Seattle has been on our list for over a year at this point, but the flights and hotels always seemed to be WAY too expensive to justify a random weekend trip. Finally we found a Southwest flash sale that made it worth it, and we booked ASAP. As a super loyal SPG member, I assumed we’d book a Westin, but unfortunately everything right in downtown was still hovering around $400-500 a night! We decided on the Four Points a little outside of downtown, which I was pleasantly surprised by – a super warm and inviting lobby with a restaurant and a fireplace, a great workout center, plus it was only about a 3 minute walk from the Space Needle and everything else we wanted to do while we were in the city. It was great for a nice walk home after the INSANE amount of eating and drinking we did.
We started out the first day by walking over to No Anchor for brunch. It was rated one of the best brunches in the city, and also had a super incredible draft beer list. The food was amazing, and they do a great job of recommending beer pairings. You can also eat the ENTIRE MENU for only $120, which seems like a steal to me. We didn’t want to overdo it with the entire menu option, so we went with the Fried Oyster Omelet with caviar(!!) on top and the Fried Mushrooms.
After breakfast, we walked over to Pike Place Market, which is legit the most touristy place in the whole city. I suggest coming, taking the obligatory photo with the Public Market sign, and then getting out. There is a pretty cool fish market, but it’s SO CROWDED on the weekends that it really isn’t worth it in my opinion. The original Starbucks is here, which is really cool to look at for about a second. The line to get a coffee when we went was at least 2 blocks long, so we just opted to get a drink on mobile order from a Starbucks a few minutes away and continue our walk.
Now a Starbucks that IS worth going into, is the Starbucks Reserve. The space is HUGE and sort of resembles a brewery. We tried a reserve coffee that was aged in Whiskey Barrels – it was served like you would a whiskey and it was honestly one of the best coffees I’ve had.
After getting super caffeinated, we headed a half a block down to Foreign National, a nearby speakeasy recommended by a Seattle native. Our initial plan for the evening was to have a drink at the speakeasy, and then head over to Toulouse Petit – a New Orleans restaurant that has the most incredible happy hour menu both pre and post dinner hours. We arrived at Foreign National, ordered our first cocktail and took a look at the menu only to discover that they had a Cheeseburger Bao. We were way too curious to pass this up, so we ordered one thinking it would be a good snack. Jokes on us, because it was a massive full hamburger sized bao and MAN was it delicious.
After getting super full of cocktails and burger, we decided to postpone the happy hour to the post dinner timeframe, and figured we’d hit up a strip of really unique looking bars we had passed by earlier in the morning. Located in Belltown, we hit up Shorty’s, which was a coney island themed bar complete with tons of games, Neon Boots, which to my surprise was NOT a country bar, Lava Lounge, which as you can guess is a tiki bar, and ended at Mama’s Cantina. As you can guess by the number of bars we hit up, we didn’t end up making it to the post dinner happy hour. Instead, we ended with burritos and queso at Mama’s before grabbing a hazy Uber back to our hotel.
Day two, started out with Biscuit Bitch for breakfast. As soon as I saw the name I knew we HAD to visit. I went with the Gritty Scrambled Cheesy Bitch and it cured my hangover IMMEDIATELY. If you’re going on a weekend, be prepared for a pretty long wait, and you’ll need to be super aggressive about jumping on a table as soon as someone gets up if you want to eat inside.
After breakfast we began our walk over to the Underground Tour. When we were heading to Seattle the number one recommendation I received was this tour, and it seemed really intriguing. Basically, the current Seattle is built on top of the old city, and the old sidewalks and many old building fronts still exist down below the surface. There are a couple different companies that offer the tour, and from our research it seemed like Bill Speidel’s Tour was the most popular and most legit. I’d recommend getting to the tour a little early – they have a bar where you can grab a drink that you can bring with you down to the presentation. The tour itself is super cool and we learned a LOT about the history of Seattle.
Across the street from the tour is one of the oldest bar/restaurants in the city, Merchant’s Saloon. I recommend popping in for one drink just to see the place – they have a really cool underground bar that was part of the original city and still in use today.
After the tour we headed back down towards Pike Place to grab some food. We wanted to check out at least one local brewery and decided to head to Elysian Bar for a few beers and some snacks. We did some flights, had some snacks and then walked around to a few of the shops in the area. It had gotten a bit cold, so Eric and I both ended up purchasing new Patagonia’s to stay warm and fit in more with the Pacific Northwest vibes.
Our dinner reservations were a bit late, so to kill some more time we decided to do the Seattle Great Wheel, which is essentially a giant ferris wheel. Y’all, VIP tickets to things are not always worth it, but the VIP experience at the Wheel is TOTALLY worth it. For $14 a person, you can get a ticket, wait in line for a ton of time, pay extra money for a drink, and then ride in a normal cabin with strangers. For $50 a ticket, you get a free drink, get walked to the front of the line, get photos taken in front of the green screen, get a free Great Wheel t-shirt, and then get your own, private cab with leather seats, a heater, and your own aux cord to play any music you’d like. IT’S INCREDIBLE. We also managed to time it perfectly to see the sunset while we were up there. This is my number one suggestion for anyone visiting Seattle!
For dinner we’d researched the best sushi restaurants in the city and decided on Sushi Kashiba which is located right by the wheel in Pike Place Market. We were NOT disappointed. They don’t officially have an omakase menu or pairing, but after we asked about it, they agreed to make one for us based on the things we liked. I have to say, sometimes when the restaurant makes their own off the menu omakase it’s WAY better and you get WAY more food than a typical tasting menu would include, and that was definitely the case here.They also paired each course with a different drink, and by the time we left we were full and hammered – sure signs of a great meal.
The next morning we wanted to try to hit up the Space Needle, but we were super hungover and mostly just stayed in bed until the very last moment we could, then FINALLY went to Toulouse Petit. Unfortunately, they don’t offer any of the Happy Hour menu items on weekends in the mornings, so we ended up having to order off of their brunch menu, which was still super delicious but we definitely missed out!
Next time we definitely have the Space Needle and HH at Toulouse on the list. Have you been to Seattle and have great tips? Let me know in the comments!!
