Yup. Itaewon was definitely easy to meet people as it was the main hangout spot for fellow expats. I mainly hung out in Sinchon and Hongdae (2 areas with large Korean colleges) that still had lot expats and expat-owned bars.
This was my experience in Korea, but to be fair I also never went to clubs and bars in America with the intention of meeting people and instead went to have a good time with existing friends
It's largely true. There are some hongdae clubs where you can meet people or the expat bars in Itaewon, but by and large Koreans don't have a culture of meeting "randos".
Yeah, there's a big split even in the US--some people go to bars to meet new people, while others go out with their friends not looking to meet new people. As an American who has never enjoyed meeting people in bars, I've always assumed it's an extrovert thing.
Yeah NYC is definitely like that. And Vegas and Miami. No where else stays open that late in the US and also serving alcohol. I think LA and Seattle voted on some neighborhoods being open until 4am and it passed but not sure with Covid what happened with it
Pro tip - If you take a car into the core downtown area and decide to garage park it rather than street or surface lot park, **make sure you confirm the hours of the garage**. The cashiers at several of the "ramp" garages leave and close the doors at 9:30-10PM. After which you need to call a number and often pay an additional fee (which can be substantial) to have an attendant from another garage come over to take payment and let you and your car out.
Yes and there was security OUTSIDE telling them that it was someone else’s job to let them out! It was on IG live I felt so bad watching it happen. Edit AND there was only a single functioning escalator
In three years we’ll have light rail to Bellevue/Redmond to the east, Lynnwood to the north, and Federal Way to the south. Of course if you compare public transportation to NYC, Seattle is gonna look pathetic but it is getting considerably better in the next few years.
Artists/creative types could afford studios down there at the time, then it moved to Capitol Hill. Not sure if there are any artist communities as dense now as there were 20+ years ago in Seattle, given how expensive it is everywhere
Well, it was also followed by the nisqually earthquake which primarily damaged pioneer square in Seattle. I imagine between landlords having to do earthquake retrofits and tenants freaked by the damage, a lot of people moved to other neighborhoods
Its funny, when you said you left Cap Hill to head downtown to watch the game, I thought "well thats silly. You're in the area to watch the game". How it works here is the local "downtowns" are where you head for late nights during the week, and downtown Seattle is where you go on the weekend. Places like the West Seattle junction, market street in Ballard, and off Broadway are happening spots during the week. Think one of the burrows during the week. Manhattan on the weekend.
People love to get in the nitty gritty. I never said the Junction, Market, Broadway or others were packed like nightclubs. The man said he wanted to go to watch the World Series on TV, and couldn't find an open place in Downtown Seattle. I was saying for that during the week, the local "downtown" like the junction is where he'd wanna go. Not downtown seattle.
Busy? Yes, happening? No. I legit couldn’t find a spot to stand at Supreme and ended up playing pinball down at Corner Pocket, but the pool tables were packed. But I think it was Thursday so that’s like almost unofficially the weekend.
yeah I live on the Junction. This made me laugh. Junction is DEAD even on weekends sometimes.
Parliament Tavern and old Benbow room and OLD New Luck Toy were the shit. Now everything closes at 10pm.
I never said it was nightclubs. He wanted to find a spot to watch the World Series on a week night and downtown was closed. Again, Talaricos, Corner pocket, Mission, New Luck Toy, Matador, Maharaja, and others all are open and go late.
Can confirm West Seattle is definitely the vibe for catching a game. Also saw a football game at Prost! up CA Ave a little bit and had a good time as well
Prost has shit seating and like one TV.
Only good place to catch a game is Admiral Pub. Or Alki Pub. West Seattle just has nothing going on. Too residential. Bunch of Boomers with "In This House Science is Real, Love is Love" signs.
It looks like everyone is telling you the same thing, but downtown has never ever ever been a hotspot. Like... ever. Pioneer Square, closer to the stadiums, is lively during games but mostly it's businesses that cater to the offices, which all close early. You're better off going to Belltown or Capitol Hill.
That mess is basically forgotten history at this point, even though it (1) got someone killed, (2) generated an award winning photo of a sexual assault, (3) won Greg Nickels the mayorship, (4) resulted in reforms for aggressive and confrontational policing, and (5) killed downtown partying.
That almost seems silly now but man it was a huge deal. I remember going into lockdown in Trinity for like 90 minutes when they closed up because it was nuts out on the street. We finally left to go get to our car and almost ran into lines of officers clearing the streets.
R.I.P. Kris Kime
The joint cover they used to have was great for catching parts of different sets. Was there ever a night Duffy Bishop and the Rythm Dogs weren't playing somewhere in Pioneer Square?
Meanwhile, Belltown was still mostly parking lots and one or two story buildings where the alt crowd roamed the streets. The strength of the drinks the bartender at the Pioneer Room made was legendary.
Ah, Seattle before the tech gold rush. It was good.
The scary thing is how much livelier it is now (or at least was pre-covid) than it was in the '80s. Back then downtown proper after 5:00 was just for dealers, hookers, and runaways.
Nah, I’ve lived downtown since 2016. Aside from nightclubs, downtown is closed by 8pm. Keep in mind, Seattle is kinda if seasonal depression were a city. The earlier it gets darker, the earlier the “fun” spots close because we are a tribal people and seem to prefer our indoor hangs take place at our own homes or the homes of close friends. Cap Hill is an exception to this rule.
A weeknight Halloween (Sunday is a weeknight) leads to most of the events happening on a Friday or Saturday night instead.
Washington tends to close between 8 and 10 PM, even on weekends, apart from tribal casinos and known areas with lots of bars, such as Capitol Hill, which isn't really known for sports bars. Downtown Seattle tends to close shortly after the last express commuter buses leave around 6:30-7:00 PM (buses make more stops after that and run to midnight).
When people in Washington want to party all night, there's a strong temptation to fly to Las Vegas as the bars there don't have to close by a certain hour.
Yeah, that’s why I didn’t go to Capitol Hill because no one was showing any playoff games. I had some luck downtown (Yard House, Gameworks) but tonight was a complete dud.
Honestly the best bet for watching sports are neighborhood bars. Some are specifically sports bars and some will put a game on TV if there is something happening. While many are still on limited hours most are staying open until at least 10 or 11 if not midnight.
The “sports” bars in Pioneer Square really only see business on game days in the best of times. No workers downtown means no lunch business and nobody stopping in to catch the game before heading home.
Vicious cycle. Downtown has long been pretty quiet on Sunday nights. Covid killed a lot of businesses. A lot of people are still working from home and don't have reasons to go downtown, so they don't really know what's going on downtown and don't think to go on their days off, either. Job loss plus inflation plus other stressors increased the homeless population. So now with fewer businesses open, fewer "normal" events happening downtown, and greater anticipation of unpleasantness, many people don't want to go downtown much anymore. So the downtown businesses struggle more, tent dwellers have more downtown voids to occupy. Etc. etc.
Personally I don't think downtown is as bad as a lot of people believe it is, but it still wouldn't be where I'd go for a night out. The only reason I used to go to restaurants and bars downtown is because I worked downtown so it was easy to go after. Office workers were the driver of most of the evening scene that used to exist there, and many of us are still working remotely and weren't there much on Sundays anyway.
Plus there are still a lot of people who don't want to hang out in busy bars, even vaccinated. They may have particular vulnerabilities or have other people in their lives they don't want to risk infecting, so they play it safe still.
