10 drive-ins. 2 food trucks. All across the South Puget Sound. Our most recommended Seattle restaurant is a burger stand that opened in Wallingford in 1954. It’s burgers and fries in a bag and hand-dipped shakes that haven’t changed in seven decades. Fans called it a staple, a local gem and used it in the same breath as going to the first Starbucks. It’s gone head-to-head with In N Out before and came out the victor. A life-changing burger that’s spread around the city it was born in.

Fans Recommend: The Deluxe

One of Seattle's most beloved breakfast institutions and our most recommended breakfast spot, Portage has been serving the city since 1997. Five locations, all full of local, organic, sustainable, and actually delicious food. Their Seattle Benedict with dungeness crab is about as perfect as a Seattle breakfast item can get. Our fans mentioned the challah french toast multiple times. Throw a waffle topping bar on top of it and you don’t need much else. Come early or book ahead if you can - but the line’s worth it if you just show up.

Fans Recommend: The Seattle Benedict. The French toast. The waffle topping bar.

Our most-recommended sandwich place in Seattle is a Caribbean one. Opened by the sons of Seattle restaurant legend Paseo in 2015, this Caribbean sandwich shop has grown to challenge its predecessor on the Seattle food front. The vibes at its three locations are immaculate - a fuchsia and teal restaurant that smells like slow-roasted pork shoulder and feels like a beach shack. If you’re going to get a sandwich in Seattle, this is probably the place to do it.

Fans Recommend: Cubano. #1 Standard Caribbean Sandwich

What started as a late night pop up in 2010 in a borrowed kitchen is now one of locals most recommended breakfast places. As the name suggests, it’s all about biscuits - southern-inspired homemade ones. They do three things: wild variations on biscuits and gravy, classic breakfast sandwiches with their signature alterations and of course, coffee. Espresso to be specific. And they also have something called a Fuzzy Palmer. A quick and dirty and delicious breakfast option our fans love.

Fans Recommend: Bitchwich

A Northwest seafood joint with a cool-ass logo. Feels like exactly the kind of place you’d want to go to eat local seafood in this city. The chef has OG roots here - his grandfather helped save Pike Plake Market in the ‘60s. Our friends in Seattle love it, it was one of our most recommended seafood places. It’s made New York Times lists. It has a cool special item: The Dungeness crab roll, hand-cracked in house, lightly dressed, served in a griddled bun - is made only on weekends, done when they sell out. Closed Mondays.

Fans Recommend: Fish sandwich. Shrimp toasts.

It’s a dive bar. But it has a burger. This dark, wood-panelled 21+ dive bar in South Park named after the owner's mother is known nationally - like Top 5s best in the country - for its Tavern Burger, a thin double patty with American cheese, pickles, onion and special sauce on a soft white bun. Our fans’ most rec’d burger. Hand cut fries got quite a few mentions as well. One of the rare entries we get that has equal DRINK and EAT bonafides.

Fans Recommend: The Tavern Burger.

 In one of the smoked fish capitals on earth, you told us the best smoked fish in Seattle was at Seattle Fish Guys more than anyone else. It’s a great Seattle story: Husband and wife started with a fish stand at Pike Place Market, then opened a gleaming neighbourhood seafood market and restaurant in the Central District in 2016. The deli counter goes deep: smoked salmon belly, fresh poke built to order, oysters, clam chowder, crab subs, uni. It's a market and a lunch spot at once, tucked into a nondescript building at 23rd and Jackson, far enough from the tourist waterfront to feel genuinely local. They'll also pack and ship your salmon home.

Fans Recommend: Smoked salmon.

A place our fans called both a “local gem dive bar” and a “greasy spoon diner that retains old Seattle charm”. Which is a hell of a combo. Hattie’s Hat is one of Ballard’s stars - the northwest Seattle neighborhood that was recommended more than any other to wander around in. It’s got a hand-carved French bar that was installed in 1904 when Ballard Avenue was four blocks and twenty-seven saloons serving fishermen and dockworkers. Breakfast, lunch, dinner, late-night until like 1am - it does it all, in a room full of nature murals. Pre-match, post-match or really post-match spot.

Fans Recommend: Eggs Benedict. Bloody Mary.

An understated pink door in Post Alley leads you down some steps into a former bingo hall that turns into a beautifully unique trattoria that sometimes has performance trapeze. Another combination you may only be able to find here in Seattle. Pink Door has been around since 1981 and is still delicious and interesting over 40 years later. Squid ink pasta, jazz ensembles, Pappardelle bolognese, a great bar you can eat at. All adds up to a pretty cool place to eat some high-end italian-american.

