According to signage posted on the door of Palomino Restaurant and Bar in Bellevue, the restaurant is permanently closed. The sign went on to say, “we are thankful to have hosted so many of your celebrations and to have been a part of this wonderful community.”
Palomino was an Italian restaurant that offered wood fired pizza, locally sourced pasta, seafood, craft cocktails and more.
The restaurant and bar opened in 2008 at Lincoln Square. They had originally chosen the Downtown Bellevue location for its “hip, urban downtown communities that had opportunity for growth and development”.
Restaurants Unlimited Inc. is the owner of the national restaurant chain.
Tags: Lincoln Square Palomino
I loved going to Happy Hour at Palomino.
I think it stopped matching the overall market as to trend, food type, etc. Too “in the middle” / “hard to make clear sense of” for passers-by, tourists, etc. (when they had so many other options that had clearer visions, within just a few hundred feet). Too many starchy carb’s too when so many people are focused now on leaner meats, veggies, etc. Just logical-seeming guesses here, of course.
Palomino’s quality has slipped over the years . Case in point was actually last Wednesday . I chose a lunch ” special “. There was nothing special about that lunch . I was surprised that they would even serve a dish that was so unappealing in every sense of the word. Please , Mr. Freeman , implore Tom Douglas to open a REAL restaurant in Bellevue !
The restaurant closed due to the terrible management. For most of the last couple of years the restaurant has to post an okay health rating by the front door. That’s one step away from the bottom. Guests would see it and continue walking down the street. The restaurant management did not follow restaurant unlimited service standards. The servers were not properly trained. They were order takers. The kitchen staff did not follow the corporate recipes. If you came and Have the same dish on different days it would be completely different both times. The Restaurant was Utterly disgusting and dirty. No one ever cleaned anything. Guests who came in saw the torn upholstery and wood floors that were in need of repair. ******* the General Manager is an alcoholic and knew nothing about running a restaurant. He worked for his parents restaurant “The Crab Cracker” in Kirkland as the managing partner and *** that place into the ground. It went out of business also. His next restaurant Todd’s Crab Cracker folded soon after that.
The fact of the matter is that palomino was owned by Restaurants Unlimited which is in turn owned by Sun Capital Partners out of Boca Raton, Florida. All the reasons this place closed were discussed at length between myself and another bartender and management. They acted like myself and the other bartender were the problem and fired us. When I went to talk to management in the corporate office I got the same incredulity. They acted like I was the problem. The real problem is that when a restaurant is owned by an investment firm like Sun Capital partners, your restaurants are doomed to failure. Those people in the investment firm are the reason the entire country we live in faces an existential crisis. Palomino Bellevue is/was a microcosm of the greater play that is our capitalistic society. The people at the top own private jets and have never worked for a single moment in a restaurant. How could they be connected to the actual product? They didn’t care about palomino, as long as it remained in the black. The moment it slipped into the red, they shuttered the restaurant. Wilbur Smith made a good point, **** along with his asst. mgr. ***, they’re both a couple of total ******* *******, and I’m sure they were hired for this reason by the district manager, Bev. Corporate office didn’t want anyone asking questions about why they weren’t getting any funding for necessary components for the restaurant. The restaurants unlimited people downtown Seattle; omg! They are a shade away from totally evil. Their HR people and their restaurant opening team, what a bunch of total ******** and hacks. It probably won’t be long before all Restaurants unlimited restaurants are closed down and boarded up.
I will say I can vouch for both Wilbur and JW. The place hired shumcks and anytime you had a worker that knew restaurant business knew that the place was shit.