Varsity Inn Restaurant

For being open during the day on New Year’s Eve, that is a plus. This restaurant has a memento diner feel which is a disappearing trend in Seattle.
The service is great and the food is given to you promptly. I enjoyed their pancake combo. The pancakes were just the right size and the protein portions are not too bad, either.
My husband ordered the huevos ranchero and it was quite tasty, too. I would order more items next time I visit. After 11 for lunch, the Philly cheesesteak looks appetizing per the menu.

Husband had the waffle, which was thin like a pancake, and had the same texture as a pancake but put into a waffle maker. I had the beef au jus. The beef seemed dry and tough. Our waitress was super friendly. The diner had a nice atmosphere. However, I don’t think we’ll be back.

I like to review places on what they are and Varsity Inn is a diner… and a pretty good one at that! Good, inexpensive food with great service. This is a anti-​hipster place which explains the plethora of 2 star reviews. Its a greasy spoon with big portions of hashbrowns, awesome cinnamon rolls and decent coffee. They even have espresso! My only complaint is having to pay $ 2.50 for egg whites, but not a big deal.
So if you are looking for diner food this is a great spot!

The bacon is amazing so is the eggs, toast, hash browns, and orange juice.

It was ok for breakfast, but very pricey for a basic diner.
Eggs florentine
Mediterranean omelette
Side of bacon — 2 pieces
Side of chicken sausage — 3 pieces
4 Sake bloody Mary’s
1 coffee
$ 69
For that kind of money I’d like to think they could fix the rips in their booths and not just duct tape over them.

I work nearby, and I was really rooting for this place to be great. It’s got the nice orangy color on the outside, and with a name like ‘varsity’ that harkens back to your days of youth (that never were.) how could it not be great?
I was let down, a bit. It had the sleepy feel of belonging in a small town in Missouri, or perhaps a truck stop in Eastern Montana. I actually found this endearing. I got a chicken burger, after asking the waiter whether he preferred the french dip, to which his only answer was that the chicken was ‘fresh’ (what does this imply about the roast beef? I thought concernedly to myself.).
On the bright side, my salad was very, very salty and had goldfish crackers. My chicken burger was perfectly edible, but not exemplary.
Overpriced, underwhelming, salty, but a comfortable stop if you don’t have other good options.

Overpriced but good food. A cute little diner place with good food but their pricing doesn’t match up to their portions. I got a waffle for around 6 $ that could feed a little kid. But I love The atmosphere of the place and the fast service we got. It only took around ⁵⁄₇ mins for our food to arrive and the place wasn’t empty either which I really appreciate when I am hungry.

Awesome little diner. I was in the neighborhood headed out, called in a togo order, all comes fresh and fast. Burger meat was good, everything I could have wanted was in the box/​bag and a mountain of fries.
Smiling friendly waitress greeted as I entered, charged me a fair price.
If I’m ever back this way they made my will come again list!

Favorite diner in Seattle. There’s just something about this place — it has a home-​y atmosphere and is a family-​run business. Packed always on weekend. Try the eggs benedict. Fast service.

This is a great diner. If you like your omelettes served up french style by which I mean very think egg pancake wrapped around fillings, this is your place. The weekday special is a steal, but you have to be there before 10:00. Extremely friendly service. My only complaint is the hash browns could use improvement.

this place is a beacon of dinery dive-​ness across from gasworks park and i want to love it. but i can’t. every time i’ve been here — and i’ve been many times over the last several years — i leave feeling like it was just blah. thought i’d give it another chance this morning after reading mixed reviews on Unilocal and it was, once again, just fair to middling. the eggs benedict were poached properly enough, but the hollandaise was bland and thick, possibly from a cisco-​like mass distributor. the ham was dry and chewy. but the worst part was the massive pile of hashbrowns. i specifically asked for them to be well-​done since i’d seen mounds of nearly white shreddings on other folks’ plates, and they were barely crisped, unsalted, and just plain annoying.
the people who whine about seattle hipsters asking too much from this place are most likely people who don’t know anything about food and are perfectly happy to eat at denny’s, which, incidentally, would be better than the varsity in my book. this is not about needing organic bacon or long lines of cute people outside to make a solid brunch — i am not a portage bay fan, for instance — but rather it’s about seriously mediocre food that isn’t worth the diner kitsch environment on which it seems to be coasting. salmon bay, voula’s, and the dish are all non-​fancy spots with much better food for similar prices.

