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Late-Night Chowdown With Seattle's Biscuit Bitch

Seattle Restaurants + Bars Insider Guides
by Michelle Schusterman Oct 25, 2011
Sometimes after a few beers, you need to indulge in a hot mess.

I MOVED INTO MY DOWNTOWN SEATTLE apartment on a Thursday. Late the following Friday night, I was staring out of my window at 1st Avenue and wondering why the two bars across the street looked pretty deserted, but the cafe that normally closed at 3pm had a line out the door.

Saturday morning I walked my dog past Caffe Lieto and read the sandwich board out front:

Late-Night Biscuit Bitch
Friday & Saturday
10pm–2:30am

By day, this tiny cafe serves up perfect americanos, coconut chai lattes, and orange-infused mochas. They’ve also got some killer grilled sandwiches – my favorite is the apple-curry tuna melt with sweet onions and havarti.

But by night, the Bitch comes out to play.

The self-proclaimed Biscuit Bitch, otherwise known as Kim Allen, is in the kitchen at Caffe Leito more times than not when I stop by (which is more than I care to admit), baking up real buttermilk biscuits and sausage or mushroom gravy. It didn’t take long for she and owner Rena Poppell to realize that if biscuits in the morning were popular, biscuits late at night – in the perfect location to catch drunkass Belltown clubbers and bar-hoppers as they stumbled to their cars – would be nothing short of notorious.

On my first late-night Bitch excursion, I was a little giddy after a great live show and more than a few beers. My eyes bulged at the menu.

  • Straight-Up Bitch: biscuit with either sausage or shiitake mushroom gravy
  • Gritty Scrambled Cheesy Bitch: add grits, scrambled egg, and cheddar to the above
  • Smokin’ Hot Bitch: biscuit, gravy, hot smoked sausage, cheddar, jalapenos
  • Cheesy Pork N’ Bitch: biscuit, gravy, cheddar and bacon
  • Hot Mess Bitch: biscuit, gravy, hot smoked sausage, cheddar, jalapenos, eggs, grits, rumored to weigh in at 3 lbs
  • Naked Bitch: biscuit with butter and jam

I seriously considered the Hot Mess (don’t we all, at some point or another), but in the end went with the Gritty Scrambled. Complete drunken ambrosia. This stuff is great for brunch, but there’s something especially satisfying about a buttery biscuit loaded with thick sausage gravy, grits, eggs, cheese, and hot sauce at 1am on a heavy beer buzz.

Pretty sure it’s guaranteed to head off a hangover, too.

Caffe Lieto
1909 1st Avenue
Seattle, WA 98101
Mon-Fri: 7:30am-3:00pm
Sat: 8:30am-3:00pm

Biscuit Bitch
Fri & Sat: 10:00pm-2:30am
Sat & Sun: 10am-2pm

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