Fans Recommend: Squid ink pasta; anything on the menu

Our fans talked about Seattle’s Dim Sum and Jade Garden was who they mentioned most. Five minutes' walk from Lumen Field, in the heart of Seattle's Chinatown, Jade Garden has been slinging dumplings for 20 years. A family-owned shop. A great, off-script early pregame spot - it opens at 9am daily - experience Seattle’s International District with some of its best dim sum.

Fans Recommend: Prawn dumplings.

A place named after the Lewis Carroll poem where a Walrus persuades oysters to leave the sea for a walk along the beach and then eats them. You will be the walruses in this scenario. In 2010, this oyster bar opened and now you probably have to wait in line to get one the 40 seats. It opens at 4pm. No reservations. Rotating menu of freshness from the waters nearby. It’s a great vibe and our fans’ oyster representative on the list.

Fans Recommend: Oysters

Your favorite dive bar in one of Seattle’s most beautiful neighborhoods - Queen Anne - is Streamline. Slightly off the beaten tourist path and with character for days, this spot was two blocks down the street when the owner had to move it piece by piece to it’s current location in 2014. The oval wraparound bar made it, new graffiti went up on the walls and the place kept rolling. It’s a few blocks from the Space Needle and the hole in the wall to sneak into before or after your ascent.

Fans Recommend: Pulled pork sliders (general); Taco Thursday (general)

You recommended this Pioneer Square Irish pub across the board - it’s got the food (fish and chips), the vibes (live music every day but Wednesday) and the location (less than a mile from Lumen Field). The owner came from Ireland and opened this spot in 1993 in the historic Colman Building in Pioneer Square, above Seattle's underground tunnels. A building that may or may not be haunted. And it’s become a local go-to. It even has a Tuesday night jazz jam that’s been running since 1995 and is a legit staple of the Seattle jazz scene.

Fans Recommend: Fish and chips.

The great brewery district in a great brewery city gets its own recommendation from the fans. Seattle’s Ballard neighborhood has 14 (!) breweries within about a mile, which means going to just one is almost not possible. So we hop or we crawl. The local advice to plan your attack: Start at Reuben's Brews, grab an IPA with some of the semi pro team (Ballard FC), then hit Urban Family for a sour or two and end up at Stoup. From there let the barley take you to whichever one of the many other nearby options it desires.

A coffee shop with a cool name, a dope logo and awesome coffee. In a sea of Seattle coffee spots that hit that triple, Overcast is the one most recommended by our fans. It’s got two great locations in Capitol Hill, both with seasonal roasts, hand-whisked matcha and locally sourced espresso. Start your Seattle coffee crawl here.

Coffee, records, a film lab and a design company make Porchlight another only-in-Seattle combination our fans said you have to check out. Mainly for the coffee, but also for the vinyl records and the original graphic posters. It’s right down the road from Overcast in central Capitol Hill to hit your coffee double. Food & Wine named it one of their favorite cafes in Seattle and the least snobby on the list, which is probably the most Seattle compliment imaginable. Open 8:30am to 3pm every day, no exceptions.Fans Recommend: The Cardamom latte. Espresso shot straight. Mocha.

Seattle’s first Vietnamese coffee roastery started in 2001 and is what you said is the best coffee in the International District. The beans are sourced direct from Vietnam and roasted right in front of you at the shop. The cà phê brûlée is espresso with egg cream and torched sugar. The bánh mì goes. Condé Nast recommended it. Eater named it essential. Seven blocks from Lumen Field.Fans Recommend: Breakfast Banh Mi

Your overwhelming favorite for the best soccer bar in the city, Fremont’s The George & Dragon. A Seattle soccer embassy since 1995, this is the origin point for the Sounders fans’ march to the matches and an entry point into the beating soccer heart of the city. Indoor and outdoor viewing, an awesome bar with 20+ beers and ciders on tap, darts and pool and every single other thing you want in a true powerhouse soccer pub. This will be one of THE spots all tournament.

Fans Recommend: Full English brekky. Fish and chips.