My family really likes this place. The service is great and the staff is very friendly, always with a smile on their faces. It’s a small little diner but there’s never a long wait. The value is really good. It’s diner food at diner prices and the food is delicious! We will continue to go back to Varsity Inn.

There is another Varsity in Ravenna, both used to be owned by the same individual but now are run by completely different people. The one in Ravenna has ultra-​gooey homemade Cinnamon rolls, and the one in Wallingford has tasty Mexican-​inspired breakfasts great for the gluten-​free. This review is just for the Wallingford location.
I think that this is a pretty standard diner, and like that it is well light by big windows and comfy booths. The service is okay, and the bathrooms are clean. The food is average American food, and if you have a hankering for American diner food you will be very happy! My favorite things are the eggs benedict and spinach omelet with almonds and swiss. I split a breakfast with a friend (since entrees come with hashbrowns and toast) and leave feeling satisfied but not stuffed. Coffee is a little watery, but not acidic and astringent.
If you want fancy, less-​processed American breakfast fare then you are better off going to Portage Bay. If you want nice breakfast pastries, go to Le Fournil.

I’ve gone there countless times, okay lots of times, for breakfast. I always order a ha and cheese omelet and it’s always been okay, not Beth’s okay or the Voula’s Offshore café okay, but okay. So I thought I’d give it another try. I ordered a ham and cheese omelet, sour dough toast and well done hash browns. I got, well done toast, a well done omelet and warm hash browns. Couldn’t finish it, and that’s rare, and I won’t be back.

Went there for lunch today. Philly was great and waitress did everything to accomodate me and my requests. Worth it for the service alone.

Solid diner. If you’re looking for special then this is not the place for you, but if typical diner comfort food is what you crave, they got it! Big portions and extremely friendly service. I’ve had the veggie omelet and the tuna melt, both hit the spot! Just wish they were open later, I would LOVE this place after a night at the bars.

Cute diner in the bustling neighborhood that has little intimate booth seating. Got their hobo omelette and pancake combo. The omelettes are generally more than $ 10 each, which is on the pricier side. However, portions are large, which made up for the cost. They mixed up my order though… instead of getting me extra or something, they took it out instead. Perhaps the server heard me wrong. Omelette was ok and I didn’t feel it was spectacular or special. Service is acceptable and orders are served quickly (within 5 – 10 minutes).

It’s rare to find a rural atmosphere in a bustling city. Varsity Inn offers such atmosphere with friendly service and amazing breakfast food. Great for brunch after a fun Friday or Saturday night.
A little pricey but portions tend to be large.

«Meh. I’ve experienced better» sums it up nicely.
There’s a huge menu with the usual sort of diner-​style fare. The omelets come with a huge side of frozen hash browns – about ten pounds worth, from my estimate. The sandwiches come with frozen crinkle-​cut fries. And processed cheese.
The ladies who work here at lunch are very friendly and are one of the one bright rays of sunshine at the Varsity Inn. But I don’t think I’ll be coming back for the food.

This place gets four stars for what it is — A DINER. This isn’t your trendy, wait in line outside for an hour breakfast place. This is a good old fashioned diner. The kind you’d expect to find in the middle of nowhere on a road trip. For that, I love it.
Flavors are classic and portions are large. Also, you can literally roll out of bed looking like a hot mess and come in for breakfast and not feel out of place. That is a win in my book.