Too bad Powe isn't around anymore. He could tell you where all the kids hang out. Also, The Popsicle Shop would be a great name for a gay bar. He could help with that as well.
Hello friends, Unless COVID derails it, coming to your city for a wedding in early October. Staying downtown off 1st and Union. Have 4 full days and looking for recs on things to do and food. I like everything food wise, so open to whatever thoughts you've got.
Real talk -- I'd change your hotel location or look at Airbnbs. Downtown is bad right now with respect to homelessness. Real bad. I live less than a mile from that location. Are you single or with a significant other? I'd look into Lower Queen Anne, or north of Lake Union in Ballard/Fremont.
You are right by Seattle Art Museum -- definitely do that IMO. Partake of the local cannabis product first. Another fun thing to walk through while faded is the Olympic Sculpture Park. And following the same theme, Chihuly Garden and Glass is really cool. Try to get every Asian kind of food you can in the city. Walk around University of Washington. Really cool campus. Has a free museum too. Drive an hour north of the city to Anacortes to do whale watching. Had a great experience with that
Not very aggressive, although there have been a few incidents. They've just overtaken downtown. Tons of tents on the sidewalk, once you get out of the immediate Pike Place area there are more homeless than tourists. Seriously would not want to walk downtown at night, which is crazy. It's even worse in Pioneer Square, which is only a few blocks away from that location. And Pioneer Sq/Chinatown is my favorite part of the city.
I was in that area at night time (Chinatown) last month and this is accurate. The homeless have def taken it over
It'll probably be fine if they're having the reception at the hotel, then. But I wouldn't go walking too late at night. Shiro's, real famous sushi spot, is open for indoor dining. They take reservations. Most everything is open for indoor dining, but they just reinstituted the mask mandate today. If you're a beer guy, you're real close to Cloudburst, one of the best breweries in the city.
There have always been homeless in downtown/Pioneer Square. But during Covid it got real bad. There are other contributing factors, too. During the defund the police movement, police budgets were cut (although not nearly as much as they claim, imo) and some officers quit, so the police allege they are very short-staffed and cannot adequately respond to everything. There are a lot of accounts of 60-90 minute responses times to anything that's not murder/violent. That includes petty theft and homelessness, which the police have largely turned a blind eye to. A federal judge chastised the City Council and governing body recently that made national headlines: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattl...jerk-not-enough-forethought-on-police-reform/ To be clear, I'm not suggesting the police should be doing homeless sweeps, and I suspect there's a bit of "fuck you, told you so" by the police in response to their budget cuts. I don't know what the answer is. But right now the situation downtown has significantly devolved and isn't what is was a year ago. There's also a lot of homeless encampments along I-5, and during the past few months they've been throwing rocks onto cars passing underneath, causing fucking chaos: https://www.king5.com/article/news/...ents/281-c8e296ea-7ec0-433f-9cac-b6b25a2b4137 Everything is fairly OK in Fremont/Ballard/CapHill, the popular areas with the best bars/food. But downtown is pretty crazy right now. Pike Place is largely OK, but the immediately surrounding area is pretty rough.
BamaNug looks like this wedding is happening. What bar recs to you have a group of college buddies in their 30s? No problem with Ubering out of downtown.
Nice bars for fancy cocktails/cool atmosphere: Dead Line (in Pioneer Square) Damn the Weather (literally next door to Dead Line, owned by one of the original members of the Fleet Foxes -- one of my favorite bars in Seattle) Canon (renowned whiskey bar in CapHill) Awesome dives: Linda's Tavern (CapHill) Pacific Inn Pub (Fremont/Wallingford -- Bourdain went here and it blew up, awesome Fish n chips) Sloop Tavern - probably my favorite dive, surly bartenders and cold Rainier If your group is pretty big, I'd recommend just hitting some breweries: Stoup, Reuben's, Urban Family -- all in the Ballard brewery district, there are 5-6 breweries in a 2-3 block radius Cloudburst - see below. Fremont Brewing - amazing beer garden, but always packed. Probably the most popular and most crowded brewery in the area Holy Mountain -- a little out of the way, and their bartenders are pretentious as shit, but the beer is amazing -- good for something other than IPAs and hops Aslan Brewing - new(er) brewery original out of Bellingham (up near Canada) that just opened in Fremont Also, Cloudburst Brewery just won best brewery at the Great American Beer Festival -- it's been my favorite brewery since I moved here in 2017. Two locations, one right next to Pike Place and an awesome bar place in Ballard. https://www.seattletimes.com/life/f...brewing-named-brewery-and-brewer-of-the-year/
BamaNug not sure how long this place stayed open, but in 2015/16 I went to a bar in Capitol Hill that was a legit speakeasy. No marking outside, had to say a "password" to get in. Cocktail bar. Ever been there?
There are a few like that, some hidden speakeasies all over the city. That's not really my scene, I'm not a cocktail guy -- always feel weird going to a fancy bar like that and asking for Rainier or a cold IPA. I also don't frequent CapHill that much, it's mainly early-20s UW students. I honestly don't think I've been there since pre-COVID. Give me a dive bar and a 4AM night at Monkey Loft and we'll call it a night. Much prefer Ballard, Pioneer Square, or SoDo -- the last two are pretty seedy, tho. (Monkey Loft is a huge burning man-type bar, deep house and techno -- all bars have to stop serving drinks and close at 2 AM, so Monkey Loft opens up their rooftop from 2-4AM for the after party)
Yeah, if I were in Seattle it'd be all breweries and bottle shops for me. And dispensaries. I like how people ask where to get a beer in Seattle. Do you go to the steakhouse and ask where to get seafood?
