100 Reasons to Love Seattle

Photo: Video stills courtesy One Degree Events

5. We Have Flash Mob Guys

It’s an early April Saturday and the first licks of Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’” trickle out over loudspeakers in Westlake Center plaza. Then, suddenly, 1,000 seemingly average shoppers start dancing. Synchronized dancing. And parting the crowd like Moses in skinny jeans is Bobby Bonsey, the 23-year-old with scruffy-star good looks who helped choreograph this Glee-inspired flash mob: ostensibly an impromptu dance party that actually took four months of preproduction and hours of rehearsal, plus 10 videographers, three photographers, two audio engineers, and one director (all volunteer) to pull off. Bonsey is one of Seattle’s “flash mob guys”—something he hadn’t even considered when local event producer Egan Orion asked him to play Michael Jackson in a Pike Place Market mob in 2009. But the two of them—along with dancer Beth Meberg—have since become a hot commodity. Since the success of the Glee mob, they’ve fielded offers from the Seahawks, Microsoft, and FOX television to go corporate with their dance moves.

4. We Nurture New Talent

So much talent bubbles in Seattle—you’re welcome, Rolling Stone, for all those “bands to watch”—it’s no surprise something like New Guard (hopegrocery.com) popped up here. The inspiration of Sasquatch Books editor Whitney Ricketts, artist Joey Veltkamp, and husband-wife creatives Sarah and Damien Jurado, the decidedly hip dinner series serves up a three-course meal of the best in art, music, and food. The idea is simple, but the carefully curated menu of up-and-coming contributors is what gives New Guard gold-star status. Since the series debuted last September, it’s featured roving chef Eliot Guthrie, multimedia artist Jason Hirata, and indie pop-psych band Kay Kay and his Weathered Underground. “We’re surrounded by talent,” says Ricketts, “I’m consistently amazed.” We are, too.

7–13. We Look Good on Paper

In the past year, Seattle has been Ranked…

• Most Literate City
• Fourth-Fittest City
• Seventh-Best Quality of Life
• Ninth-Best Place for Young Adults
• Fourth-Most Bike-Friendly City
Second-Most Influential High-Tech Center
• Nation’s Best Economy

96–98. Our Reality-TV Stars Know How to Seize an Opportunity

Okay, so they don’t all turn national exposure into success (American Idol’s Sanjaya Malakar is dishing pie at Pagliacci Pizza this summer) but three recent local reality-TV stars have really made their 15 minutes count. In March, Robin Leventhal (Top Chef) made the jump from local kitchens—Crave, See Sound Lounge —to an exec chef gig at the Meridian Club, an exclusive resort in the Caribbean. Meanwhile former Capitol Hill bartender Logan Neitzel (Project Runway) launched a Goth-inspired clothing line that attracted the likes of Vogue. And UW alum James Sun (The Apprentice), after staring down the Donald all the way to the finale before hearing that pinched-face growl “You’re fired,” landed his own reality show, BBC’s Sun Tzu War on Business.

Photo: Courtesy Paige Garland

43. We Heart Butterfat

First came the dessert renaissance—the cupcake, doughnut, and ice cream shops that engulfed Seattle in a buttercream avalanche a few years back. Then richer, creamier butters began to grace the bread plates at our favorite restaurants. Now Molly Moon’s Homemade Ice Cream (mollymoonicecream.com) proudly reports that it’s upped the butterfat content of its already uberrich product—from 14.5 percent to a whopping 19—making it the highest-butterfat ice cream you can buy in Seattle. In revising their recipe to remove corn syrup, something had to be added for texture. That something? Butterfat. “Our ice cream went from amazingly, deliciously rich to amazingly, delectably, deliciously rich,” Moon sighs. We’d add a couple more adjectives, but our mouths are full.

3. We Can All Just Get Along

Gordon Ramsay versus Mario Batali, David Chang versus San Francisco: Chef rivalries pop up everywhere these days. Everywhere except Seattle. After he sold Matt’s in the Market and before he found the Harbor Steps spot for his new venture, Lecosho , Matt Janke booked a temporary gig at Wild Ginger. When Stumbling Goat veteran Seth Caswell lost investor funds for new project Emmer and Rye, Art of the Table owner Dustin Ronspies turned over his restaurant to Caswell every Tuesday so he could cook up a weekly fundraising feast. And Emmer and Rye itself represents a collab between Caswell and Karsten Betd, the man behind the local vegetarian-friendly Julia’s chain. Instead of closing his struggling Queen Anne branch and vacating the Victorian that housed it, Betd approached Caswell about partnering on a new project there. Betd stayed in business, and Emmer and Rye finally had a home.

76. We Can All Just Get Along, Part 2

Perhaps there is another city in which a Sufi Muslim imam, a Jewish rabbi, and a retired Congregationalist minister would unite in common purpose. But we wouldn’t bet on it. Seattleites Sheikh Jamal Rahman, Rabbi Ted Falcon, and Pastor Don MacKenzie came together amid the smoking rubble of 9/12, determined to foster connectedness across tribes of the freshly wary faithful. Numerous public speaking engagements, spiritual retreats, Middle East interfaith pilgrimages, and one book later, the trio (now dubbed the Interfaith Amigos; interfaithamigos.com) continues to bang the drum for mutual understanding and tolerance—qualities Seattle remains notably better at than religious devotion.

6. We Own Our Mistakes

State Superintendent for Public Instruction (and former legislator) Randy Dorn is the rare politician who, when busted for DUI, doesn’t make excuses, challenge the bust, and generally weasel out. With a blood alcohol reading just a few .01s above .08, Dorn could easily have pled to a lesser charge when he got busted after leaving a reception in March. Instead he ’fessed up, pled guilty, spent a night in jail, and turned an embarrassment into a statewide lesson in taking responsibility.


Updated June 23, 2010. This version clarifies an item originally printed in the July 2010 issue.

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Published: July 2010