Pike Place Market – The Soul of Seattle

Along with the Space Needle, one of Seattle’s most iconic attractions is Pike Place Market, sometimes called “the soul of Seattle”. I expected it to be similar to London’s Borough Market – a Mecca for good food – but Pikes Place Market is more varied. Alongside the fruit, vegetables and flying fish are stalls selling flowers, jewellery, clothes and gifts.

In addition to the market selling high quality ingredients there are small and large restaurants selling prepared meals. These range from full service eateries to small independent sellers specialising in one item. Those clustered around the main entrance served exquisite bagels, doughnuts and hot chocolate. There may have been people selling healthier salads further in, but by then it was too late…

Across the road, facing the market, are yet more gourmet shops. Cheese makers, a high-end deli and a very tasty hot dog shop all line up next to the first ever Starbucks. Also lining up are huge queues of tourists keen to taste a coffee made in that original Starbucks shop. What nobody seems to have told them is that this isn’t the original – that first incarnation was in Western Avenue, but moved here in 1976.

Being not excited enough about coffee to queue for that long; we instead dropped in at the corner fishmongers for a warming bowl of clam chowder. This came with a long and unexpected lesson from the owner in the preparation of Dungeness crabs and the virtues of purple carrots.

The other shops in the row were a mixed bag. The sausage shop was excellent, the handmade cheese shop not so good. A somewhat expensive ‘freshly made’ cheese twist was frozen in the middle…

Pike Place has been in Seattle for more than a century now, making it the oldest farmers market in the US. It started in 1907, after housewives complained that middlemen were raising the price of produce. Only eight farmers sold their wares there, but on the first day they received 10,000 visitors. Now over 200 businesses run in the market, including about 100 farmers, but visitor numbers have soared to over 10 million per year.

Pike Place Market details

Between Virginia and Pike streets, and 1st Avenue and Pike Place. There are brown tourist signs all over Seattle.

Open daily from 10 a.m.–6 p.m.

PikePlaceMarket.org