Harry Cheadle

Seattle Seahawks fans are blessed. Not only do they root for a team that is never boring, they also get to take advantage of one of the country’s best stadium district dining scenes. Lumen Field is right next to downtown Seattle, unlike all those NFL stadiums that are millions of miles away from their respective cities. (Just where is “Foxboro, Massachusetts” anyway?) So there’s a tailgating scene outside Lumen, but you don’t have to eat and drink out of the trunk of your car if that doesn’t sound appealing to you. In fact, there are tons of public transportation options that get you to Lumen, so you don’t need to drive at all — what a concept!But where do you eat after you go inside the stadium? That’s what we’re here to help you with. Here are our recommendations for food at Seahawks home games for the 2025 season (note that you have to have access to the Club Level to eat at some of these stands):New to Lumen Field for 2025Catfish from Legion at Lumen Field. Harry CheadleLegion [Club Level Sections 204 and 240]A couple years ago, Seahawks legends Richard Sherman and Kam Chancellor opened an upscale sports bar called Legion (as in Of Boom), and now they’ve brought some of the food over to their old stomping ground. The smash burger here (also available at Bam Bam Smash Burger) is a solid option if you need meat, but the fried catfish is the best new menu item in the whole stadium. The fish is crispy on the outside and comfortingly soft inside, and the corn bread with hot honey that accompanies it is just a little sweet.Chung Chun [Section 223]Another outside vendor that’s new to Lumen this year is Chung Chun, which serves Korean-style rice dogs and mochi doughnuts. A rice dog is like a corn dog, except the dog is coated in rice flour and sometimes there’s cheese on the inside along with the sausage. In the stadium context, it’s a fun change-up, and the coating lends the exterior some salty-sweet notes. But the real winner here is the doughnuts, which like all mochi doughnuts are chewier than their “normal” cousins and here are topped with plenty of frosting, cookie crumbles, and so on. It’s a great option to fuel your cheering if you aren’t fueled by Rainier.Lune [Section 105]For those who want brunchy fare for 1 p.m. kickoffs, check out this stand inside the International Eats area, which is serving an array of mini pancakes, plus Dubai chocolate strawberry cups (how trendy!). You can also get energy drinks here — again, a good pick-me-up option if you aren’t fueled by Rainier.The Flaming Hot Cheeto Chicken Tenders at Big Walt’s. Harry CheadleFlaming Hot Cheetos Tenders at Big Walt’s Kitchen [Sections 126 and 321; Club Level Sections 214 and 230]Walter Jones is synonymous with reliability and respectability, but this season his eponymous concession stand is serving… chicken covered with spicy, bright-red Cheeto powder? Say it ain’t so, Walt! It’s by far the most eccentric food item in the stadium, and yet it sort of works because the chicken inside the Cheeto coating is moist and satisfying. To get to that chicken, though, you have to bite through a thick layer of spicy-sweet dust with the texture of children’s breakfast cereal. It’s reminiscent of the spicy corn dog at T-Mobile Park — can anyone stop this trend before this spicy dust breaks containment and appears on menus in Pioneer Square?Tierra Madre [Section 116]You might think that a football stadium wouldn’t have many vegan options, and you’d be right. But if you’re a plant-based 12 who gets a mid-game craving, you can mosey over to this stand for some esquites, where the corn is drizzled with (vegan) chili-lime aioli, giving it a pleasant pickly flavor. (Even if you’re hungry, the jackfruit nachos aren’t worth it; go with the esquites.)Kings Hawaiian [Sections 120, 131, 305, and 335]A lot of the food at Lumen is barbecue-adjacent, and the sandwiches here follow that trend, albeit with the twist of being served on Kings Hawaiian rolls. This is not the best or most distinctive food in the stadium, but will fill you up.Korean BBQ Steak Sandwich at Hometaste Advantage [Section 311]Of all the meat sandwiches we tried at the Lumen preseason tasting event (and there were a lot), this one stood out for its tender bulgolgi beef, its gochujang spice, and lightly pickled vegetables. If you’re craving something big and meaty and find yourself in the 300s, check it out.Returning FavoritesSample bowls of birria ramen from Bar Dojo. Harry ChealdeBar Dojo [Club Level sections 208 and 236]This Edmonds restaurant wins the “wait, you can get that at an NFL game?” award with its birria ramen and poke nachos, a dish that pairs sashimi-grade tuna with a bunch of toppings and wonton chips — we’ll take that over any of the “traditional” nacho offerings in the stadium. Also on the menu are xiao long bao from local frozen dumpling company MiLa.Bam Bam Smash Burger [Section 122]Here’s another place to get those Legion smash burgers, along with Cajun fries and fried shrimp. If you’re here, check out the Seattle Smash Burger, which is a take on a Seattle dog — burger patties, white American cheese, jalapeño cream cheese, and grilled onions. It’s rich and powerful with plenty of heat thanks to that jalapeño.Sausage Carts [Sections 107, 138, 306, and 334]Don’t be fooled by this nondescript name — these stands serve some creative takes on the classic stadium hot dog. Our favorite last year was a footlong dog topped with braised short rib, crispy onions, and pickled shimeji mushrooms, which imparted a woodsy, slightly acidic tang that livens up what is basically a big ole pile of meat.The footlong hot dog. Harry CheadleTutta Bella Neapolitan Pizza [Sections 107 and 137]Wood-fired pizza at a stadium? Eh, sort of — the pies are parbaked and then taken to Lumen, but they still have a chewiness to their crusts that is pretty, pretty good. (It also serves salads and tiramisu.) It’s the kind of food that’s kid- and adult-friendly. Conveniently, these stands feature Amazon’s Just Walk Out technology, cutting down on lines.Pacific Northwest Kitchen [Section 113]This stand is heavy on the cheese, serving nachos along with mac and cheese, including one vegan option. But it’s worth including because it’s also offering banh mi courtesy of popular local shop Saigon Drip Cafe.

