Pike Place Market Restaurants and Are They Worth It?
When planning my recent trip to Seattle, I knew I wanted to try the Pike Place Market restaurants. Since the market is one of the most popular places to visit, research was relatively easy. I mean, basically every blog post about Seattle (including this one!) mentions it. Not to mention, the 1 billion market food tours you can choose from. So, I started to get worried that the market was going to be super touristy and cliché. However, I went anyway, and want to give you my thoughts so you can decide for yourself. Is it touristy or worth it?
Before reading on, try this fun dream vacation quiz!
The Restaurants I Tried
Beecher’s Handmade Cheese
Since we were traveling with our kids, we decided to opt out of a food tour. Basically, we wanted the freedom to be able to ply them with sweet treats if we saw them breaking down. Instead, we headed to the market early and headed straight to Beecher’s. Why? Because who wouldn’t want to start your day off with a grilled cheese? There was no line (which was glorious!), and we got to watch people processing the cheese curds as we ate.
Travel Tip: Get to the market early (like 8AM!) in order to get pictures and enjoy the market without too many people.
The grilled cheese was probably one of the best grilled cheeses I have ever had. The bread was toasted perfectly, and the cheese blend was supreme. We also tried the Beecher’s mac and cheese. Also delicious, but not the best I’ve ever had. We used this YouTube video by Female Foodie to pick our restaurants and dishes to try. It’s a great video, however she recommended the mac and cheese over the grilled cheese. Which I think is crazy! LOL.
Le Panier
From Beecher’s we headed next door to Le Panier to get coffee and croissants. I am an fiend for almond croissants. We also tried the regular croissant and the chocolate croissant, along with our coffee. All were the buttery goodness you expect amazing croissants to be. By this time the line was already long and we had to wait about 20 minutes, but it was well worth it. There were also several treats that we could buy for later, like quiches, macaroons, and various cookies.
Other Restaurants
By this time we were actually super full. Even though the next restaurant over is the very popular Piroshky Piroshky bakery that my friend Leticia from Hospitality Vitae recommended, and the original Starbucks. It was just impossible to fit in more food. So, we opted to walk around the market and see the various other stalls.
Want to skip to the good stuff? Here’s a video!
Other Things To Do At Pike Place Market
It may be hard to believe that there are other things to enjoy, other than all the delicious Pike Place Market restaurants. But there are actually tons of various stalls on all 5 market levels. Closer to the restaurants, are the flower and art stalls. Now, I am not normally a cut flower kind of girl, but the flowers were beautiful. If you wanted to have a magical photo sessions, you could definitely buy several bouquets to have fun with. The art stalls were also awesome. I really enjoy buying art, crafts, and sculptures from local artists. Unfortunately there was nothing small enough to pack in my carry on, but all the art on display was wonderful.
There are tons of other various stalls. Fruits and vegetable stalls, where there were some delicious looking Washington cherries. And of course, seafood stalls with the catch of the day. In the lower levels of the market, there were all kinds of shops from magic shops to sports memorabilia. But, one of the things the kids liked the best? Sticking their chewed up gum on the infamous gum wall!
I know it sounds really gross, and it is, but the kids loved walking down the alley way with old sticky gum everywhere. It took them a while to decide the perfect place to put their gum. So it’s all in good fun, but bring hand sanitizer!
Travel Tip: They clean the gum wall every 5 years, and we got there right before the cleaning (end of June 2021). Something to keep in mind if this kooky place is something you want to show your kids. Because if you get there and they’ve just cleaned it, it’s going to look like just a regular alley.
What I Learned
My favorite part about traveling is all the lessons you learn along the way. And there are a few things about visiting the Pike Place Market restaurants that I would like to leave you with. First, if I had to do it all again, I would book a food tour. There are so many restaurants we didn’t get to try due to long lines and having the regular sized portions. A food tour would have given us the opportunity to try several sample sized dishes from several restaurants. If you have the means, book the food tour (even though they are pricey!). Make sure the tours are the “skip the line” tours though.
Second, plan for the weather. We got there just after the massive heat wave had started breaking up. Even though several shops and stalls were open, there were tons of stalls that were still closed! I didn’t consider the infrastructure of Seattle and how most stalls aren’t equipped to handle severe heat. Most stalls were going to reopen closer to the weekend, which we had already made plans for.
Finally, have a plan. Like I said, the market has so much to offer, other than restaurants. If I had planned better and brought a reusable shopping bag, I could have bought more produce to take back to the Airbnb. There are even prepared foods, like crab stuffed fish, that would be perfect for dinner if you have a stovetop. We just didn’t prepare appropriately. So we couldn’t buy any produce or art, and it was super depressing.
Learn from my mistakes!
So….. Tourist Trap or A Must See?
In my personal opinion, the market is a must see! Is it touristy? Yes, yes it is. And the longer the day goes on, the longer the lines become. However, all the vendors in the market are local, so it doesn’t feel “hokey” like some other touristy places. It’s worth a visit, and if we had had more time, we would have gone back for another half day there.
Have you been to the Pike Place Market? If so, do you agree with this post? Let me know in the comments!
