There is a moment at King's Hardware when a roll of skee-ball, a basket of wings, and a tied game on the screen all happen at once, and that collision is the whole personality of the place.
Published June 11, 2026 · By Daniel Okafor
King's Hardware anchors 5225 Ballard Avenue NW, the brick stretch of old Ballard that has become one of Seattle's best bar streets. Restaurateur Linda Derschang opened it in 2006, and The Infatuation still calls it a Ballard institution built on burgers, bourbon, and skee-ball. Two decades in, the formula has not aged.
The room is dim, warm, and crowded with character. Taxidermy lines the walls, the lighting stays low, and two skee-ball machines keep a queue going on busy nights. It reads as a neighbourhood pub first, but the screens carry the games and the crowd will happily turn toward a Seahawks or Mariners moment when it counts.
Wings are the headline here, and regulars order them by the basket. The cheeseburger is the other thing people come back for, the bourbon list runs deep, and the rotating alcoholic slushies are the kind of small surprise that keeps a bar feeling alive. Google reviewers give King's Hardware a 4.3 average across 748 reviews, with the buffalo wings drawing the loudest praise.
This is a generous, easygoing room that judges no one, which is rare on a street this popular. For the wider field of where to watch in this city, our guide to the best sports bars in Seattle sets the scene, and our Ballard bar guide maps the rest of the avenue.
The crowd is a true Ballard mix. Couples and friends arrive for an early burger, the skee-ball regulars settle in, and a back patio opens the room up in summer. Prices land in honest mid-range territory, a $$ pub rather than a special-occasion splurge, which is part of why it stays full.
Go on a weekday evening if you want a skee-ball lane without a wait, since the machines back up fast on Friday and Saturday nights. For a big fixture, arrive by 4pm when the doors open and claim a table within sight of a screen. Pair the visit with our roundup of the best bars for watching the game in Seattle.
King's Hardware sits naturally on the same circuit as the rest of north Seattle's sports rooms. A few blocks north, Fuel Sports Grill in Crown Hill runs 25 screens for the full slate, while The Angry Beaver in Greenwood owns hockey nights and Leny's Place in Tangletown keeps it low-key. All belong to the broader Seattle sports bar scene worth exploring on foot.
What regulars praise most is the balance: a real bar with real character that still puts the game on and still slides over a basket of wings at the right moment. The common complaint is the obvious one, that a Saturday night gets loud and the skee-ball line gets long.
Part of the appeal is the address itself. Ballard Avenue has grown into one of Seattle's most walkable bar streets, and King's Hardware has been its anchor for nearly twenty years. Derschang's wider group helped shape the city's casual-cool template, and this room stays the most democratic of the bunch, a place where a skee-ball novice and a season-ticket holder share the same bench. On a sunny afternoon the back patio doubles the room, and the line for a burger spills happily into the open air.
Sources: The Infatuation Seattle, King's Hardware review; King's Hardware official site (kingsballard.com); Yelp King's Hardware, Ballard (683 reviews, 2026).