Why every trip to Seattle starts and ends at this 117-year-old market on the water

It’s Seattle’s beating heart since 1907

Nine acres. More than 10 million visitors a year.

Over 220 independent shops, 70 farmers, 180 craftspeople, and 60 permitted street performers all packed into a stretch of downtown Seattle above Elliott Bay.

Pike Place Market isn’t a tourist attraction somebody built to look authentic.

It’s been running since 1907, and it still feels like it belongs to the people who shop there every week. Give yourself a morning here, and you’ll understand why Seattle starts and ends at this address.

The day farmers sold out before lunch

On Aug. 17, 1907, a handful of local farmers pulled their wagons up to Pike Place and sold every last thing they brought before noon.

City Council member Thomas Revelle had pushed through an ordinance to let farmers sell directly to shoppers, cutting out the middlemen who had been driving up prices on onions, vegetables and everyday staples.

The crowd that showed up that first morning proved the idea worked. By the end of the year, the Main Arcade was up, and 76 stalls were running.

Watch a whole salmon sail through the air

Pike Place Fish Market has stood at the corner of Pike Street and Pike Place since 1930, but the flying fish didn’t start until the 1980s.

When a customer buys a fish, the crew in orange rubber bibs and boots shouts the order in unison and sends it sailing through the air to a coworker behind the counter.

The toss happens all day long, every time someone makes a purchase.

In 2018, four longtime employees bought the business and kept the tradition going exactly as it was.

Meet Rachel, the pig who feeds her neighbors

Near the main entrance, just below the Public Market Center sign, a 550-pound bronze pig named Rachel sits with a slot in her back.

She’s been there since 1986, sculpted by Whidbey Island artist Georgia Gerber after a real pig that won the 1977 Island County pig contest.

Visitors toss coins from currencies around the world into her, and she has collected more than $200,000 over the years.

Every dollar goes to the Pike Place Market Foundation, which runs a food bank, medical clinic, senior center and childcare center. A second pig named Billie joined her in 2011.

Step into Post Alley and find the Gum Wall

Drop one level below the main market and follow Post Alley until the brick walls change color.

The Gum Wall runs more than 50 feet and is covered in thousands of pieces of chewed gum, pressed flat and layered thick.

The whole thing started in the early 1990s when theater patrons waiting outside Unexpected Productions started sticking gum to the wall to pass the time. Workers scrubbed it down to bare brick in 2015.

Within days, it came back. You can add your own piece, and most people do.

The Starbucks store that started it all

The location at 1912 Pike Place isn’t the original Starbucks, but it’s the oldest one still standing.

The chain launched in 1971 on nearby Western Avenue, founded by Jerry Baldwin, Zev Siegl and Gordon Bowker, then moved to its current Pike Place spot around 1976.

The original brown mermaid logo hangs above the door here, the one the company retired decades ago. The line moves slowly, but the store sells merchandise you won’t find at any other location.

The interior is small and stripped down, nothing like the chain it became.

Fresh salmon, flowers and a picnic you build yourself

Washington State farmers fill the arcade with seasonal produce, switching from cherries and peaches in summer to apples in fall.

Flower stalls run the length of the market, selling fresh-cut bouquets at prices that beat any florist in town.

Seafood vendors lay whole salmon and Dungeness crab out on beds of crushed ice, and most will clean, fillet, or pack your fish so it survives the trip home. Vendors hand out samples throughout the day.

You can build a full picnic from the stalls without sitting down anywhere.

Businesses here go back more than a century

Three Girls Bakery has been turning out bread, pastries and sandwiches at the market since 1912. DeLaurenti, the Italian specialty food shop, has held its spot since 1946.

These aren’t novelty operations set up for tourists.

They’re family businesses, some passed through multiple generations, and the market’s rules require every vendor to sell what they personally make or grow. No resellers.

No middlemen. The same philosophy that brought farmers to Pike Place in 1907 still runs the place today.

The lower levels and side alleys hold dozens more spots worth finding.

Handmade work from artists who’ll tell you the story

Every craftsperson at Pike Place makes what they sell. The market requires it.

You’ll find jewelry, pottery, paintings, leather goods, hand-poured candles and blown glass spread across rotating daystall tables, and the person behind the table is the one who made it.

Many have been here for decades and will talk with you about the work if you ask. Between the stalls, street musicians, magicians and other performers fill the arcade with sound throughout the day.

Buskers work with a market-issued permit, and a dollar in their case goes a long way.

Voters saved the market from the bulldozer

By the 1960s, the market had aged badly and city officials had a plan: tear it down and put up offices, apartments and a parking garage.

Architect Victor Steinbrueck and a citizen group called Friends of the Market fought back.

In November 1971, Seattle voters passed an initiative by a three-to-two margin to preserve a seven-acre historic district.

The market went on the National Register of Historic Places, a major renovation followed over the next 15 years, and the Pike Place Market Preservation and Development Authority was formed in 1973 to keep it running in the public interest.

A new walkway connects the market to the waterfront

In 2017, the MarketFront expansion added vendor stalls, artist studios and 40 low-income senior housing units to the west side of the market, along with open-air terraces looking out over Elliott Bay and the Olympic Mountains.

Then, in October 2024, the Overlook Walk opened, a pedestrian pathway covering about 60,000 square feet that links Pike Place directly to the revitalized Seattle waterfront.

You can walk from the market all the way down to the Seattle Aquarium now without crossing a single busy street.

The neon sign has been glowing since 1927

The red neon Public Market Center sign and clock above the entrance went up in 1927, making it one of the oldest outdoor neon signs left on the West Coast.

Below it, the market runs 363 days a year, closed only on Thanksgiving and Christmas. Most vendors are active from about 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., with restaurants carrying on into the evening.

The market also runs a food bank, a preschool and affordable housing for more than 450 residents. It’s not just a place to shop.

It’s a neighborhood that happens to be open to everyone.

Visit Pike Place Market in Seattle, Washington

Pike Place Market sits at 85 Pike St. in downtown Seattle, right above Elliott Bay. Most vendors open around 9 a.m. and wrap up by 5 p.m., with several restaurants staying open later into the evening.

You can get there by light rail to Westlake Station, by bus, rideshare, or on foot from most downtown hotels. The market’s Red Garage holds 300 spaces if you drive.

Come on a weekday morning if you want room to move and a better shot at talking with the vendors.

This article was created with AI assistance and human editing.

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