I’m not asking for a 24-hour city. I mean, I am, eventually. But first, I’m simply asking that a city of nearly a million people does not keep the same hours as a small-town bank.
Disclaimer: Seattle businesses, I know you are doing your best. Most of you, at least. The world is against you. From our city being uniquely warped by tech, to our inability to care for folks in crisis on a systemic level, to the fact that Seattle is crazy fucking expensive, to the many other variables that need progressive taxation and a good-for-something Legislature to solve, I cannot imagine how difficult it must be for business owners to make it work.
But this is the Complaints issue, and I do have a Complaint to file. This city closes too fucking early. This is not just my grievance, it seems to be everyone’s. Not a week goes by that we don’t play Seattle’s favorite game: “Is anything open right now?”
The lights go out hours before the light rail skids to a 1 a.m. halt. Our parks shut down so early they seem like they don’t actually want to be parks (see here); we don’t have a lot in the way of late-night non-bar spaces or events, and our cafes, bakeries, and other daytime shops seem to close earlier and earlier. For a city this big and this expensive—we rank ninth most expensive in the U.S., woof—it should be easier to find restaurants open past 7 p.m. outside of a bar setting.
We’re a music city (right, everybody?), a restaurant city, a theater and art city. We’re also a dark, wet, and winter-heavy city. If anyone should understand the value of having more late-night indoor options and reasons to leave the house, it’s a town that spends nine months of the year auditioning for the role of “bleak exterior” in an A24 movie, and still losing to Vancouver.
A multiplicity of later-night options—transit, culture, errands, gatherings—lets us live fuller days without forcing our lives into a narrow window of daylight built entirely around work and sleep, where only productivity is considered a legitimate use of time. A city this big that grinds to a halt by 9 p.m. feels like a sad HOA-run diorama. Is it depleted vitamin D making us SAD, or boredom?
I want to live in a city where I can get off work late, exit a show, or just leave the house at night, and have a plethora of food options. Perhaps a 24-hour diner situated in a part of town close to venues and theaters. Perhaps a 24-hour diner anywhere. Imagine the trains and buses are still running frequently and on a real schedule that won’t strand you, and helps make exploring other neighborhoods feel less like a major life decision potentially entailing a $70 Uber ride. What makes a 24-hour or 18-hour (can I get 14-hour?) city appealing isn’t the promise of nonstop excitement—we’ll get there—it’s simply having normal, useful options for spontaneity. Pharmacies and grocery stores open late; museums, theaters, galleries, and other spaces holding events on the later side so people who work irregular hours can attend. Even one or two spots in the image of the old Cafe Presse or Vito’s—both of which served ambience and food late into the night, RIP—might help Seattle feel a bit like her old self again.
I know folks are fighting the good fight to stay open at all. I’m just hoping that it’s something we could just think about, together.
While writing this piece, I polled friends and strangers: “What’s your favorite spot for food—or literally anything—open past 10 p.m. in Seattle?” The response was overwhelming. Not necessarily in the amount of tips I received, but in message after message saying “PLEASE, WE NEED THIS, SHARE WHAT YOU FIND.” (I did! See list below.) I will say, the tips I did receive came with exuberant recommendations, which I found heartening, and reminded me that there are bits of hope here yet.
Even with the anecdotal enthusiasm, I know there’s still the big looming question of: What if it’s us? If the city itself got its groove back and fostered a late-night vibe, would the people come out and actually enjoy it? We’re weird and anxious and vitamin-D deficient, but I think we can get it together. If you build it, we will come (out past 10 p.m.).
On the last kinda-nice autumn night, I realized it was 10 and I hadn’t planned ahead for dinner. Because Hell Is a Grocery Store and because I have to remind myself not to waste this one precious life doom-scrolling and paying $28 in fees for a $12 burrito on Grub Hub, I walked down to Hot Mama’s (open until 11 p.m.) and bought two slices at the window. The workers inside were projecting a movie onto a sheet on the wall inside where there used to be indoor seating. They’re always so nice.
I sat at one of their metal tables outside; the guy next to me, also solo, nodded in solidarity and set down some sort of large instrument case he was lugging. I was surprised Break Away Vintage across the street was still open; I hadn’t checked it out yet. (Turns out they go until 11 p.m. on weekdays, and until midnight on weekends). Their music was soundtracking the whole corner, and they had good taste. People passed by in good outfits, giggling. It wasn’t even the weekend. This shouldn’t have felt like a big deal, but here, it did. A city dweller in a real city.