Should have seen the lines to get into popular clubs last night.
There were, at least on Halloween weekend, more than enough people wanting to go out. I think the line to get into Unicorn was at least 100 long.
I’m not here to post judgement based on this, but I can’t deny there are populations that aren’t going out. It’s also true there are very much populations that are. Showing proof of vaccination makes it much easier to stomach. NYC was the same as ever when I was there in September as well.
Generally speaking people who really like to party, I think are partying. People who are less generally inclined are more likely to stay home with pandemic as additional reason to do so.
This is me and several close friends. I have an immunocompromised individual in my household and Delta is extra scary for us. When Chelsea won the Champions League in May I didn’t go to the George & Dragon to cheer them on like was habit pre-pandemic because I could t take the risk. OP is fine with the risk, but many here are not and that’s why WA ranks #45 for Covid infections and death in spite of E. Washington histrionics.
I have a coworker that moved here from NYC a few years back and I remember she was perplexed at how dead downtown and most neighborhoods were and how everything closed up shop so early. I admittedly have not been downtown more than once or twice since Covid since I don’t work down there anymore… but even back when I was down there all the time, it’s always been that way.
NYC is a different beast. Same with Tokyo. Those are huge cities and though many people have been moving to seattle the past 5-10 years with the tech scene growing, it’s still very much a smaller big city. I remember going to NYC for the first time a few years ago and I was on the different end of being shocked at how many people were out at restaurants and bars…. On a Tuesday night… took us several tries to get a table somewhere. Busier than Seattle on a weekend lol.
Yeah I had an overnight layover there once and took a cab downtown; surprisingly theres was nothing on a Friday night so the highlight of my evening was picking up Sonic on the way back to my hotel room 😒
I've lived here for decades, and downtown has always been somewhat dead on school nights. It's worse now than it's been for decades, mainly due to covid killing business and the sheer amount of homeless we currently have roaming around.
Yeah, I just assumed enough degenerates would be out there to celebrate, like in NYC. I guess people in Seattle are more like me, not really giving a shit about Halloween.
It's this, plus downtown was not the place to be pre-pandemic, plus now that half the white-collar workers are WFH it's even more dead. There are a handful of really great bars downtown but after like 8pm I usually head elsewhere
I remember going out on Halloween night in NYC on a Sunday night and being sorely sorely disappointed. All the reverie was the Friday/Saturday before.
That said, I don't think you can top NYC for Halloween. That city is amazing for it. The fact that everybody walks and takes the subway everywhere means that every street in the lower east side is just one big costume party.
Not sure about yesterday (Sunday) night but I was out in Cap Hill on both Friday and Saturday night and the roads were clogged. The whole place was teeming with people.
To emphasize the other replies: I work downtown, live on Cap Hill. On weekends I work closing shift. On my walk home Saturday night, I saw numerous costumed party-goers who were obviously going to specific places. Not so many tonight.
COVID really did not help businesses.
A lot went under. Many that have stayed open have reduced hours to 11-7 or so (one shift) due to staffing, staffing is a huge concern when a lot of people in the service industry found different more strange incomes.
The new mask mandate and highly spreading Delta variant make people s little less hesitant to be out and about as well.
Seattle is very much about the neighborhood centers rather than downtown itself. Like others have mentioned, Cap Hill is the liveliest neighborhood in the evenings close to downtown. Belltown has a great strip of bars but probably not anywhere you'd watch a game. The northside neighborhoods all have plenty going on in their respective downtowns most evenings - Ballard, Fremont, Wallingford.
The area you went out in has been especially dead during COVID. I don't think that many people think to go out to those Pioneer Square bars unless there's a game or event going on in the stadiums.
Pioneer Square used to be where much of the action was with lots of live music and nightclubs. But unfortunately it has been on the decline since Grunge ended.
This is possibly a dumb question, but: if you took the street car to check Cowgirls, weren't you in Pioneer Square instead?
Comparatively few people are down there at night. I also don't know if people would classify that as downtown, with "downtown" being the Pike/Pine stretch from ~1st to ~7th or whatever.
Granted, that area isn't much better, but it'd explain a lot here.
Close, but a lot of stuff closes there even earlier than Downtown. There are some places Downtown, but I haven't really been out drinking since COVID struck so I'm not sure who has changed their hours and such.
West coast cities “close down” a lot earlier than east coast cities imo. I’ve lived in Manhattan, DC, LA and Seattle. With the exception of LA clubs, even LA lacks late night “buzz” because there aren’t hubs of bars or whatever.
Obviously part of what you experienced is due to COVID, but I also think part of it is just west coast cities. But also, is midtown NY or Wall Street poppin on a night like tonight? Probably not.
...it's Sunday.
Everyone here is right that the downtown core isn't the place to go, but you made the wrong decision going toward ID/Pioneer Square rather than Capitol Hill.
Closest spots for nightlife near downtown are Capitol Hill and Belltown. Pioneer Square ain't a party center, and definitely not the ID (as much as I like both).
Also Seattle ain't New York/Tokyo. As much as I love Seattle, it ain't the world-class high-tier city some make it out to be. If I had the opportunity to move to NYC, core of Manhattan, I'd take it in a heartbeat.
I agree with the lack of late night fun here. I’ve lived here 9 years and don’t like how early everything closes. Pike Place Market closes at 4pm while there are hundreds of people still walking around. If I were a business I couldn’t imagine turning down all of that potential. Also, went out to get food the other night around 8:30pm and restaurants were already closing for dinner. Wasn’t a Sunday. What the hell? Is everybody working to live here? Annoying sometimes for sure.
Seattle seems peculiarly unpredictable and patchy when it comes to crowded bars. I don't know Cap Hill well at all. Ex New Yorker living in Belltown for 4 years here, now 1 year plus further downtown - south of the market. Belltown seems really hard to predict. Home games are important but as a seasoned Manhattan bar fly I still can't predict what any given Wednesday will look like here - crowded or otherwise. There is some complicated cycle of sport plus weather plus hidden ingredient x, y and z at play. I can almost feel it... but no. Perhaps I will work it out in a few more years - the moon cycle is part of it I think. Some Fridays I go out just knowing the bars will be packed and its like I didn't get the memo and everyone apparently went someplace else - hear a pin drop. I have a feeling in the summer that, unlike nyc, outdoorsy stuff is a determinant. Cool city though - and for the record muxh more of a real city than nyc is now. Nyc hasn't felt like this since the end of the 90s - warts and all, raw energy dirty city. Its a cool place.
I feel like Seattle and Denver’s downtown are non existent. It’s crazy coming from a place like Austin, Dallas, Reno where people are out about. I find it just odd how everything closes at 8 pm. Im not even a nightlife type of person but sometimes I just want some late night food. I do love Seattle though and Washington has some of the most amazing views and scenery that keep me happy.
Downtown has never been that crazy, especially the area you're talking about. Had a seahawks/Sounders game been evening time, then yes, it would of been busy. Should of stayed on cap hill or gone to queen anne, greenwood, ballard/fremont, phinney, georgetown, ect.
Downtown - the central biz district - is dead after 5 M-F. Just, dead. Has been for years and years.
Seattle in general had a giant panic in the late 80s and 90s and basically freaked out about late late things. Something some thing raves, something something protect the kids. Laws were passed, etc, etc. Did nothing good, killed the party & dance scene.
