Half Shell

"Last year, famed restaurateur Tom Douglas recently turned Etta’s Big Mountain BBQ into an old-school steak-and-oysters joint. The most notable thing here is the happy hour menu: From 3 to 6 p.m. oysters are $2 and maybe more importantly the burger, $27 on the unhappy hour menu, is just $15. This is a grown-up burger too, not a “smash” burger, an impressive patty of juicy meat with the regular burger fixings plus some tartar sauce for a dose of tartness." - Harry Cheadle

"Famed restaurateur Tom Douglas recently turned Etta’s Big Mountain BBQ into an old-school steak-and-oysters joint and it’s coming out of the gate with incredible happy hour specials. From 3 to 6 p.m. oysters are $2 and maybe more importantly the burger is just $15. This is a grown-up burger too, not a “smash” burger, an impressive patty of juicy meat with the regular burger fixings plus some tartar sauce for a dose of tartness." - Harry Cheadle

"After a brief post-quarantine barbecue detour, Tom Douglas returned the former Etta’s space to its seafood roots, with a rotating slate of featured local oyster farms and a variety of fish preparations. Coho salmon with hazelnut romesco is distinctly PNW, the smoked black cod with fennel jam and sour cream evokes smorrebrod, and white sturgeon caviar service is classic high-roller fare. If you’re thinking, “Caviar? In this economy?!” then try the happy hour fried oyster slider, a delicately battered, flash-fried Hama Hama served with a swoop of bright remoulade on a house-baked pull-apart roll. It sounds simple, but it’s a sleeper hit." - Mark DeJoy

"At around the same time Oyster Cellar was opening, Tom Douglas Restaurants was bringing its Pike Place Market-adjacent Etta’s Big Mountain BBQ back to its seafood roots. Instead of returning the name to Etta’s Seafood, though, the company chose the oyster-evoking name Half Shell. Similarly to McGill, Douglas and chef/managing partner Eric Tanaka found inspiration in the oyster tradition of the eastern United States." - Mark DeJoy

"Surprise: a raw bar and seafood restaurant has opened at Pike Place. Double surprise: it’s another Tom Douglas venture. This spot replacing Etta’s Big Mountain BBQ has dishes like a $95 seafood tower, manila clam toast, and a very thick grass fed cheeseburger—because what's a TD place without one? " - kayla sager riley, aimee rizzo