Family Market Farmers, Craftspeople, Seattleites And Tourists Mingle In Wondrous Medley Of Pike Place Market

It’s 8 a.m. on a typically gray morning in Seattle and Pike Place Market is bustling with activity as shopkeepers gear up for the 9 a.m. opening.

A fish market employee flops fat flounders on a bed of ice; at his feet, clams and crabs overflow tubs. Florists cart buckets of bright sunflowers, deep purple irises and a rainbow of gerbera daisies out to the sidewalk. Trucks pull up under the red neon Public Market sign, and men unload cases of fresh carrots, celery and other produce.

And wherever I wander in this vast warren of buildings and alleys studded with shops, restaurants and open-air stalls, there’s the pungent aroma of fish mingled with the smell of fresh bread baking and spicy Chinese food cooking.

For nearly 88 years now, the routine has been about the same at this place that sprawls over nine acres in the heart of Seattle - south from Virginia Street to Pike Street, tumbling west down the hill from First Avenue to Western Avenue near the waterfront.

Pike Place Market is the oldest continuously operating public market in the United States. With 225 businesses, it is also one of the largest and, on the West Coast at least, the best-known.

On most days, at least 20,000 people will visit; that figure doubles on summer weekends when tourists flood the city. All told, about 9 million people come to Pike Place Market each year.

“What they seem to like about the market is that it’s real, it’s a working market,” says Sue Gilbert Mooers, communication specialist for the Preservation and Development Authority, which oversees the complex.

In addition to the commercial businesses, more than 100 farmers sell their goods here, as do about 200 craftspeople, Mooers says. The latter vie for tables at a lively event called “roll call,” held at 9 a.m. each day.

The opportunities for shoppers are limitless here - you can get new glasses, buy a fresh-picked apple, pick up a Seattle souvenir, get a tattoo, buy a rare book, have your fortune told. But the bulk of the businesses are food-based.

It’s always been that way, Mooers says. Indeed, the market was opened as a “Seattle experiment” to help farmers, she says. “Up to that time, farmers were selling their produce to commission houses on Western Avenue. They were selling for not much money and the residents were paying a lot of money for the produce. The city decided to get the two (the farmers and the residents) together.”

So, on what was then a muddy Pike Place covered with planks, the city opened Pike Place Market on Aug. 17, 1907. It was a wild success, growing in the 1930s to a peak of more than 600 farmers. It is now designated a Historic District.

Some of the businesses have been here for several generations, Mooers says. Three Girls Bakery has been around almost since the market began. It’s been located in the Sanitary Market (so called because it was the first market building that did not allow live animals) since 1912.

Sol Amon, owner of Pure Food Fish in the Main Arcade on Pike Place, can trace his heritage back to his dad, Jack, who began selling fresh fish from a stand in the market in 1911. Sol himself has been in the business almost a half-century, the last 40 or so years on his own.

“I went into business for myself in 1956,” he recalls. “When we first started, it was a lot of locals (who frequented the market). We’re very fortunate now; we have a mix of locals and tourists. You don’t find markets like this anywhere in the world.”

The people have changed over the years, he says, “but the atmosphere is the same.” The business people are kind of like a family, he says, and they get to know their customers - even those who visit only two or three times a year.

“You still have that one-on-one shopping,” Amon says, pausing to holler out a hello to a passer-by. “We select every fish. We only have fish to sell. We have to make sure the product is good.”

The market is open now. At Pure Food Fish, hawkers are calling out, “Fresh salmon, fresh crab to go!” while down a few spaces another is advertising, in a loud baritone, “Cherries, berries, sweet white corn, folks.”

I meander past craftspeople selling everything from stuffed cloth cats to jewelry and follow an arrow pointing down a ramp. This is the way to the “DownUnder Shops,” three floors of eccentricity. As one Seattle resident told me, “The farther down you go, the weirder it gets.”

Indeed it does. There are shops with interiors to rival the finest bordello, and you can find oddball antiques, clothes straight out of Haight-Ashbury and a magic store here. If magic doesn’t work, you can have your fortune told and see what will.

I come up from “DownUnder” and continue my walk down alleyways, past chic gift shops, hair salons, meat markets and toy shops. Soon, I am back at Pike Place in front of Piroshky, Piroshky, a Russian bakery in what is really ethnic row - Italian, French, Mexican and Middle Eastern foods are represented here.

In the tiny shop with its tantalizing pastries, Vladimir Kotelnikov tells me how he and his wife and two children came to the United States in 1989 from Estonia with less than $400 and found a new life at Pike Place Market.

A baker in Estonia, he did not want to pursue that career in the U.S., Kotelnikov says. But after laboring in construction for a year, he decided to return to baking, working first in a Russian bakery, then an American bakery.

Persuaded by friends to open his own shop, he found the little storefront at the market. The first day, with the doors open, he made 10 sausage rolls. The aroma drew scores of customers - and Piroshky, Piroshky was off and running. Now, he makes 30 different kinds of pastries a day, he says.

“The market is a special place,” he says. “They want to help people who want to make a success in America. And that is exactly me.”