Hattie's Hat Restaurant

"Ballard easily defeats all other Seattle neighborhoods when it comes to dive bars, and among the Ballard options, Hattie’s Hat is queen regnant. This building has been an operating saloon since 1904, and it takes all kinds at this place—you’ll meet a mix of fresh-faced Gen Zers and grizzled blue-collared dock workers, all congregated around the glorious mahogany bar. Hattie’s serves diner classics like meatloaf and pork ribs, with food available until midnight, and there’s always a weird movie rolling on the VHS player. If you haven’t been to Thursday-night karaoke in the wood-paneled Aunt Harriet’s Room, do you even live in Seattle?" - Meg van Huygen

"A quirky staple of the local bar scene, offering a low-pressure environment to mingle." - Charlie Lahud-Zahner

"Hattie’s is like your cozy but stylish vintage sweater that somehow goes with everything. You can sidle up to the gorgeous mahogany bar and sip Bill Murray cocktails with a date you wanna impress or grab one of the wooden antique booths on the restaurant side and have a casual diner meal with your friends. It’s open for breakfast at 9 a.m. on weekends, so you can nurse a hangover here just as easily as you acquired it. And the crowd spans generations, like all the best bars’ crowds do." - Meg van Huygen, Mark DeJoy, Eater Staff

"You don’t want to test out your Johnny Cash repertoire in a room full of onlookers and their watery vodka sodas, but you don’t want to perform in an empty bar, either. Hattie’s Hat in Ballard is the happy medium. This Ballard diner’s Thursday karaoke nights are energetic enough for a crowd to cheer you on, but not so packed that it’d be humiliating to croak a note in “Ring Of Fire.” You could also simply sit there to eat a chicken-fried steak with no intention of participating in musical activities at all. Speaking of chicken-fried steak, we’d say to come back for weekend brunch, but it’s not great, so you can safely skip that." - aimee rizzo

"The city’s bar scene is filled with dives and cocktail lounges, ensuring there is something for every kind of drinker. There are the historic dives like Sloop Tavern, home to the “slooper-size,” which is 33.8 ounces of beer at a very low price, and Hattie’s Hat, which has been operating since 1904, always has a weird VHS playing, and is crowded with dock workers and college kids alike." - Daniel Modlin