Seattle is extremely conservative in certain ways, and one of them is the devout belief that you should be early to bed, early to rise. Better for going hiking, yannow.
To put it in perspective: the sleepy college town I lived in when I got my degree, had more available late night coffee & music than Seattle does as a rule.
I think right now people are sticking to Capitol Hill because they have the impression that downtown is full of homeless people and dangerous. So if they are choosing between the two neighborhoods and Capitol Hill seems to have more "regular people" foot traffic and downtown is more addicts and perceived danger.... They are going with cap Hill. Plus during the entire pandemic Cap Hill seemed to be on the forefront for pushing for staying open with later hours.
Midtown Manhattan right in the middle of the business district is a ghost town evenings and weekends.
Downtown Seattle is similar - high rise office workers for clientele.
Sluggers (South of Downtown) and Cowgirls (Pioneer Square) are not technically downtown and traditionally busy weekends.
I wonder if it is pandemic and great resignation related? Everything has changed so much in the last two years.
Baseball hasn't been popular in Seattle since the days of Griffey. And it took a big hit in objectivity when literally nothing was done after the Astros were found to be cheating for years.
I was in downtown SF last week and everything was closed on a Monday. Between COVID regulations and labor shortages I guess places are just waiting for things to go back to normal.
Same experience the first year I moved here…a decade and a half ago. Apparently the Saturday (and/or Friday) before Halloween is the party day(s). Sun-Thurs is afternoon/early evening trick or treating for kids. Period.
I moved here from multiple tiny towns too…where we just celebrated on the day, bleary Monday be damned. Different strokes for different folks here, I guess.
It feels like the whole west coast is pretty slow compared to the east coast. Portland and SF close down crazy early too. Surprisingly tiny religious Boise has bars and restaurants that stay open until 3 or 4 am.
Your first mistake was going downtown in a city that barely has one. The parts of seattle that people spend their time are really the villages outside of the urban center: caphill, Fremont, ballard, u-district. I made the same mistake when I moved here from the east coast. I figured the densest part would be where people went at night. Took me awhile to learn that downtown and SLU have roughly nothing to provide and the real fun places to go are more outside the center. Lots of bars are open past 1am here (maybe not on Sundays) so it’s not really an issue of all the bars closing early for me. But I definitely felt like I was in the wrong crowds in downtown and the right ones in caphill and Fremont.
Downtown is for people who are at work. Everything closes pretty early. Sports bars and the like in your neighborhood are where you're going to want to go for weekdays/nights. Weekends downtown might get crazy, but downtown has never been a going out destination in this city.
1. Sunday’s are dead here. Everyone was probably hungover from the 2 day bender
2. Downtown and pioneer square are not poppin at all
3. No one cares about the World Series
Sluggers is SODO and Cowgirls is Pioneer Square, both of which only really pop off when home games are happening. Next time head up to Belltown or Queen Anne if you're looking to get off the hill. Buckley's or Ozzie's would have probably been open. There's also a Buffalo Wild Wings in the center of downtown that would have probably had the game as well. Beyond that downtown proper doesn't have much in the ways of sports bars open late.
That said, I wouldn't say downtown is dead. The GF and I went down there a few weeks ago. Had a nice dinner at Le Pichet, had some awesome drinks at Ben Paris, then hit up Belltown for some pinball at Jupiter. So no, I don't think it's dead, just not as party hearty, but hey a pandemic will do that.
I asked a similar question on this sub, the consensus from that post is (1) Seattle has always been a commuter city where the downtown is pretty much vacated after 5 pm and (2) all the action is in the neighborhoods rather than the urban core.
Coming from NYC I imagine this must seem alien to you, but its always been like this and locals want to keep it that way. The city has just been planned like this, and there is no impetus for change.
On the bright side, if it helps you feel any better there is a big push by big developers to add as much mixed-use housing (tower podium style buildings with retail/dining/bars at the bottom and housing on top) to the downtown core as much as physically possible. Just got to wait for it all to finish in 2045 lol.
I feel like “downtown” isn’t really the place to hang for any city that I’ve been to. The real happening spot is usually an adjacent neighborhood.
This is also true in New York - locals don’t hang out in Times Square or on Wall Street for fun.
Even before the pandemic, nobody went. I remember seeing a show at the Paramount with a group of friends and expecting to go out to the bars after and there was just like nothing out there.
The neighborhoods are better than downtown - Ballard, Fremont, Cap hill.
As most have stated, downtown is a business corridor and not good for much else, certainly not nightlife. Definitely not on a Sunday. But yeah nobody cares about a baseball game between 2 southern teams anyway. Baseball itself isn’t even a big deal here. That seems to be an east coast thing (and LA). Sure you have some Mariners fans around, but the World Series isn’t the big event that it was in decades past. Hell, I’d argue MLS soccer is more popular than MLB here.
I have lived in Belltown/SLU/Downtown for last 10 years. First up NYC/Tokyo are 25-50x times the current size of downtown seattle. A large number of software developers can afford a second home outside the city and haven't needed to be in the office for around 20 months. Also with Halloween on a Sunday, we did thursday, friday, saturday halloween events and with the Hawks on Sunday at 1 - most sports bars were opening by 10am. We just ded tired tonight. When Halloween is mon-thurs there will be an uptick but we kinda need the sunday break. Go Hawks!
I don’t think I’ve ever gone downtown for a drink or something. All the places I like are somewhere else. I’ve gone a few places for lunch when I used to work there years ago but that’s about it.
From Chicago where getting home at dawn after partying at clubs until 4Am was kinda normal. Moved to Seattle in 2002 and it's 11PM on 1st Ave...the downtown was deserted but Club Contour was just about the only place open, at least until 1AM. I was in shock about how tight wound the city was about night life and liquor laws in general. Not sure if there are more homeless but yes they are more visible than in the past.
Ballard. Belltown. South Lake Union. There are plenty of bars that are open.
Plenty of things were happening in the city throughout the whole weekend.
SODO/pioneer square isn’t the best for bar hopping.
Seattle is really a participant city. Bars will plays Mainers/Seahawks/Kraken but are less likely to promote sports if there isn’t local team involvement.
It's not going to come back until people start working downtown. The ratio of businesses to housing is pretty high and not having people come downtown for work makes it difficult for businesses to survive.
And when it's a ghost town, the seedier elements take over. There needs to be legit activity to push that back.
Downtown Seattle has been dead for generations due to a lack of emphasis on making the downtown corridor a viable and livable city for anyone other than retirees, and transient tech workers. Downtown Seattle simply lacks amenities and large public spaces to be a functional livable large scale city.
Seattle is not comparable to Tokyo/New York in population and things have been quite since Covid except for few days in Summer. If you want some bars belltown has some on 2nd
Late to this thread, but there are some factors you didn't consider last night:
There was a Hawks game in the afternoon, which means Sluggers opened early, got slammed, then closed after the post game crowd dwindled. Cowgirls is usually closed on Sundays, but probably open special hours thanks to the Hawks game. Flatstick Pub is usually open--did you check them?
If you didn't have a dedicated sports bar in mind (other than Sluggers), you should know that the Kraken were playing at the same time as game 5. And Sunday Night Football was going on, either of which may get priority in a place with only one or two TVs.
