Main Content
Read Screen Reader / Printer-Friendly Version
View Slideshow »
Style & Shopping
Local's Guide to the Pike Place Market: Found Among the Merchants
One trip, 18 treasures: a sampling of the strange and wonderful objects for sale at the market every day.
Perennial Tearoom
Slayed by cuteness. We are powerless against the wiles of the three-piece, owl-faced tea set from Japanese company Kotobuki. $49
Sur La Table
When the first store opened in 1972 (across from the current one), it was among the earliest Le Creuset suppliers. $130 for 3.5-quart oval
MarketSpice
We found za’atar—a supertrendy Arabic spice blend that’s amazing mixed into homemade hummus. $16 per pound
Market Coins
City council member Sally Clarke stocks up on political buttons at this coin and sports memorabilia shop. What we want is the rookie Ichiro card from 1993. $195
Golden Age Collectibles
The force is strong with this collection of rare comics, lifestyle celebrity cutouts and limited edition tchotchkes like a Darth Vader cookie jar. $150
Tenzing Momo
If you need your fortune told, there are several seers on staff. If the fortune teller predicts liver problems, pick up a tincture of milk thistle on your way out. $12
Market Magic Shop
Like, wow, man. This magician-supply store sells a Mona Lisa with her eyes cut out for maximum Scooby-Doo spookiness. $79
The Great Wind-up
A windup-toy store. Why not? Crank “Duck on Bike” and his head propeller will spin as he pedals around. $15
Pipe Place
If you need a Bob Marley lava lamp with “Rasta Tint,” they’ve got plenty at this underground head shop. $33
Updated June 9, 2011. This version corrects the name of the shop, which should be Pipe Palace, not Pike Place Smoke Shop.
View Slideshow »Metsker Maps of Seattle
This one’s all about globes, travel guides, and other geographical paraphernalia. Our favorite find: The Birds Eye View of the City of Seattle from 1884. $30, or $390 framed
Market Tobacco Patch
A tiny tobacco shop tucked into a forgotten corner, it’s Washington’s only retailer of Davidoff cigars from the Dominican Republic. $37 for the Anniversario No. 1
Northstar Trading Company
A pair of supersoft sheepskin slippers, made on Whidbey Island, is the perfect from-Seattle-with-love birthday gift. $73
El Mercado Latino
Awesome candy alert: Mara Carrito de Elotes strawberry-flavored, chili-dusted lollipops. $6.75 for 40
Old Seattle Paperworks
Coveted: this store’s 1971 Rolling Stone issues with Hunter S. Thompson’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, parts 1 and 2. (Like getting yelled at? Take a picture.) $100
Gem Heaven
Amid purple healing crystals and sorta unsettling animal remains we found this stylish set of rusty-hewed, petrified-wood bookends from Arizona. $235
Oriental Mart
Find bonito flakes for topping off tonight’s tofu at the tiny Asian imports grocer near Sisters European Cafe. 69¢ per packet
Hands of the World
This shop stocks handmade Bozo puppets from Mali. We’re pretty into the jackal, whose toothy mouth opens and closes by way of leather hinges. $349
Antiques at Pike Place
Prepare to be overwhelmed by the sheer size of this shop, and impressed by all the killer loot inside. For example, this very-’80s Tyco Lego telephone. $110
Advertisement
Advertisement
I agree with the above comment from Shari. I clicked the link for this story expecting to read about the great local artists who make things by hand. To me, the true Pike Place Market is the local farmers and the craftspeople who put their heart and soul into making things that you can’t buy anywhere else.
As an artist selling my work at Pike Place Market since 2006 (as well as a subscriber to your magazine) I am deeply dissapointed as your editors missed the artist/craft community completely. There are over 250 local artists and craftsman who participate in the market daystall program. My company makes handmade ceramic art; all handmade and one of a kind. However, you choose to feature molded machine made ceramics from Japan. You have failed to see the heart of Pike Place by not including the real art and artists who sustain the interest of
of travelers throughout the country and world.
Perhaps next time a feature of the hardest working local artists I know might be an idea for your next overview of Seattle points of interest. How could you have missed this is beyond me.