Dinner at Kalaloch Lodge
 

Has anyone done dinner at Kalaloch Lodge? We are staying up in Port Angeles, and the plan is to arrive at Olympic Park after lunch on Saturday, drive through to Hoh and spend the balance of the day in that region of the park, dine at Kalaloch Lodge for the sunset, then return to Port Angeles (about a 2 hour drive, I am told) for the night...doing the Hurricane Ridge portion of the park the next day.

Just curious if the food is worth it, or is it just one of those 'view' restaurants.

Hi... my family and I have stayed at Kalaloch several times. The food service is supplied by a concessionaire, ARA Services, which runs a lot of snack stands and such at national parks around the country. It's okay considering you're in the middle of nowhere and the two other dining options are: drive up to Forks, 40 miles north, or buy sandwiches at the adjacent Kalaloch pick-and-pay. The surroundings are a little rustic and the staff really tries but it's not a top-flight experience, and very expensive too. When we stay there we usually grill our own burgers and chicken outside our cabin for dinner, then hit the lodge for a big cooked breakfast -- better food, better value.

thanks for the advise :) everything you wrote was pretty much the way it panned out. The lodge looked great, and we will probably try a cliffside cabin there next time. The food, however, was...well...concession quality :) It tasted ok, but almost everything arrived universally cold - a complaint about the cold crab cakes netted a fast trip to the microwave for them. I spared my salmon a similar fate.

While the food was so-so, nothing could compare to the post-dinner hike down the cliff to comb the beach while watching the sunset as other guests lit small fires with the driftwood. That part was quite magical and would have made the evening just as perfect whether the food tasted like gold or coal.