This is a curated list of Seattle’s most notable and permanent restaurant and bar closures. See a closing we missed? Then drop us a line.CAPITOL HILL — Acclaimed Vietnamese-influenced restaurant Stateside and its sibling bar Foreign National both abruptly closed at the beginning of the month, after a decade in business. Owner Eric Johnson was fairly tight-lipped about what happened, giving no reasons in extremely short Instagram posts, but told Eater Seattle that the end of Stateside’s lease was what prompted the closure.CAPITOL HILL — Another particularly notable closure announcement came from Mamnoon, the flatbread-centric Middle Eastern restaurant that has become a cornerstone of the dining scene. It will close on September 14; co-owner Wassef Haroun told Eater Seattle broader economic factors (like Seattle’s recent slow growth) made the restaurant unsustainable. Haroun’s restaurant group, Mama, still operates Mbar and Mamnoon Street and it is making selling prepared foods in grocery stores a larger part of its business.ROOSEVELT — “Geeky third place” Distant Worlds Coffeehouse, which appealed to the overlapping sci-fi/fantasy/board game community, is closing at the end of the month. In a goodbye message, owner Rebecca SerVoss wrote, “You have sent us love and let us be part of your joys. We have been co-conspirators and celebrants and friends. ⁠But the sad reality is that we’ve been unable to negotiate a sustainable lease with the landlord. We tried.⁠”BALLARD — Sad news from Bickerson’s Brewhouse, courtesy of MyBallard: The brewery is closing its Ballard location on August 29 because co-owner Shaunn Siekawitch has been diagnosed with “advanced-stage cancer. ”We cannot continue to run two locations and make sure Shaunn has the attention to care she needs,” the owners wrote in an announcement. Bickerson’s Renton location will remain open.BELLEVUE — Just months after opening, SuperKim Khao Man Gai has shut down its restaurant in the Bellevue Towers development, reports Puget Sound Business Journal. This was originally the second location of SuperKim Crab House, but in May it became a chicken and rice–focused concept. “The company cited issues around the property’s infrastructure, particularly its all-electric kitchen configuration, as a reason for both closures,” the Journal writes. Electric kitchens produce lower carbon emissions that gas ones, but, as the Journal notes, restaurants believe electric stoves are slower and harder to use. The Pioneer Square SuperKim space will now incorporate the Bellevue concept, now called SuperKim Chicken House.BAINBRIDGE ISLAND — Acclaimed seafood restaurant Seabird is closing on September 28. Though it only opened in 2022, it made a big splash, netting a number of awards and accolades from local and national media for its inventive dishes and creative use of seaweed. Owner Brendan McGill — who operates several area restaurants under the Hitchcock Restaurant Group umbrella — told the Seattle Times that the restaurant was no longer viable during the slow, rainy winter months, when Bainbridge gets fewer visitors. He plans to open another restaurant in the space at some point.