Right behind The George & Dragon comes Atlantic Crossing, another soccer haven that Seattle fans raved about. It’s a self-described neighborhood watering hole in Green Lake that you said has “the biggest watch parties in town”. It’s built for supporters - it’s the home of the Sounders’ Emerald City Supporters and the Cascadia Gooners, Seattle's Arsenal faithful

Fans Recommend: Fish and chips

One more to finish the trident of your favorite Seattle soccer bars is the city’s home for women’s sports - Rough & Tumble. In 2021, owner Jen Barnes was trying to find a bar that would put the OL Reign playoff game on. Nobody would. So she built the place herself, and named it after the pioneering 1921 Preston, England women’s team who got banned from playing for being too rough. The bar puts women's sports on 18 screens with full sound, but shows everything: the Seahawks, the Sounders, the World Cup. A second location opened in Columbia City in December 2025. USWNT legend Michelle Akers is supposed to be regular.

Fans Recommend: The Bird fried chicken sandwich.

This Pioneer Square legend has been the mandatory first stop before every Seahawks, Sounders and Mariners game going on 27 years. The building itself dates to 1910 - a narrow 17-and-a-half-foot-wide former warehouse, alley and laundry mat that once sat over a railroad pathway. It’s got two levels of seating and walls covered in more Seattle sports history than you can see in one visit. It feels like an extension of the stadium, which is merely feet away.

Fans Recommend: Get there early!

A new spot on the light rail line in Pioneer Square, you told us The Hall was the latest entry into great pregame hubs in the stadium district. Craft beer. Cocktails. Elevated comfort food. Something called Cougar Gold queso. A grab-and-go window to hit on your walk to the stadium - the Sounders’ fans march to the game passes right by here.

Fans Recommend: The house-made pretzel

Started in 1972 by four University of Washington students broadcasting barely far enough to reach the street outside, KEXP is now one of the most influential independent radio stations on the planet — 817,000 Instagram followers, hundreds of in-studio performance videos on YouTube watched by millions, and a physical home at Seattle Center you can walk into for free any day of the week. The call letters are a nod to Paul Allen's obsession with the Jimi Hendrix Experience. The Gathering Space has a café - The Caffe Vita, a record shop, live radio broadcasts you can watch through the studio glass, and free performances open to the public. Kurt Cobain's Bleach was first played on radio here. So was Nirvana's first single. Two blocks from the Space Needle, and a completely different world from it.

Fans Recommend: Free live performances (general); the record shop (general)

A teenage Paul Allen saw Jimi Hendrix play Seattle in 1968 and spent the rest of his life collecting rock artefacts. In 2000 he opened the Experience Music Project to house them - renamed MoPOP in 2016. MoPOP now holds the world's largest collection of Hendrix and Nirvana memorabilia, a Sound Lab where you can record a song, a Sky Church concert hall and rotating exhibitions on everything from horror cinema to hip hop. The building itself is 140,000 square feet of shimmering Frank Gehry sheet metal, modelled on a smashed electric guitar, and called "the Blob" by locals. Right next to The Space Needle and Chihuly Glass Museum.

Originally opened in a single room in Pioneer Square 1973, this Seattle literary institution now resides in a former food truck repair shop in Capitol Hill where it’s been since 2010. Over 150,000 titles, over 500 author events a year, and a reading series that has hosted Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, Haruki Murakami, and Salman Rushdie. The original cedar shelves are still there. There’s a cafe inside called Little Oddfellows. It’s your favorite bookstore in a city with a few of them.

Started by a teenager whose boss quit and handed him the keys in 1987, Easy Street has become one of most celebrated independent record stores in America almost 40 years later. Rolling Stone named it one of the best in the country. You described it as “the biggest independent record store / bar / cafe / live music place in all of Seattle”. The café opened in 2001. The stage came next. Pearl Jam have played surprise sets here, even released an EP called Live at Easy Street. Vinyl, CDs, coffee, breakfast and Seattle music history on every wall, including the murals outside.

Fans Recommend: The vinyl selection. Breakfast at the cafe.

Walk on the ship at the downtown waterfront, sail 35 minutes across Puget Sound and arrive in a small town of bookshops, coffee, oysters and Douglas firs. The ferry to Bainbridge Island is the best cheap ticket in Seattle - pedestrians pay around $10 each way. And the views of the city skyline and Mount Rainier from the water are insane. One of the easiest ways to get to some of Seattle’s nature, plus the mom-and-pop Bainbridge Island town of Winslow is one of our fans’ favorite hidden Seattle gems.

Fans Recommend: Eat at Ba Sa (on Bainbridge Island).