The British pub Little Beast is endings its regular restaurant hours at the end of the year.
Little Beast opened in 2025 at 5107 Ballard Ave in the former Ballard Pizza Company space. It’s a spinoff from Loyal Heights butchery Beast & Cleaver co-owners Kevin Smith and Polly Yakovich, which opened in 2019 on NW 80th St.
While it’s been a successful year for Little Beast in some ways—the restaurant earned “Restaurant of the Year” from Seattle Met a few months after it opened—Smith says the concept is no longer sustainable.
“Labor and food costs have climbed to the point where a small restaurant can’t charge a fair price and come close to breaking even. We did everything we could: we simplified the menu, cut labor costs by more than 30%, and saw walk-ins and reservations jump nearly 60% within weeks, a level that has held,” according to Smith’s and Yakovich’s Instagram post explaining the decision.
“The numbers still don’t work.”
So, Little Beast will return to its roots as a whole animal butchery with classes and events. It will still host pop-ups and special dinners, “just on occasion rather than every night.”
Yakovich told My Ballard they’re keeping the space primarily as production for their butcher boxes, which she says was also the initial reason they took over the space. She added that they’ll be able to offer more in-depth classes over the weekends, which will be possible once they cease regular restaurant service.
“We’re going to play around and see what sticks but the butcher box production is the workhorse,” she said.
Smith and Yakovich described that the “easy way out” would be buying from large commodity producers. “But it would mean abandoning our principles, as well as the farmers and ranchers who raise meat the right way.” They’re not willing to do that, thus the pivot.
“A restaurant has been the conventional way to look at this space. We’re excited to leave the conventional, which isn’t working, and do something.”
Little Beast will stay open for restaurant service Thursday through Saturday until the end of the year (they’ve dropped Sunday service). The new concept will start in January.
Photo: Little Beast