At Eater Seattle, we have to eat out a lot — it’s right there in the website name, next to “Seattle.” Sometimes, this research shows up in the articles and maps we publish, but sometimes, we eat something so good that we have to tell everyone about it. This running monthly column is a place for us to share especially good dishes with you.Pike Place Market is full of same-y menus — a lot of the restaurants serve tourists, and tourists want seafood, ergo seafood flourishes. So it can take a lot to stand out from the crowd, but Matt’s in the Market accomplishes that. If you have a craving for a bowl of bivalves, check out Matt’s, which is really more “above” the market than “in” it. The broth is loaded with lemongrass and cilantro, which gives it an earthy, herbal flavor, and you get a lot of different textures from the chorizo, the crunchy croutons, and huge, creamy corona beans. Combine that with the waterfront views and you have yourself a luxurious lunch.I went to this upscale Scottish pub in Ballard — one of the city’s few Scottish eateries — to try the fish and chips, but once I saw haggis on the menu I had to order it. If you don’t know, haggis is a “savory pudding” made from offal and oats. It has an earthy, dark, slightly gamey flavor, and these croquettes are a great way to package that haggis-y goodness. The whiskey-mustard cream sauce didn’t add a lot, in my opinion, but these little guys didn’t need any sauce.It’s “little fried balls” month here at Eater Seattle! There are a couple things to know about this new takeout spot on Aurora near Green Lake: One is that it’s serving big portions of Southern food for under $20. And two is that one of your sides should definitely be the corn fritters, hot, slightly sweet balls of comfort that come loaded with whole corn kernels that are like buried treasures. Maybe two of your sides should be corn fritters.Mean Sandwich opened nine years ago, which makes it not quite old enough to be a revered local institution but also not quite new enough to qualify as “hot” anymore. It’s not newsworthy, it just makes incredible sandwiches. This po’ boy is a shining example of the form: pickly remoulade, crunchy fried oysters that are hot and meaty inside, and some spice from something — maybe the lemon pepper mayo? We should all be talking a lot more about Mean Sandwich, is what I’m saying.

Gordon Bowker, an entrepreneur most known for co-founding Starbucks but who also founded Redhook Brewing during a long and eventful career, has died at the age of 82, reports the Seattle Times.Bowker was a uniquely Seattle character. According to a history of Starbucks’ early years, he was born in Oakland, California, but after his father died in a World War II submarine, his mother moved them to Seattle to live with her parents, who were “Norwegian immigrants who had taken part in the Alaska gold rush before settling in Ballard.” He went to college at the University of San Francisco, where he met one of his future Starbucks co-founders, Jerry Baldwin, and then moved back to Seattle, where he worked as a cab driver, Underground Tour guide, and editor at the original Seattle magazine.In 1971, Baldwin, Bowker, and third co-founder Zev Siegl opened the first Starbucks location (Bowker came up with the name). It didn’t serve drinks but sold coffee beans sourced from Peet’s along with tea and spices. Initially, Bowker kept his day job at an ad agency while working in the shop on weekends. (He also earned some publicity by sending some free beans to a Seattle Times columnist.) Starbucks struggled throughout the ’70s, then, in 1982, it hired Howard Schultz as director of marketing. Schultz pushed the company to focus on selling espresso drinks, and, after briefly leaving to start another coffee company, bought Starbucks with the help of investors in 1987. (To this day, Schultz is sometimes incorrectly referred to as the founder of Starbucks.)In a 2008 interview with the Times, Bowker complained that people asked him too often about the founding of Starbucks. And he certainly did a lot more than just that. For years he was on the board of Peet’s, which Starbucks owned briefly in the ’80s. He encouraged the journalist David Brewster to start Seattle Weekly and wrote restaurant reviews for it under a pseudonym. And in 1981 he founded Redhook Brewery, one of the country’s first microbreweries.“In 1981, there was no roadmap, no playbook,” wrote Kendall Jones at the Washington Beer Blog. “The world was thoroughly dominated by the biggest beer companies, which were growing through mergers and acquisitions. Even regional breweries like Rainier were too small to survive and were gobbled up by bigger fish, which in turn were gobbled up by even bigger fish. But a few weirdly creative fish were hatching new ideas and swimming against the current.”Bowker is linked to another moment in Seattle beer history: Before starting Starbucks, he founded an advertising firm with Terry Hecker, and that firm went on to produce the delightfully weird Rainier Beer ads in the ’70s and ’80s that featured “herds” of “wild Rainiers,” aka huge beer bottles with legs. The commercials were so iconic that years later, they inspired a documentary.In the 2008 Times interview, Bowker attributed his success in part to a “contrarian” streak. He saw opportunities in fields where everybody else saw problems. He treasured the sensation of figuring out that “something’s been overlooked.”Baldwin told the Times that Bowker, who was a lifelong friend, “really was able to feel the pulse, or maybe the pre-pulse, of the zeitgeist of the moment. … He could see what was coming, and it was just part of his wiring. He wasn’t looking for it, it was just there.”He also may have had an instinct to be a little bit of what we would today call a troll. For many years (ending in 2012) Alaska Airlines handed out prayer cards with meals, a practice that struck Bowker as odd. He told the Times in 2008: “What’s the idea of putting a prayer on there? Please don’t crash? God help us, don’t crash?” So he read the prayers out loud.“I also was curious what kind of effect that would have,” he said. “The flight attendants didn’t like it at all.”