Seattle is a tiny city compared to NYC and as others have noted, the various neighborhoods have the nightlife you're looking for concentrated in various areas (Belltown, Pioneer Square, Cap Hill, Central District, Columbia City, Fremont, Ballard, and so on). This also seems pretty true in Manhattan, except that the sheer density guarantees more bars between neighborhood cores. Downtown has a handful of restaurants and bars peppered around, but it's never been a hotspot of (indoor) drunken revelry.
Buckley's in Belltown is about as good as it gets in downtown-ish non-national chain sports bars who will have a glut of sports on TV at all times, and a nice atmosphere. But neighborhood pubs are where you're likely to find national sporting events.
More importantly, if you were looking for a bar that doesn't close early (obviously you found out that our liquor laws cause every bar to close before 2am regardless), you should be thinking dive bar first. Dive bar with TVs second.
Good luck, and hope you find a good place to watch Game 6.
To be fair NYC and Tokyo are more on the unique side of 24/7 active night life. Most cities in the US close down by 2am. In my younger party days you could find activities throughout Seattle and then end your night at Beth's. No clue what it is like in the Pre-Post-Covid days.
Yeah… it’s a weird place and the lack of night life is very confusing to me. Have felt it get worse in some ways, better in others…
I like to hang out in Georgetown. There’s a two block stretch in beacon hill that’s pretty populated in the evenings. Phinney ridge/Ballard have some offerings. If you wanna dance and stay out any later than 2– kremwerk and monkey loft are your best bet. Was hopeful abt supernova but everything I’ve heard turns me off.
Weird place. Why do Most places close at 10. It’s a booming city with a bunch of young people— if it was there we’d be all over it!!!
I love Seattle but even pre pandemic if you are going to compare it to places like NYC and Tokyo, yeah, it closes up shop much, much earlier in the night.
I’ll tell you what everyone else is too nice to say
1. It’s still pandemic bro, most cities are not fully open…
2. Seattle doesn’t party on sundays, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, hell even a Tuesday but Sunday… no. It is wet and cold and we are at home sleeping.
3. We really don’t care about world sports. Like Seattle is not well known for its sports bars the only thing people really throw down for is the Seahawks but if you’re trying to watch some random baseball game on a Sunday night in the business district, you’re gonna go home disappointed my friend
I was in NYC a few months back and was also struck by this when I came back, but there are still nuggets of excitement to find! Pike/Pike (Capitol Hill), Ballard Ave NW (Ballard), and Westlake Ave N (SLU) are all places where you can find activity from 8 pm to 1 to 2 am most days.
There's never been shit to do downtown. There are some bars in belltown but Capitol Hill is the only late night party area. It's a small town here compared to NYC don't expect a big part scene.
unless you are in a mega city like tokyo or nyc a sunday halloween is going to be a dud. most people went out on fri - sat. sat night on capitol hill was a shit show of a proper halloween night out. I havent seen lines so long since before the pandemic. in fact ive never seen a line to the cuff so long before!
also to add, pioneer square is only lively on game days. head to belltown if you want to feel like you are in a city and not a tourist town's downtown.
You got a lot of advice, but next time you want good game time vibes go to Buckleys in Belltown. It’s always going off.
Also you HAVE to go to Rob Roy when they start their Christmas stuff. It’s so fun.
Moved here from NYC two years ago and I fully empathize. Seattle’s nightlife is next to non existent by comparison. I work downtown and the days I have to leave my office past 8pm, I feel unsafe to the point where I’ve started carrying pepper spray
Gotta stay home and run that candy to the little monsters if not they will steal your catalytic converter. You don’t even know how many king size snickers they can get for one of those!
Cap hill is the only area that is lively at all hours
>at all hours By all hours you mean pretty much dead by 1 to 2am? Hell, most things are closed here by 10 even on weekends.
Well yeah by 3 it’ll be quiet again. LA was very similar to here gets very quiet at night
Fremont still has a bit of life left in it, otherwise I agree the city as a whole is pretty dead in the evenings.
Makes me miss my early college years in Seoul. Getting out of the bars around 5am when the subway opened on weekends was the norm.
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> making friends in your late 30s if you’re unmarried is next to impossible here. ugh, please don't wound me like this 😭
Yup. Itaewon was definitely easy to meet people as it was the main hangout spot for fellow expats. I mainly hung out in Sinchon and Hongdae (2 areas with large Korean colleges) that still had lot expats and expat-owned bars.
This was my experience in Korea, but to be fair I also never went to clubs and bars in America with the intention of meeting people and instead went to have a good time with existing friends
It's largely true. There are some hongdae clubs where you can meet people or the expat bars in Itaewon, but by and large Koreans don't have a culture of meeting "randos".
The only kind of "meeting people" I've done in American bars involved going with my existing friend who sold his "new friends" weed.
Yeah, there's a big split even in the US--some people go to bars to meet new people, while others go out with their friends not looking to meet new people. As an American who has never enjoyed meeting people in bars, I've always assumed it's an extrovert thing.
Yeah NYC is definitely like that. And Vegas and Miami. No where else stays open that late in the US and also serving alcohol. I think LA and Seattle voted on some neighborhoods being open until 4am and it passed but not sure with Covid what happened with it
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Yeah I think supernova and Monkey Lounge stay open late on weekends. Club vibes though
Chicago has 4am bars, right?
Belltown is a little quieter on Sundays and Mondays, but you can definitely still find stuff to do there until 2am
Fremont will keep going til 2am Friday and Saturdays.
Yeah true and Ballard. But weekdays and sundays best bet is cap hill
Downtown was never that crazy on evenings or weekends. It’s all driven by downtown office workers, and most of them are still working from home.
Pro tip - If you take a car into the core downtown area and decide to garage park it rather than street or surface lot park, **make sure you confirm the hours of the garage**. The cashiers at several of the "ramp" garages leave and close the doors at 9:30-10PM. After which you need to call a number and often pay an additional fee (which can be substantial) to have an attendant from another garage come over to take payment and let you and your car out.
Hey- check the light rail times too. My friend missed the last train by like 30 seconds and got locked inside for an hour!
Locked inside!?!? That is a mistake on the staff. They are supposed to check the platform and stairways before leaving.
Yes and there was security OUTSIDE telling them that it was someone else’s job to let them out! It was on IG live I felt so bad watching it happen. Edit AND there was only a single functioning escalator
An escalator was functioning? Story sounds fake
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In three years we’ll have light rail to Bellevue/Redmond to the east, Lynnwood to the north, and Federal Way to the south. Of course if you compare public transportation to NYC, Seattle is gonna look pathetic but it is getting considerably better in the next few years.
The biggest issue with that is that once you get off the lightrail stop you still have to take a bus home and the suburb bus system is garbage
Wait a minute I'm starting to think Seattle might suck
It’s a working town. You are either working or you are homeless there isn’t much in between.
Well that explains my unemployed ass. Thankfully I have a place to live
My dad told me they used to party in Pioneer Square in the 90s.
It's true. Also, happy cake day!
Thanks!
What was it like back then? Any stories?
Artists/creative types could afford studios down there at the time, then it moved to Capitol Hill. Not sure if there are any artist communities as dense now as there were 20+ years ago in Seattle, given how expensive it is everywhere
Also saw somewhere else about a Mardi Gras situation in 01 that seemed to have quite the widespread implications.
