How Familyfriend Accidentally Became Seattle’s Buzziest Restaurant

If Elmer Dulla didn’t already know that the hype around his burger was getting out of hand, he definitely realized it last week, when he noticed that a couple customers at the bar of his Beacon Hill restaurant, Familyfriend, had unusual accents. They were from Ireland, they told him, and had planned to fly to New York for St. Patrick’s Day with a stopover in Las Vegas. But they saw a TikTok of Familyfriend’s burger and changed their travel plans so they could come to Seattle.

“Right after they left, some guy from New York sat at the bar by himself,” Dulla tells Eater Seattle. “He was like, ‘I’m just here for business meetings tomorrow and I saw this video on TikTok about the burger, so I came straight here from the airport.’”

Dulla doesn’t make Familyfriend easy to find, especially for out-of-towners. The restaurant has no website and is barely active on Instagram. There’s no menu online, and Dulla hasn’t claimed the business on Yelp. Until recently, the owner says, it wasn’t properly showing up on Uber or Lyft. Even if you know exactly where it is (3315 Beacon Avenue, between Horton and Hinds streets), you might end up walking right past the single-story building, because the sign in the window is small and the blinds are often drawn. But walk inside and it’ll likely be full of people in a space that seems like a cross between a hip sports bar and a diner. There are no reservations, and the wait for a seat is sometimes two and a half hours long.

“We’ve only been open three months and we’re one of the busiest restaurants in Seattle without even trying,” Dulla says, and he doesn’t sound like he’s bragging when he says this; he has the laid-back manner of a surfer who is telling you about the killer wave he just caught.

So what’s up with the burger? It’s a perfectly crispy smashburger, the trendy burger format of the moment. The richness of the meat and the Kewpie mayo contrasts nicely with the sharpness of the pickles. It comes with truffle fries on the side. It’s an unpretentious dish, but if all smashburgers were as good as Familyfriend’s, the world would be a better place. The burger’s elements, the Infatuation wrote in its effusive review, “become one singular essence of burger that all others should bow down to.” The Infatuation soon put Familyfriend on its list of America’s best burgers; it may have been the Infatuation’s TikTok that compelled those travelers to change their plans.

Dulla didn’t intend to be known for his burgers. Familyfriend’s food is mostly Guamanian with a dash of Filipino thrown in. “The menu is basically the story of my life,” Dulla says. He grew up in Guam, an unincorporated U.S. territory in Micronesia. Familyfriend is sometimes described as a Chamorro restaurant (referring to the Indigenous population of Guam), but Dulla says that’s not quite accurate because he is Filipino. The food he grew up eating had Korean, Spanish, and Japanese influences; the batchoy is a dish from his father’s home region of La Paz — described on the menu as “Filipino ramen,” it has egg noodles, pig offal, and fermented shrimp broth in it.

Harry Cheadle

Most Seattleites are likely unfamiliar with Familyfriend’s dishes — there’s no other Guamanian restaurant within city limits, Dulla says — so even the corn and chicken soup is a kind of a revelation: It’s warming, creamy thanks to a coconut milk base, with dashes of chile oil on top for color and a bit of heat. The banana bread (an unexpected must-order) is served with latiya (a Guamanian custard) and chocolate from Davao City in the Philippines.

“The burger’s not the best thing on the menu,” Dulla admits. “The intention of the burger was just to put something on the menu for the kids in the neighborhood to eat while their parents came out. I didn’t know the kids’ menu item was going to be the main reason that people came here.”

That’s the other thing: Dulla conceived of Familyfriend as a neighborhood restaurant. “I didn’t want to be like that place where you go like, once or twice a year for a special occasion,” he says. “I wanted people to come and hang out. That’s why nothing on our menu is over $20.”

Familyfriend

Familyfriend.

Familyfriend

Familyfriend

Adobo tacos at Familyfriend.

The buzz around Familyfriend isn’t a complete surprise to Dulla, who has worked for and with half of the big names in the Seattle restaurant world. His most prominent role was as director of operations for Eduardo Jordan, whose restaurant JuneBaby was one of the most celebrated restaurants in the country before Jordan was accused of sexual misconduct. (Dulla left in 2019, prior to news of that scandal.) Dulla went on to help open Pho Bac Sup Shop, Tomo, and Banzai Teriyaki in Cle Elum, which was famous because celebrity chef Shota Nakajima was briefly involved in the project.

“A lot of people in the industry have been waiting for me to open my own place for so long,” Dulla says, noting that he chose to avoid a splashy PR campaign because he knew that Familyfriend would eventually attract attention, given his resume and reputation. “I wanted it to grow organically,” he says. “I knew at some point it was gonna get busy, but I didn’t know it was going to happen this quickly.” The Seattle Times gave it a glowing review; people from the San Francisco Chronicle have shown up. There is going to be even more attention, and even more customers flooding the waitlist.

Underneath all that publicity, Familyfriend is a small place. It only has five full-time employees, Dulla says. “My wife works here, my godson works here, my friends work here. And we’re all together every night... It’s a grind, because we’re getting killed every night, but it’s fun.”

Even his dogs are at Familyfriend... sort of. They died last year, so Dulla named the burger and fries after them, before he knew that the burger would become a star — Kewpie and Truffles.

“Now everyone asks for them,” he says. “They’re always here.”

Familyfriend is located at 3315 Beacon Avenue and is open from 5:30 p.m. to 9 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday.