A Stroll Around Pike Place Market

Our first full day in Seattle started off with a 20 minute walk towards Pike Place Market.  We had a map from the hotel and knew the general direction that it was in, but had no set path so we just kept walking and turning wherever we felt like it.  We got to the market and it was still being set up so we decided to walk back out a bit towards the downtown core and then head down to the pier. 

I was surprised to find that the pier and the market were not immediately next to each other.  In fact, it was quite a bit apart.  I had this vision that the market would be lined up against the water, but this was far from the truth.

We made our way back to the market to look for the original Starbucks.  I had seen some pictures previously and thought that it would be a much larger space, but in reality, there was barely enough room for two lines to form (one for ordering and one to wait for your drink).  The store didn’t have any tables or chairs so everyone was crowded around the display cases.

After visiting Starbucks, stores were slowly beginning to open up.  We took a stroll around the street level and then went underground where it was extremely quiet.  I’m not sure if it was because it was an early Wednesday morning but most of the shops were empty.  We walked around a bit more and found the Gum Wall, which was actually quite hidden.  It was disgusting!  Not sure how sticking thousands of pieces of gum on a wall could constitute it becoming a tourist attraction!

We came back to the market area to start searching around for a restaurant and settled on trying fish and chips at one of the restaurants at the market.  Both of us decided to order fish & chips at Lowell’s Restaurant & Bar.  It turned out to be just okay, so if I ever went back, I wouldn’t order it again.  In particular, the coleslaw that the meal came with was the strangest version of coleslaw that I’d ever tried.  It just didn’t work for us.

After lunch, we were heading back towards the hotel when we stumbled upon Pear Delicatessen & Shoppe.  I thought it was just a sandwich shop but in fact it was filled with all sorts of neat little snacks that we stocked up on.

The market wasn’t exactly what I was expecting.  I thought it would be more of an indoor market, similar to San Francisco’s Ferry Building Marketplace.  Pike Place was more unorganized and definitely older, but the variety of restaurants and stores is definitely unrivaled.