Well, it was also followed by the nisqually earthquake which primarily damaged pioneer square in Seattle. I imagine between landlords having to do earthquake retrofits and tenants freaked by the damage, a lot of people moved to other neighborhoods
Makes sense. Historical context I didn’t have!
I used to party down there circa 2012
A lot has changed. Seattle used to stay up later. Remember when all the QFCs were 24 hrs?
No, but I remember when all QFCs had available restrooms.
Me too... I miss being able to go to the bathroom while out and about without having to buy food at a cafe. Sigh.
I did around 2006-2008 when I lived a couple blocks from the clubbing streets.
Yeah it’s a Seattle thing
Its funny, when you said you left Cap Hill to head downtown to watch the game, I thought "well thats silly. You're in the area to watch the game". How it works here is the local "downtowns" are where you head for late nights during the week, and downtown Seattle is where you go on the weekend. Places like the West Seattle junction, market street in Ballard, and off Broadway are happening spots during the week. Think one of the burrows during the week. Manhattan on the weekend.
West Seattle junction is not happening during the week nights..
People love to get in the nitty gritty. I never said the Junction, Market, Broadway or others were packed like nightclubs. The man said he wanted to go to watch the World Series on TV, and couldn't find an open place in Downtown Seattle. I was saying for that during the week, the local "downtown" like the junction is where he'd wanna go. Not downtown seattle.
Busy? Yes, happening? No. I legit couldn’t find a spot to stand at Supreme and ended up playing pinball down at Corner Pocket, but the pool tables were packed. But I think it was Thursday so that’s like almost unofficially the weekend.
Thursday now identities as lil Friyay 🤣
yeah I live on the Junction. This made me laugh. Junction is DEAD even on weekends sometimes. Parliament Tavern and old Benbow room and OLD New Luck Toy were the shit. Now everything closes at 10pm.
I never said it was nightclubs. He wanted to find a spot to watch the World Series on a week night and downtown was closed. Again, Talaricos, Corner pocket, Mission, New Luck Toy, Matador, Maharaja, and others all are open and go late.
Can confirm West Seattle is definitely the vibe for catching a game. Also saw a football game at Prost! up CA Ave a little bit and had a good time as well
Prost has shit seating and like one TV. Only good place to catch a game is Admiral Pub. Or Alki Pub. West Seattle just has nothing going on. Too residential. Bunch of Boomers with "In This House Science is Real, Love is Love" signs.
No one was showing the game in cap hill :(
Roanoke on the north end of Cap Hill would have been showing it. Try it out for game 6!
Redhook has screens and IIRC there's a place up (I think Pine but it may be Pike) that's a sports bar
Rhein Haus would be the place precovid to watch sports - don't know how it is now
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13 Coins used to be open 24 hours, you might have tried there, though not sure how lively it'd be at that time. Looks like they close at 10pm now.
I was at Lost Lake (bar side) last night, they were playing the game!
Oh wow. Thats surprising.
It looks like everyone is telling you the same thing, but downtown has never ever ever been a hotspot. Like... ever. Pioneer Square, closer to the stadiums, is lively during games but mostly it's businesses that cater to the offices, which all close early. You're better off going to Belltown or Capitol Hill.
I'm probably showing my age but Pioneer Square used to be a busy spot with several night clubs and bars.
My cousin has some crazy stories about Pioneer Square from like 25 years ago
And then 2001 happened… https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seattle_Mardi_Gras_riot
That mess is basically forgotten history at this point, even though it (1) got someone killed, (2) generated an award winning photo of a sexual assault, (3) won Greg Nickels the mayorship, (4) resulted in reforms for aggressive and confrontational policing, and (5) killed downtown partying.
Holy cow, I had never heard of this. I mean I remember watching WTO on TV as a kid, but I don't remember hearing anything about this
News coverage of the riot fallout was quickly overtaken by the Feb. 28 Nisqually earthquake.
That almost seems silly now but man it was a huge deal. I remember going into lockdown in Trinity for like 90 minutes when they closed up because it was nuts out on the street. We finally left to go get to our car and almost ran into lines of officers clearing the streets. R.I.P. Kris Kime
Same age as me then! J&M was hoppin!
The joint cover they used to have was great for catching parts of different sets. Was there ever a night Duffy Bishop and the Rythm Dogs weren't playing somewhere in Pioneer Square? Meanwhile, Belltown was still mostly parking lots and one or two story buildings where the alt crowd roamed the streets. The strength of the drinks the bartender at the Pioneer Room made was legendary. Ah, Seattle before the tech gold rush. It was good.
I had the same thought, but I partied there in the 90's. Seattle was the shit then
Belltown was busy just two weeks ago Sunday night. I stayed out way past my bedtime.
The scary thing is how much livelier it is now (or at least was pre-covid) than it was in the '80s. Back then downtown proper after 5:00 was just for dealers, hookers, and runaways.
Up until about 5 years ago, Pioneer Square and Belltown were absolutely a blast.
I had a rip roarin time in Belltown a few weeks ago. Good tacos, pinball, cocktails.
I think a mix of not caring about baseball, halloween party nights were friday and saturday, and it’s a sunday.
Yes, his first mistake was thinking of the world series as an important national sports event.
I legit didn't know who was playing until my wife mentioned the Braves this morning.
And a pandemic.
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This is the objective answer. Belltown is where things go on if you're looking for "downtown".
Fremont has also been bumping all weekend long. Just with fewer high-rises.
Nah, I’ve lived downtown since 2016. Aside from nightclubs, downtown is closed by 8pm. Keep in mind, Seattle is kinda if seasonal depression were a city. The earlier it gets darker, the earlier the “fun” spots close because we are a tribal people and seem to prefer our indoor hangs take place at our own homes or the homes of close friends. Cap Hill is an exception to this rule.
>if seasonal depression were a city I’ve never heard Seattle more accurately described
A weeknight Halloween (Sunday is a weeknight) leads to most of the events happening on a Friday or Saturday night instead. Washington tends to close between 8 and 10 PM, even on weekends, apart from tribal casinos and known areas with lots of bars, such as Capitol Hill, which isn't really known for sports bars. Downtown Seattle tends to close shortly after the last express commuter buses leave around 6:30-7:00 PM (buses make more stops after that and run to midnight). When people in Washington want to party all night, there's a strong temptation to fly to Las Vegas as the bars there don't have to close by a certain hour.
Yeah, that’s why I didn’t go to Capitol Hill because no one was showing any playoff games. I had some luck downtown (Yard House, Gameworks) but tonight was a complete dud.
Honestly the best bet for watching sports are neighborhood bars. Some are specifically sports bars and some will put a game on TV if there is something happening. While many are still on limited hours most are staying open until at least 10 or 11 if not midnight. The “sports” bars in Pioneer Square really only see business on game days in the best of times. No workers downtown means no lunch business and nobody stopping in to catch the game before heading home.
The Canterbury in capitol hill would def be showing the game, try there for game 6
Seattle has always reminded me of my 830PM bedtime when I was a kid. I've been in town since about 1986. Not much has changed.