What Is Open Late in Seattle
An incomplete list of places that serve food until at least 11 p.m.
* That isn’t strictly bar food
Adot Ethiopian & Restaurant
Al Bacha Restaurant
Al Basha Mediterranean Grill
Alem Restaurant
Alibi Room
Baba Yaga
Bait Shop
Bangrak Market
Beth’s Cafe
Blue Nile Ethiopian Restaurant
Cafe Ibex
Casablanca Express
Cedar Tea House
Cinnaholic
Dick’s Drive-In
Donna’s
Falafel King
Fort St. George
Harry’s Bar/ Olympia Pizza House III
Hattie’s Hat
Honey Court Seafood Restaurant
Hong Kong Bistro
Hot Cakes Molten Chocolate Cakery
Hot Mama’s Pizza
Il Bistro
Insomnia Cookies
Le Caviste
Lost Lake
Massawa Eritrean & Ethiopian Restaurant
Mr. Gyros
Neighbor Lady
New Luck Toy
North Star Diner
Ocho Tapas Bar
Orient Express
Pacific Inn Pub
Purple Dot Cafe
Roxbury Lanes
Spice Bliss
Sunset Cafe
Taqueria El Sabor
Taqueria Juarez
Twilight Exit
The Ballard Smoke Shop
The Unicorn
Yetenbi Bar & Restaurant
Zig Zag Cafe
13 Coins
I know the list says incomplete but leaving Lost Lake off of it seems pretty lazy and weird. Lost Lake is open until midnight most of the week and open until 3am on weekends…
Ocho, Tapas bar in Ballard, food is until 11 weeknights.
I’m sorry that Seattleites have healthy boundaries and don’t want to work bad jobs at bad hours to serve people who don’t know how to make toast for themselves.
We could solve this problem with capitalism, though. Let’s roll back the social safety net and lower the minimum wage so that more people will be desperate enough for wages that they’ll be willing to warm up a ramekin of fancy macaroni and cheese at 11pm for you.
Pour one out for the Hurricane Cafe in the Denny Triangle.
@4: Which was itself bemoaned as inferior to the Dog House it replaced.
Chinatown used to be an awesome place to grab some late night food until the city decided that it would dump all the junkies, dealers and mentally ill there.
As a former employee of Cafe Paradiso c.1992, which was open until 1am except on days it was open until 4am, I am ashamed at what our city has become. There is magic that happens when folx are up, together, that late — for whatever reason — and it saddens me that we have lost so much of that magic. Sure, I’m older; but where are the masses of 20-somethings to take our place? This city is sad.
I work swing shifts, and I would also like to see more nonstandard hours with some of our businesses. I also applaud those businesses willing to be open late.
It’s important to have a good mix. Food is important, but I truly appreciate the few retail stores that stay open late. They add so much to the vibrance of the areas they are situated in.
Late Night Vintage Market at Pike and Belmont is one such. Thank you for what you as to the neighborhood!!
For a city that allegedly has so many young peope, this city has the most negative night life vibe I have every encountered. In other places you go to dinner at around 8pm and then go on to coffee and desert somewhere else after. My first week in Seattle, I went out to dinner in Belltown at 8:30pm on a Saturday night and was told that the restuarent closed at 9:30. On a Saturday night? And as for coffee and desert. You need to do that first at around 4pm because now they all close at 5pm. I used to joke that there was a law in Seattle that everybody had to go home by 9:30 to have sex. Now i know that the first part of that joke was true.
@7: As you well recall, the Cafe Paradiso was a warm and welcoming late-night oasis in the then-emptiness of Pike-Pine’s east-of-B’way stretch. The Elysian did not yet exist to keep us fed until 11pm, and drinking its craft brews unto the wee hours. The nearest QFC was a mile away up Broadway, and I used to return from my post-swing-shift grocery trips, via non-alcoholic nightcap of hot chocolate at Paradiso.
Many years later, I was helping a student friend with homework, and we settled into Cafe Vita for a long study session — only to have the staff sweep us out of there at a mere eight pm! As you wrote, the city has lost the great late-night magic it once had.
Twilight Exit and Neighbor Lady both serve food until 11.
@1 – I’m not lazy (but I am weird); thanks, added!
@2 – thanks, added!
@11 – thanks, added!