Nicki’s Bella Marina

Nicki's began as a diner in Blaine in 1992 and moved to Bellingham ten years later, onto Squalicum Harbor. The deck is built out over the water, looking across a harbor that is home port to more than fourteen hundred working and pleasure boats, and there is short term moorage right in front of it, so you can tie up and walk in.

The fish and chips are the reason most people come, in a tempura batter, with steak fries that keep coming. The burgers are formed in house and the sauces and dressings are made there too, to the point that you can buy a tub of the cocktail sauce on the way out.

The King salmon is wild, reef netted by the Lummi Nation in the Salish Sea off Lummi Island. Upstairs there is a room for private parties with the same view over the water. Open noon until nine, and closed Sundays and Mondays so that the staff can be at home.