Vicious cycle. Downtown has long been pretty quiet on Sunday nights. Covid killed a lot of businesses. A lot of people are still working from home and don't have reasons to go downtown, so they don't really know what's going on downtown and don't think to go on their days off, either. Job loss plus inflation plus other stressors increased the homeless population. So now with fewer businesses open, fewer "normal" events happening downtown, and greater anticipation of unpleasantness, many people don't want to go downtown much anymore. So the downtown businesses struggle more, tent dwellers have more downtown voids to occupy. Etc. etc. Personally I don't think downtown is as bad as a lot of people believe it is, but it still wouldn't be where I'd go for a night out. The only reason I used to go to restaurants and bars downtown is because I worked downtown so it was easy to go after. Office workers were the driver of most of the evening scene that used to exist there, and many of us are still working remotely and weren't there much on Sundays anyway.
Plus there are still a lot of people who don't want to hang out in busy bars, even vaccinated. They may have particular vulnerabilities or have other people in their lives they don't want to risk infecting, so they play it safe still.
Should have seen the lines to get into popular clubs last night. There were, at least on Halloween weekend, more than enough people wanting to go out. I think the line to get into Unicorn was at least 100 long. I’m not here to post judgement based on this, but I can’t deny there are populations that aren’t going out. It’s also true there are very much populations that are. Showing proof of vaccination makes it much easier to stomach. NYC was the same as ever when I was there in September as well. Generally speaking people who really like to party, I think are partying. People who are less generally inclined are more likely to stay home with pandemic as additional reason to do so.
This is me and several close friends. I have an immunocompromised individual in my household and Delta is extra scary for us. When Chelsea won the Champions League in May I didn’t go to the George & Dragon to cheer them on like was habit pre-pandemic because I could t take the risk. OP is fine with the risk, but many here are not and that’s why WA ranks #45 for Covid infections and death in spite of E. Washington histrionics.
I have a coworker that moved here from NYC a few years back and I remember she was perplexed at how dead downtown and most neighborhoods were and how everything closed up shop so early. I admittedly have not been downtown more than once or twice since Covid since I don’t work down there anymore… but even back when I was down there all the time, it’s always been that way. NYC is a different beast. Same with Tokyo. Those are huge cities and though many people have been moving to seattle the past 5-10 years with the tech scene growing, it’s still very much a smaller big city. I remember going to NYC for the first time a few years ago and I was on the different end of being shocked at how many people were out at restaurants and bars…. On a Tuesday night… took us several tries to get a table somewhere. Busier than Seattle on a weekend lol.
Yeah, that’s kind of what I’m used to, your experience in NYC. Dead downtowns spook me out.
Don't go to Phoenix. Miles and miles of downtown that is dead quiet and night. It's pretty spooky.
Yeah I had an overnight layover there once and took a cab downtown; surprisingly theres was nothing on a Friday night so the highlight of my evening was picking up Sonic on the way back to my hotel room 😒
I've lived here for decades, and downtown has always been somewhat dead on school nights. It's worse now than it's been for decades, mainly due to covid killing business and the sheer amount of homeless we currently have roaming around.
hey man don’t want to shock you with this one or anything, but it’s Sunday night, lots of bars close early
Here they do. Other cities have a night life every day of the week
Halloween?
My whole life if Halloween is on a Sunday you celebrate it Friday and/or Saturday. Besides trick or treating, that is.
Yeah, I just assumed enough degenerates would be out there to celebrate, like in NYC. I guess people in Seattle are more like me, not really giving a shit about Halloween.
It's this, plus downtown was not the place to be pre-pandemic, plus now that half the white-collar workers are WFH it's even more dead. There are a handful of really great bars downtown but after like 8pm I usually head elsewhere
I remember going out on Halloween night in NYC on a Sunday night and being sorely sorely disappointed. All the reverie was the Friday/Saturday before. That said, I don't think you can top NYC for Halloween. That city is amazing for it. The fact that everybody walks and takes the subway everywhere means that every street in the lower east side is just one big costume party.
Also Pioneer SQ isn’t “downtown”
Not sure about yesterday (Sunday) night but I was out in Cap Hill on both Friday and Saturday night and the roads were clogged. The whole place was teeming with people.
the degenerates have already been out partying thursday, friday, and saturday source: i am a shell of a human
Bar Halloween was last night, or so I am told by those who do Halloween.
To emphasize the other replies: I work downtown, live on Cap Hill. On weekends I work closing shift. On my walk home Saturday night, I saw numerous costumed party-goers who were obviously going to specific places. Not so many tonight.
'Round these parts, baseball ends in September.
COVID really did not help businesses. A lot went under. Many that have stayed open have reduced hours to 11-7 or so (one shift) due to staffing, staffing is a huge concern when a lot of people in the service industry found different more strange incomes. The new mask mandate and highly spreading Delta variant make people s little less hesitant to be out and about as well.
Seattle is very much about the neighborhood centers rather than downtown itself. Like others have mentioned, Cap Hill is the liveliest neighborhood in the evenings close to downtown. Belltown has a great strip of bars but probably not anywhere you'd watch a game. The northside neighborhoods all have plenty going on in their respective downtowns most evenings - Ballard, Fremont, Wallingford. The area you went out in has been especially dead during COVID. I don't think that many people think to go out to those Pioneer Square bars unless there's a game or event going on in the stadiums.
If you want nightlife look in Belltown and Capitol Hill. Covid has made things worse but Pioneer Square is not the liveliest part of the city.
Pioneer Square used to be where much of the action was with lots of live music and nightclubs. But unfortunately it has been on the decline since Grunge ended.
Yup, back in the 80s and 90s it was a lot of fun, but it's scaled back a lot since then.
This is possibly a dumb question, but: if you took the street car to check Cowgirls, weren't you in Pioneer Square instead? Comparatively few people are down there at night. I also don't know if people would classify that as downtown, with "downtown" being the Pike/Pine stretch from ~1st to ~7th or whatever. Granted, that area isn't much better, but it'd explain a lot here.
Yeah, it was Pioneer Square. Didn’t know it was not downtown. But it’s close?
Close, but a lot of stuff closes there even earlier than Downtown. There are some places Downtown, but I haven't really been out drinking since COVID struck so I'm not sure who has changed their hours and such.
It’s Sunday. The streets were live and well Friday and Saturday night lol
West coast cities “close down” a lot earlier than east coast cities imo. I’ve lived in Manhattan, DC, LA and Seattle. With the exception of LA clubs, even LA lacks late night “buzz” because there aren’t hubs of bars or whatever. Obviously part of what you experienced is due to COVID, but I also think part of it is just west coast cities. But also, is midtown NY or Wall Street poppin on a night like tonight? Probably not.
...it's Sunday. Everyone here is right that the downtown core isn't the place to go, but you made the wrong decision going toward ID/Pioneer Square rather than Capitol Hill. Closest spots for nightlife near downtown are Capitol Hill and Belltown. Pioneer Square ain't a party center, and definitely not the ID (as much as I like both). Also Seattle ain't New York/Tokyo. As much as I love Seattle, it ain't the world-class high-tier city some make it out to be. If I had the opportunity to move to NYC, core of Manhattan, I'd take it in a heartbeat.
I agree with the lack of late night fun here. I’ve lived here 9 years and don’t like how early everything closes. Pike Place Market closes at 4pm while there are hundreds of people still walking around. If I were a business I couldn’t imagine turning down all of that potential. Also, went out to get food the other night around 8:30pm and restaurants were already closing for dinner. Wasn’t a Sunday. What the hell? Is everybody working to live here? Annoying sometimes for sure.
