Ballard’s Serious Pie Is Turning Into a Sit-Down Restaurant

In a sign that Seattle is moving further into a post-pandemic era, Tom Douglas’s Serious Pie Ballard — a takeout operation that launched when COVID-19 was at its worst — is turning into a sit-down restaurant, with a target opening date of this summer.

Tom Douglas, one of Seattle’s most well-known restaurateurs, opened Serious Pie Ballard (then called Serious TakeOut) in April 2020, a month after closing nearly all of his restaurants as COVID-19 restrictions went into effect. Previously, the space on 14th Avenue Northwest and Northwest 51st Street was used for Douglas’s catering operations as well as a location for pop-ups.

According to the company’s reps, the plan is for this space to once again host pop-ups, particularly ones highlighting chefs who work for Douglas’s restaurants (the smoker for his barbecue spot, Etta’s Big Mountain BBQ, is at this location, so it can be used for events). But there will also be regular sit-down dining, particularly on the covered patio. Serious Pie Ballard, which was once a big purveyor of pandemic-era takeout cocktails, is getting its its liquor license back so it can serve drinks along with the food.

This news follows the recent reopening of Douglas’s famed Palace Kitchen, showing that the company is continuing to relaunch its operations following the pandemic shutdown. It also means that sit-down pizza spots are going to be thick on the ground in that neighborhood — you have Ethan Stowell’s Ballard Pizza Company (with two nearby locations), Paxti’s Pizza, Stoneburner, and the Ballard location of Palermo, all within walking distance. That’s a lot of places where you can wash down that brewery beer with some ‘za.