Like the Real Thing, with Fewer Tourists: City Hall the Home of New Pike Place Market Express
Between dodging families posed in front of the First Starbucks, and attempting to beat your way through hoards of onlookers awaiting the potential airborne salmon, it can be difficult to remember that Pike Place Market is actually still that--a market.
With food, much of it local, and vendors, who are often struggling through difficult Seattle seasons. And yet, despite our collective love for a good farmer's market, residents who work and live in or near downtown often skip past it, in favor of the IGA on 3rd, or any one of the assorted bodegas, boasting brownish bananas and overpriced energy drinks. City Council wants to change that.
This week, as part of their Local Food Action Initiative, City Council announced Pike Place Market Express--essentially a downtown farmer's market. The "express" market will feature many vendors from Pike Place, as well as other, local growers and makers, every Tuesday from now until September. Right in the Council's backyard, at the City Hall Plaza, the market is similar to the Out to Lunch concert series, in that it's aimed at Seattle's downtown employees, as well as those who are in the neighborhood, in an attempt to draw them out and make the City's core more vibrant, fun and functional.
Sure to draw minimal tourism, the Pike Place Market Express will serve as a local food outlet for actual locals (or at least those who work locally), offering downtown workers a place to stop and pick up meal fixings or lunch, while interacting with the folks who made it happen.
Pike Place Market Express // Every Tuesday until Sept. 7 // 10 a.m. - 2 p.m. // Seattle City Hall Plaza, 600 Fourth Avenue // Open to the Public //