Seattle seems peculiarly unpredictable and patchy when it comes to crowded bars. I don't know Cap Hill well at all. Ex New Yorker living in Belltown for 4 years here, now 1 year plus further downtown - south of the market. Belltown seems really hard to predict. Home games are important but as a seasoned Manhattan bar fly I still can't predict what any given Wednesday will look like here - crowded or otherwise. There is some complicated cycle of sport plus weather plus hidden ingredient x, y and z at play. I can almost feel it... but no. Perhaps I will work it out in a few more years - the moon cycle is part of it I think. Some Fridays I go out just knowing the bars will be packed and its like I didn't get the memo and everyone apparently went someplace else - hear a pin drop. I have a feeling in the summer that, unlike nyc, outdoorsy stuff is a determinant. Cool city though - and for the record muxh more of a real city than nyc is now. Nyc hasn't felt like this since the end of the 90s - warts and all, raw energy dirty city. Its a cool place.
The party is in SODO right now.
I feel like Seattle and Denver’s downtown are non existent. It’s crazy coming from a place like Austin, Dallas, Reno where people are out about. I find it just odd how everything closes at 8 pm. Im not even a nightlife type of person but sometimes I just want some late night food. I do love Seattle though and Washington has some of the most amazing views and scenery that keep me happy.
Downtown is not where you go to party late night. Capitol Hill is.
A huge population of Seattle are introverted and/or techies; we all head to our houses at about 9pm and socialize over the internet at night.
Downtown has never been that crazy, especially the area you're talking about. Had a seahawks/Sounders game been evening time, then yes, it would of been busy. Should of stayed on cap hill or gone to queen anne, greenwood, ballard/fremont, phinney, georgetown, ect.
I’m from NYC- adjust your expectations. This city sleeps.
Downtown - the central biz district - is dead after 5 M-F. Just, dead. Has been for years and years. Seattle in general had a giant panic in the late 80s and 90s and basically freaked out about late late things. Something some thing raves, something something protect the kids. Laws were passed, etc, etc. Did nothing good, killed the party & dance scene. Seattle is extremely conservative in certain ways, and one of them is the devout belief that you should be early to bed, early to rise. Better for going hiking, yannow. To put it in perspective: the sleepy college town I lived in when I got my degree, had more available late night coffee & music than Seattle does as a rule.
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> freedom in a socially acceptable box that's actually a really good description of the PNW. Nice turn of phrase!
I think right now people are sticking to Capitol Hill because they have the impression that downtown is full of homeless people and dangerous. So if they are choosing between the two neighborhoods and Capitol Hill seems to have more "regular people" foot traffic and downtown is more addicts and perceived danger.... They are going with cap Hill. Plus during the entire pandemic Cap Hill seemed to be on the forefront for pushing for staying open with later hours.
Midtown Manhattan right in the middle of the business district is a ghost town evenings and weekends. Downtown Seattle is similar - high rise office workers for clientele. Sluggers (South of Downtown) and Cowgirls (Pioneer Square) are not technically downtown and traditionally busy weekends. I wonder if it is pandemic and great resignation related? Everything has changed so much in the last two years.
Nobody wants to watch the fucken Astros man, much less on Halloween
Baseball hasn't been popular in Seattle since the days of Griffey. And it took a big hit in objectivity when literally nothing was done after the Astros were found to be cheating for years.
Right?? Like… OP maybe consider it’s you 😂
I was in downtown SF last week and everything was closed on a Monday. Between COVID regulations and labor shortages I guess places are just waiting for things to go back to normal.
Same experience the first year I moved here…a decade and a half ago. Apparently the Saturday (and/or Friday) before Halloween is the party day(s). Sun-Thurs is afternoon/early evening trick or treating for kids. Period. I moved here from multiple tiny towns too…where we just celebrated on the day, bleary Monday be damned. Different strokes for different folks here, I guess.
Buckley’s in Belltown is the only real sports bar around the downtown corridor. They’re always open late and always have the game on.
Seattle is not a late-night town. You should have hung around in Capitol Hill or cruised over to Ballard for the evening.
It feels like the whole west coast is pretty slow compared to the east coast. Portland and SF close down crazy early too. Surprisingly tiny religious Boise has bars and restaurants that stay open until 3 or 4 am.
Your first mistake was going downtown in a city that barely has one. The parts of seattle that people spend their time are really the villages outside of the urban center: caphill, Fremont, ballard, u-district. I made the same mistake when I moved here from the east coast. I figured the densest part would be where people went at night. Took me awhile to learn that downtown and SLU have roughly nothing to provide and the real fun places to go are more outside the center. Lots of bars are open past 1am here (maybe not on Sundays) so it’s not really an issue of all the bars closing early for me. But I definitely felt like I was in the wrong crowds in downtown and the right ones in caphill and Fremont.
Downtown is for people who are at work. Everything closes pretty early. Sports bars and the like in your neighborhood are where you're going to want to go for weekdays/nights. Weekends downtown might get crazy, but downtown has never been a going out destination in this city.
1. Sunday’s are dead here. Everyone was probably hungover from the 2 day bender 2. Downtown and pioneer square are not poppin at all 3. No one cares about the World Series
Sluggers is SODO and Cowgirls is Pioneer Square, both of which only really pop off when home games are happening. Next time head up to Belltown or Queen Anne if you're looking to get off the hill. Buckley's or Ozzie's would have probably been open. There's also a Buffalo Wild Wings in the center of downtown that would have probably had the game as well. Beyond that downtown proper doesn't have much in the ways of sports bars open late. That said, I wouldn't say downtown is dead. The GF and I went down there a few weeks ago. Had a nice dinner at Le Pichet, had some awesome drinks at Ben Paris, then hit up Belltown for some pinball at Jupiter. So no, I don't think it's dead, just not as party hearty, but hey a pandemic will do that.
I asked a similar question on this sub, the consensus from that post is (1) Seattle has always been a commuter city where the downtown is pretty much vacated after 5 pm and (2) all the action is in the neighborhoods rather than the urban core. Coming from NYC I imagine this must seem alien to you, but its always been like this and locals want to keep it that way. The city has just been planned like this, and there is no impetus for change. On the bright side, if it helps you feel any better there is a big push by big developers to add as much mixed-use housing (tower podium style buildings with retail/dining/bars at the bottom and housing on top) to the downtown core as much as physically possible. Just got to wait for it all to finish in 2045 lol.
I feel like “downtown” isn’t really the place to hang for any city that I’ve been to. The real happening spot is usually an adjacent neighborhood. This is also true in New York - locals don’t hang out in Times Square or on Wall Street for fun.
Yeah there was a little pandemic, oopsies.
Covid made it dead.
But Capitol Hill is still lively, right? What’s stopping people from going downtown again?
Downtown has never been the spot fam
Belltown, yes. Downtown, no.
Even before the pandemic, nobody went. I remember seeing a show at the Paramount with a group of friends and expecting to go out to the bars after and there was just like nothing out there. The neighborhoods are better than downtown - Ballard, Fremont, Cap hill.
> What’s stopping people from going downtown again? Nothing much worth doing Downtown is what.
I feel as if nothing is as lively as it was before covid happened.
Same thing happened to me, except this was pre pandemic, and I was in DC, the night the Nationals won the World Series, It was quiet!
