Three Best in the PNW awards validate Crawlspace’s distinctive flavors as Jason Farrish prepares to bring them to Woodinville.
Sometimes the biggest sign that a restaurant has found its identity isn’t what the chef says about the food. It’s what the customers say.
For The Crawlspace Gastropub, they just said it loudly.
The Mercer Island favorite captured three 2026 Seattle Times Best in the PNW People’s Choice awards: Best Burger, Best Chicken Wings and Best Hawaiian Food for its loco moco.
For owner and chef Jason Farrish, the results were both thrilling and revealing.
Crawlspace had previously won in Korean food and new restaurant categories in 2025. This time, Farrish intentionally asked to be left out of the Korean category. He wanted to know whether the restaurant could compete beyond the niches where its Korean and Hawaiian influences might be expected.
Then Crawlspace won for burgers and wings.
“That blew my mind,” Farrish says. “Those are quintessentially American foods.”
Perhaps that’s precisely why the victories mean so much.
Crawlspace has spent two years developing a menu that Farrish describes as “familiarly exotic.” It begins with something recognizable—a burger, wings, tacos, fish and chips—and introduces flavors drawn from Korea, Hawaii and Japan without losing what people loved about the dish in the first place.
The award-winning burger, for example, starts with American Wagyu beef, then adds touches including Korean pickled radish and a house sauce with Korean and sriracha influences.
The wings lean decidedly Korean, with sauces made in-house.
Even the fish and chips tells the story: a light tempura-style batter and panko crust paired with tartar sauce made with Japanese-style mayonnaise, rice wine vinegar and house-made ginger-garlic pickles.
“You’re like, ‘Wow, that’s really good fish. I like this tartar sauce,’” Farrish says. “You’re not thinking like, ‘Oh, I have gone to some faraway land.’”
That may be the clearest expression yet of what Crawlspace has become: adventurous enough to surprise you, familiar enough to bring you back.
And people are coming back.
Farrish is particularly proud that the awards were decided by popular vote. Voting continued over time, meaning winning required more than a burst of enthusiasm.
“It’s a marathon. It’s not a sprint,” he says. “Our customers are just fantastic. They liked our product and they voted.”
Now comes the next surprise.
Crawlspace is expanding to Woodinville.
It wasn't originally the plan.
Farrish began searching for additional kitchen and storage space because the Mercer Island location had become so busy. An opportunity emerged in a Woodinville development surrounded by restaurants and tasting rooms. He loved the space but thought it was beyond reach, so he made an offer he assumed would end the conversation.
“They just said yes,” he recalls. “I’m like, ‘Oh man, we’re opening the restaurant.’”
The larger location will also function as a central kitchen, giving room for butchering, preparation and storage.
And Farrish believes the same formula that resonated here will translate naturally to Woodinville.
“Chef-driven, handmade, scratch-made, really high-quality food,” he says. “But you don’t have to get dressed up.”
Three awards. Two locations.
And one very Mercer Island success story is getting considerably bigger.