Lola's South City Bakery

If you live in South Seattle, you've likely zipped passed this discrete little restaurant and not even noticed it. It is located in Hillman City, just south from the heart of Columbia City, right across the street from the windowless extravagance of Maxim's Nightclub.

But it is worth a stop. Lola's is owned by really friendly and good intentioned people and has quality food. The restaurant is vegetarian (with numerous vegan options), but you wouldn't know it unless you surveyed the menu looking for meat because this detail isn't blaring. The values of the owner are clear: he makes high quality food and does his best to choose high quality, organic, local, seasonal, healthy ingredients.

My first visit landed on a Tuesday, a day that I soon learned is a slow start day for the restaurant, as it is transitioning from being fully closed on this day. We had come for pizzas, but the dough hadn't fully risen, so we got a couple of sandwiches instead.

The sandwiches were a bit light on the filling and heavy on the bread. I ordered the Vietnamese sandwich, and it contained a tofu mix, cilantro, pickled carrots and vegan mayonnaise.
We also had some homemade ice cream, which was made with local organic cream and no eggs. I appreciated the lack of eggs, but it did produce a lightly differently textured ice cream than one might be used to. They also make vegan sorbets. We ordered a bowl with two scoops of ice cream: one scoop of nectarine and one scoop of raspberry.
I also sampled an unusual cookie called the "Herb Garden." It was a short bread type cookie with gritty cornmeal, lemon, thyme and rosemary.
Fast forward to today... another rainy afternoon where the idea of hot pizza was overwhelming. We phoned Lola's with a pizza order to go (the pizzas are individual sized), and chose one cheese topped with Mamma Lil's Hot Peppers, and one cheese with Field Roast vegetarian sausage.
Even after the trip home, the pizzas were piping hot and full of integrity. The crust was really delicious. Not wafer thin, but thin still, and chewy and oily and gritty and crisp in all of the right places. The sauce was simple and good... not sweet at all, good tomato flavour. The cheese and toppings tasted great. I was thrilled.
They also have a fully vegan pizza made with caramelized onions and walnuts (with the option of adding blue cheese), but I'm not sure I'll ever get around to ordering that after tasting the pizza with cheese and spicy peppers.

Next time you're going out for pizza, give these guys a shot!!!

Lola's South City Bakery

(206) 725-0443

5607 Rainier Ave S
Seattle, WA