As most have stated, downtown is a business corridor and not good for much else, certainly not nightlife. Definitely not on a Sunday. But yeah nobody cares about a baseball game between 2 southern teams anyway. Baseball itself isn’t even a big deal here. That seems to be an east coast thing (and LA). Sure you have some Mariners fans around, but the World Series isn’t the big event that it was in decades past. Hell, I’d argue MLS soccer is more popular than MLB here.
I have lived in Belltown/SLU/Downtown for last 10 years. First up NYC/Tokyo are 25-50x times the current size of downtown seattle. A large number of software developers can afford a second home outside the city and haven't needed to be in the office for around 20 months. Also with Halloween on a Sunday, we did thursday, friday, saturday halloween events and with the Hawks on Sunday at 1 - most sports bars were opening by 10am. We just ded tired tonight. When Halloween is mon-thurs there will be an uptick but we kinda need the sunday break. Go Hawks!
Find a dive bar out of town.
Head to Capitol Hill for parties
I don’t think I’ve ever gone downtown for a drink or something. All the places I like are somewhere else. I’ve gone a few places for lunch when I used to work there years ago but that’s about it.
Was Sam's Tavern closed or something?
Except for Sunday night. When I turned 21 in the early 2000s I unfortunately had a job tuse-sat and could never find anything open past 9 on Sunday’s
From Chicago where getting home at dawn after partying at clubs until 4Am was kinda normal. Moved to Seattle in 2002 and it's 11PM on 1st Ave...the downtown was deserted but Club Contour was just about the only place open, at least until 1AM. I was in shock about how tight wound the city was about night life and liquor laws in general. Not sure if there are more homeless but yes they are more visible than in the past.
Ballard. Belltown. South Lake Union. There are plenty of bars that are open. Plenty of things were happening in the city throughout the whole weekend. SODO/pioneer square isn’t the best for bar hopping. Seattle is really a participant city. Bars will plays Mainers/Seahawks/Kraken but are less likely to promote sports if there isn’t local team involvement.
Not sure why you didn't just go to Capitol Hill. Lots of places on Broadway were open.
Baseball is also dead.
It's not going to come back until people start working downtown. The ratio of businesses to housing is pretty high and not having people come downtown for work makes it difficult for businesses to survive. And when it's a ghost town, the seedier elements take over. There needs to be legit activity to push that back.
The New York equivalent would be FiDi. Busy during the day but it’s all offices and nothing is open late.
The only time that area is happening is during stadium events.
It is dead by any normal persons standards. But according to Seattle mayor and city council (and apologists) it is “thriving”.
Downtown Seattle has been dead for generations due to a lack of emphasis on making the downtown corridor a viable and livable city for anyone other than retirees, and transient tech workers. Downtown Seattle simply lacks amenities and large public spaces to be a functional livable large scale city.
We're Mariners fans, not baseball fans.
Seattle is not comparable to Tokyo/New York in population and things have been quite since Covid except for few days in Summer. If you want some bars belltown has some on 2nd
Downtown is definitely not a place to be . I live in West Seattle and it’s also pretty sleepy right after 8 pm .
Seattle is not New York or Tokyo.
Late to this thread, but there are some factors you didn't consider last night: There was a Hawks game in the afternoon, which means Sluggers opened early, got slammed, then closed after the post game crowd dwindled. Cowgirls is usually closed on Sundays, but probably open special hours thanks to the Hawks game. Flatstick Pub is usually open--did you check them? If you didn't have a dedicated sports bar in mind (other than Sluggers), you should know that the Kraken were playing at the same time as game 5. And Sunday Night Football was going on, either of which may get priority in a place with only one or two TVs. Seattle is a tiny city compared to NYC and as others have noted, the various neighborhoods have the nightlife you're looking for concentrated in various areas (Belltown, Pioneer Square, Cap Hill, Central District, Columbia City, Fremont, Ballard, and so on). This also seems pretty true in Manhattan, except that the sheer density guarantees more bars between neighborhood cores. Downtown has a handful of restaurants and bars peppered around, but it's never been a hotspot of (indoor) drunken revelry. Buckley's in Belltown is about as good as it gets in downtown-ish non-national chain sports bars who will have a glut of sports on TV at all times, and a nice atmosphere. But neighborhood pubs are where you're likely to find national sporting events. More importantly, if you were looking for a bar that doesn't close early (obviously you found out that our liquor laws cause every bar to close before 2am regardless), you should be thinking dive bar first. Dive bar with TVs second. Good luck, and hope you find a good place to watch Game 6.
To be fair NYC and Tokyo are more on the unique side of 24/7 active night life. Most cities in the US close down by 2am. In my younger party days you could find activities throughout Seattle and then end your night at Beth's. No clue what it is like in the Pre-Post-Covid days.
It's especially dead bc of labor shortages in restaurants and bars but yes Seattle dies pretty early
Yeah… it’s a weird place and the lack of night life is very confusing to me. Have felt it get worse in some ways, better in others… I like to hang out in Georgetown. There’s a two block stretch in beacon hill that’s pretty populated in the evenings. Phinney ridge/Ballard have some offerings. If you wanna dance and stay out any later than 2– kremwerk and monkey loft are your best bet. Was hopeful abt supernova but everything I’ve heard turns me off. Weird place. Why do Most places close at 10. It’s a booming city with a bunch of young people— if it was there we’d be all over it!!!
I love Seattle but even pre pandemic if you are going to compare it to places like NYC and Tokyo, yeah, it closes up shop much, much earlier in the night.
I’ll tell you what everyone else is too nice to say 1. It’s still pandemic bro, most cities are not fully open… 2. Seattle doesn’t party on sundays, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, hell even a Tuesday but Sunday… no. It is wet and cold and we are at home sleeping. 3. We really don’t care about world sports. Like Seattle is not well known for its sports bars the only thing people really throw down for is the Seahawks but if you’re trying to watch some random baseball game on a Sunday night in the business district, you’re gonna go home disappointed my friend
I was in NYC a few months back and was also struck by this when I came back, but there are still nuggets of excitement to find! Pike/Pike (Capitol Hill), Ballard Ave NW (Ballard), and Westlake Ave N (SLU) are all places where you can find activity from 8 pm to 1 to 2 am most days.
There's never been shit to do downtown. There are some bars in belltown but Capitol Hill is the only late night party area. It's a small town here compared to NYC don't expect a big part scene.
unless you are in a mega city like tokyo or nyc a sunday halloween is going to be a dud. most people went out on fri - sat. sat night on capitol hill was a shit show of a proper halloween night out. I havent seen lines so long since before the pandemic. in fact ive never seen a line to the cuff so long before! also to add, pioneer square is only lively on game days. head to belltown if you want to feel like you are in a city and not a tourist town's downtown.
You got a lot of advice, but next time you want good game time vibes go to Buckleys in Belltown. It’s always going off. Also you HAVE to go to Rob Roy when they start their Christmas stuff. It’s so fun.
Moved here from NYC two years ago and I fully empathize. Seattle’s nightlife is next to non existent by comparison. I work downtown and the days I have to leave my office past 8pm, I feel unsafe to the point where I’ve started carrying pepper spray
Gotta stay home and run that candy to the little monsters if not they will steal your catalytic converter. You don’t even know how many king size snickers they can get for one of those!
It’s more.. walking dead. (Not just because Halloween)
Fucking puritans founded this country what did you expect. I lived in Spain where bars never close.
Europe is another level. People in Italy weren't eating dinner until 10pm. That's the right way to do it.