Maria Hines Is Closing Young American Ale House

Maria Hines, the James Beard Award-winning chef who runs Tilth and Agrodolce, tells Eater she plans to close her young Ballard gastropub Young American Ale House at some point in the next few weeks. No exact closing date has been announced yet.

Hines opened the the pub in late October last year as a replacement for her Mediterranean restaurant Golden Beetle. Young American was touted as a “new American gastropub” with draft beer, craft cocktails, and upscale, primarily organic takes on comfort food like poutine, mac and cheese, chicken pot pie, and more.

“As a restaurateur, there’s always a balancing act in weighing one’s passion as a chef with the reality of operating a successful business,” Hines says. “I feel truly fortunate to have so many positive things going on simultaneously. In this juggling act, and after a lot of patience and hard work, I’ve decided to close my dream pub, Young American Ale House, in the next few weeks in Ballard.”

Ultimately, she says, the business just wasn’t cutting it financially. “Restaurant survival on its own is hard enough and adding the debt carried over from Golden Beetle on top of that proved too difficult to overcome,” Hines says. Just yesterday, Miles James told a similar tale when announcing the closure of his Dot’s Butcher and Deli.

Courtesy of Maria Hines

There’s a silver lining to this bad news for fans of Hines’ take on the pub genre: The chef says she will “save this great concept for another place at another time. More exciting news is coming down the road and I'm so grateful for your support!”