Abslut Hot Dog Stand - Pioneer Square, Seattle

After the Seattle Urban Sketchers Gathering on the Seattle Waterfront - I walked south to Pioneer Square where there is a new (newer) food stand near the pergola and the Chief Sealth statue. Every half an hour of so I would have to take a break while all the people doing the Underground Seattle tour stood in front of me listening to their guide go over the story of the great Seattle fire of June 6, 1889.

Pioneer Square Alley Door

Sketched this just west of the J & M Cafe. There is something about the 'not so perfect' part of the city that appeals to me. Pen & ink in a Moleskine.

King Street Station from Caffe Vita

The back of a billboard isn't glamorous, but it did seem to frame the station tower.... Caffe Vita can be found in the Tashiro Kaplan Artists Lofts building just East of Pioneer Square. With an abundance of picture windows and a second story loft, it's a great place to sit and sketch. This was done on (what is now way too common) a dark and gloomy Saturday morning after I caught the bus into town early. There is a calm about Seattle this time of the week, without the rush to work and most of it's residents still in their robes - or in this part of Pioneer Square, sleeping bags. There but for the grace of good fortune, go I.

Merchants Cafe/The Back Door - Seattle

Merchants Cafe is Seattle's longest running continually open restaurant, there is a grand wooden bar and the typical grub and brews on tap. A trip to the restroom is a treacherous adventure downstairs and I would also consider this a sobriety test, if they don't make it back from the john, it wasn't meant to be......The happy hour menu offers up a pleasant surprise - for $3 you seem to get a full sized entree, not a Mini-Me version of your favorite burger. This image is of the backdoor and just a glimpse of the bar. Not sure where this door goes, an alley maybe? Does the stained glass at the top suggest that it had a grander purpose in the past?

Merchant Cafe

Seattle's oldest restaurant established in 1890 sits just south of the pergola and Pioneer Square. This was an Urban Sketchers get together. Great turnout and weather.

Rice Bowl Neon

Tamra and I took the bus into Seattle, getting off in the International District. The sketch on the left was done at 6th & Main of the now defunct Standard Cafe. A tour guide informed me that the neon rice bowl and sign were coming down soon (and that I might want to step back, there was a bus load of tourists about to walk around the corner). The sketch on the right was done after eating at Zaina, a middle eastern restaurant located at the north end of Pioneer Square. Great food and friendly staff.

McCoy's Firehouse Pub

This pub was a firehouse and is decorated with all sorts of fire equipment from the past, some antique, some recent. Tamra and I stopped here during the October Art Walk and enjoyed a libation and some nourishment before heading back out to the galleries and studios.

Pioneer Square Pergola and Totem Pole

Took the bus into Seattle early to sketch before the Art Walk. It is my goal to loosen up a lot with my sketches - for one thing, it's getting colder! Who wants to stand there that long?

- In 1889 local businessmen returned to Seattle from a trip to Alaska with a Tlingit totem pole and gave the Puget Sound it's first landmark. In 1909 an iron pergola was built as a shelter over an underground restroom, known as "the finest underground restroom in the United States" (so we got that going for us...). The Pergola and the totem pole still stand, along with a bust of Chief Seattle. This tiny park is at the heart of Seattle's historical district. - Enjoying Seattle's Parks by Brandt Morgan