IMO, though the window seats might feel a bit drafty in the dead of winter for some folk. They felt bright and airy this weekend, though.
There’s a long bar to the right, and a long row of banquette tables to the left. Plenty of movement and air to the room, though it’s a long narrow shoebox. You go back past the bar, and there’s a small beer cooler in an alcove, some unisex bathrooms, and then past all that there’s a bustling kitchen on the other side.
The staff are young, and know what they need to know to serve the beer they serve. They’re pouring beer in proper glassware, custom-​labelled for the bar. They have about 16 beers on tap and a couple dozen more in bottles and cans. They have ciders, gluten-​free options, plenty of sours, and a heavy focus on very local stuff. Probably 90% of their lineup comes from NW Washington state; even getting down to the Seattle area stretches the geographical range a bit.
The menu looks incredibly promising, especially the dinner stuff, and the prices seem fair. Just about every dish had some cool twist to it, and every twist seemed ludic and thoughtfully added, not just weird showy changes designed to catch your eye or anything like that. We weren’t eating at that point in the day, but just reading about the food was enough to plan a return visit sometime soon.
Overall, the vibe here is pretty close to a bistro, as beer bars go. It’s definitely a beer bar, but the light airy space and the ambitious menu make it feel as much like a place for a light casual meal as anything beery. That’s how far the reach of the beer world is now; even in a smaller town, a good way to stand out is to build a really serious kitchen and virtually erase any trace of watering hole from the ambiance. As a beer nerd, you hardly notice anymore, either – there’s great beer everywhere now. We came in so we could get our hands on beers from a very small Bham brewery that pours here, just to try them, and ended up staying for hours and planning a return trip. Can’t wait to be back.

Meh.
Great service was the real saver here, as well as cell phone chargers. Place was pretty packed with the pre-​season game + power being out. We got a sampler and I enjoyed the fact that we could select our beers. However, their beer selection was pretty standard & nothing really exciting or brand new (to us beer snobs).
We tried the pickled vegetables & they were terrible. Tasted like herring pickled in white wine + farts. We couldn’t even leave it on our table.
Loved all the cribbage boards.

I’m in between 3 and 4 stars, but because my expectations from what I had heard were so high, I have to lower down to 3 stars.
Pros?
–Hangar steak was cooked just right, and nicely seasoned
–Beautiful presentation of the foods
–Large beer selection that rotates
–The fish and chips was overcooked the first time (by a lot) and the server had the kitchen make a second round (which was cooked just right)
Cons?
–On the pricey side
–Service was good, but not particularly patient or friendly
–Everything seemed a bit over salted

Loved it!
We went here for Sunday brunch and had a great experience. Our server was exceptional, one of the best we’ve ever had. She was personable, articulate, showed genuine interest and was attentive.
I ordered their two egg breakfast and a waffle (I was especially hungry). While there was nothing special about the presentation, everything was cooked perfectly. Seriously, it’s like they read my mind on how I liked each item prepared. I’m not sure what it was, but I found their home fries particularly delicious. So much so, that I started in on the SO’s when mine were gone. When her’s were gone, her son’s became fair game.
Needless to say, I gorged myself on one of the best restaurant breakfasts I’ve ever had.
If you’re in Bellingham, do yourself a favor and try this place out.