Shawn Kemp's Cannabis opened literally 500 ft from the entrance to my condo. It's a blessing and a curse. Also, if you're into IPA/hoppy beers, I'll go to my deathbed saying WA is the best place in the world for that type of beer. Fight me.
Beers were not on the places you listed, but Old Stove’s new location’s views were awesome. It’s by the Pike and at least worth checking out after Cloudburst.
I've heard PDX's situation has deteriorated worse than Seattle, which is...something I would not like to witness.
I know that place you're talking about, and it looks cool, but never been. I went to Old Stove a few times when I first moved here and was never impressed with their beers. May be worth it for the view, tho. Another awesome rooftop bar in that area is The Nest -- but it's for IG influencers and fancy folk that wanna do it for the 'gram
Meant to say the beers weren’t as good as the places you mention. Views were definitely worth it. I had a cool pic of the Ferris wheel and everything else but then I got drunk a few months later and lost my phone.
If you have a crowd that wants to take pictures and look super swanky, to echo, Canon is like the best whiskey bar in the country for that. All of the cool glassware definitely worth going if you want hard alcohol and a great pic
Yeah we’re going up that way. Guess we have to rent a car? Whale watching is the sole reason for the trip since we’ve been to Seattle a couple times before. Arrive at 6pm Friday and leave 3pm Sunday. Any dinner recs for Friday? I love it all, but gf isn’t big on seafood, so maybe not a strict sushi or seafood place.
Kamonegi - amazing soba noodle house in Fremont. It's legit Joule - Korean steakhouse in the same area Some Random Bar is my go-to watering hole next to my house, and they have awesome food. Small menu, tho, so prolly want to look before you go One thing I do a lot is go walk around International District for authentic Asian, everything you can think of. But it's kind of a rough area.
Wish I had seen this thread a couple weeks ago. My daughter got a swim scholarship at Seattle U (/humblebrag) and my wife and I just drove her out there last week. We stayed right near campus (Broadway and Madison) and got an up close and personal look at downtown. We ended up hitting Pike Place (the flowers are unbelievable there) a couple times - got beers at the Old Stove location right there on the water (and brought home some of their seasonal hazy IPA), and rode the ferry to Bainbridge (lame as shit town, but I grew up sailing on the Great Lakes so it was cool to get out on the water). Visited Chihuly Gardens and then hiked down to the beach at Discovery Park one day. Super cool town, though we'll see how she does going from 300 days of sun in Colorado to 300 cloudy days in PNW. Lots of unhoused folks and their encampments all over, but we figure the sooner the girl learns that shit is out there and how to handle herself, the better. Great object lesson in the cruelties baked into capitalism too IMO.
I went from that same 300 days of sun to rain shit and didn’t even move out of state for the pleasure of getting hosed that hard by weather. Just by your own verbiage and framing of things, sounds like she’ll be fine.
Now this monkey loft sounds like my type of place. I remember Damn the Weather from last time. Think I went to Linda’s tavern. Also some Mexican place where I had to go downstairs with a good happy hour. Went to a drag bar and played bingo. Finished at a back alley speakeasy where they told me it may not be the place for me after I slurred my order. Uh yeah, pal. I just had 17 drinks in 7 different bars. What do you expect.
Hey O https://www.marijuanamoment.net/seattle-becomes-largest-u-s-city-to-decriminalize-psychedelics/ Seattle Becomes Largest U.S. City To Decriminalize Psychedelics
Think you'll see tripped out tourists wandering around? IIRC Amsterdam used to allow this and cut it out because tourists came and got off their ass on this
Nah, you're not going to see psychs for sale in dispensaries for a couple years, if ever. In my opinion. Hoping it opens up more for psilocybin treatment and the like, tho. Maybe now my mushroom spores don't have to come in unmarked packaging with a big warning that says "cultivating these are a felony!!!"
That would be huge. I doubt the services will reach them, but imagine what that could do for some of the aforementioned depressed homeless people camped out downtown
Have to go to Seattle next weekend for work someone tell me cool things to do that won’t inevitably wind up with me getting covid pls
Where you staying? Corporate usually puts people in downtown which has become real bad the past 1-2 years. Cloudburst and Holy Mountain are best breweries. If you're eating on the company dime I can recommend some nice places. Fucking everyone I know has Covid, btw.
Looks like I’m staying in belltown sure, give me all the recs because im charging everything to my company as an expense because i don’t want to be fucking traveling right now appreciate it
Belltown is where I used to live. Cloudburst is walking distance, right next to Pike Place. Won small brewery of the year for 2021, in the nation. It's legit. Shiros is the most famous sushi spot in Seattle. It's incredible, also in Belltown. Crocodile is a cool music venue, dive-y bar. They just opened at their new location, I haven't been yet. Shorty's is my favorite dive bar in the city. Surly bartenders and ice-cold Rainier. Lava Lounge and Darcy's are other dive bars in the area. Climate Pledge Arena is walking distance from Belltown, could catch a Kraken game. Some Random Bar has an amazing draft list and good food. Ive met BayouMafia and Corky Bucek here for drinks in the past, so it's pretty much the-TMB official meet up.