This Certified-Green Restaurant In Olympic National Park Is Worth The Pilgrimage

Everyone enjoys a good meal with an even better backstory, like how this classic NYC diner still makes Coca-Cola the old-fashioned way. Up in the mountains of the Olympic National Park in Forks, Washington, sits the Kalaloch Lodge, a cozy lodging site which is also home to the Creekside Restaurant. We even ranked this unassuming restaurant with spectacular views as one of the best hotel restaurants in America. You can visit as a guest of the lodge or simply stop by for a bite, but this Certified Green Restaurant is well worth the 3 and a half hour pilgrimage from Seattle through the winding forest roads.

Creekside Restaurant is officially certified through the Green Restaurant Association, a distinction that means the restaurant uses sustainable and environmentally conscious practices. The food here is extremely fresh, with no hormones or steroids allowed in the products sourced from growers in the area, which are typically within 150 miles of the lodge. When it comes to seafood, which Creekside Restaurant is known for, the business practices sustainability guidelines that were put in place by the Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch. Other tiny details that make it a Certified Green Restaurant include operating straw-free, collecting rain in barrels for landscaping, turning fryer oil into biodiesel, and recycling leftover food scraps to local farmers.

Creekside Restaurant not only takes pride in locally and sustainably sourcing its food, but also in providing transparent information to its customers about said food, too. The menu has a clear calorie count for customers to keep track of what they're ordering. It offers a little bit of everything, from breakfast items like pancakes, cereals, and breakfast burritos, to lunches and dinners like grilled king salmon, elk burgers, and a famous clam chowder soup (which we suspect doesn't require any of this umami-rich condiment meant to save bland clam chowder.)

The Kalaloch Lodge was private property owned by Charles W. Becker Sr. in the 1920s, originally just a home for the man and nothing more. The main lodge that stands today wasn't built until the early 1950s, and the property as a whole didn't become public until 1978 when it came into the hands of the National Park Service. The rugged, seaside feel of Kalaloch Lodge is still present in much of its architecture, including the Creekside Restaurant, which is located on the lower floor and offers diners a picturesque view of the Pacific Northwest coastline.