Mamnoon, the flagship of the Mama restaurant group, is closing after 12 years, ownership announced on Monday, August 25. Its last day of service will be Sunday, September 14.When owners Racha and Wassef Haroun opened Mamnoon in 2013, it was a celebration of the cuisines of Iran, Lebanon, and Syria, reflecting the Harouns’ backgrounds. They were first-time restaurant owners, but they created an instant hit. Seattle Met named it the restaurant of the year, praising its mana’eesh flatbreads, sayadieh (roasted halibut over smoked green wheat), and spicy-sweet muhammara spread. As the Harouns wrote in a goodbye letter posted to Instagram, Syria was consumed by civil war at the time, which meant “our family couldn’t travel back and mamnoon became our new haven — peering into the past and future— that couldn’t wait to welcome you into.”The Haroun family gradually expanded into a restaurant group that included the South Lake Union rooftop spot Mbar, the Eastside restaurant Hanoon, and a place next to the Amazon Spheres that has run through several names and concepts but won praise last year from the Seattle Times for its mashup of Lebanese and Mexican cuisines. But Mama group has shrunk in the last few months: Hanoon closed earlier this summer, and the Mexican influence is off the menu at the Amazon-adjacent restaurant, now called Mamnoon Street. Meanwhile, the company has pivoted to selling its mezze, sauces, and chips in upscale grocery stores in the Seattle area.The goodbye announcement said that “Mamnoon’s end is the rule rather than the exception in our business in Seattle,” a reference to the difficult economic climate for restaurants at the moment. There have been several notable closure announcements in the last couple of months, including Stateside and the Whale Wins. “A restaurant like mamnoon needs a healthy urban environment with diversity in all dimensions, density, spontaneity and predictability,” the owners wrote. “Alas, the last 2 years has seen scary declines in all of these, in addition to increasing costs.”Eater Seattle reached out to Wassef Haroun for more details about the reasons for the closure, but has not heard back.Mamnoon has hosted countless fundraisers and pop-ups over the years, including many that supported charitable efforts in the Harouns’ home region. In 2020, it raised money for victims of a massive explosion in Beirut, and more recently put on an event with local Palestinian American chef Nadia Tommalieh that supported the Palestinian Children’s Relief Fund.“It was important for us to connect Seattleites to the struggles of people in Syria, Lebanon, and Palestine,” the Harouns wrote, “and connect our global communities to Seattle. And to be a part of a first wave of forward-thinking Levantine restaurants that allowed the world to understand us as modern, resilient, culturally proud, and creative people.”

Once upon a time, the Canterbury Ale House was famed far and wide — at least on Capitol Hill — for being a dive, a sprawling bar haunted by literal ghosts as well as plenty of living regulars. Soundgarden played there in 1987, long before anyone cared who Soundgarden were. It changed owners in 2014, and they revamped it into a brighter, more family-friendly space that actually served good food, which some regarded as a sign of the Hill’s gentrification. Then it changed owners again, then closed, then in 2023 the space was turned into a stylish, but short-lived restaurant called Meliora, which closed last year.Now the Canterbury is fading further into the mists of time, Capitol Hill Seattle Blog reports, as the owners of the mixed-use building the bar used to occupy are splitting the 5,000-square-foot space in twain. That’s a huge footprint by restaurant standards, and landlord Meriwether Partners hopes that the two smaller spaces will be more attractive to commercial tenants. There’s no sense yet of whether one or both of those tenants would be bars or restaurants, but Meriwether is open to the idea.There’s one leftover bit of Canterbury legacy that might sweeten the deal for prospective tenants, CHS reports: There’s still a single suit of armor kicking around.Bumbershoot reveals food lineupSeattle’s most famous musical festival has in recent years leaned into the food, and this year is no exception. New additions to the culinary slate in 2025 include Homer, Mexican Seoul, and Lenox, while returning vendors include Local Tide and Chicken Supply. Basically, if a restaurant has recently been on the Eater 38, there’s a good chance it’ll be at Bumbershoot on Labor Day weekend. For a full rundown of all the musical acts, food, and artists that will be at Bumbershoot, and to buy tickets, go here.Fair Isle is hosting a fortnight of pop-upsBallard’s Fair Isle Brewing has long been one of the city’s premiere pop-up incubators, and the brewery is leaning into that this September, launching a 14-night dinner series called the Chef Sessions. It’ll run from September 15 to September 28 and feature some of the best pop-ups around, from the Cavatelli Project to Seila. (Current kitchen resident La Marea is taking a break during this time.) These dinners will be walk-in only; note that Fair Isle is a 21-plus space. For the full lineup, go here.The ‘Seattle Times’ names the sandwich of the summerFinally, the Seattle Times had a fun rundown on the trendy dish du jour, the mortadella sandwich. For the uninitiated, mortadella is bologna’s fancier cousin, and area restaurants have been pairing it with cheese, hot honey, pistachios, and other accoutrements; it’s often served on focaccia, a bread that is a kind of local trend all of its own. Our top pick for a ‘della sandwich, and also one of the Times’ top picks, can be found at Tivoli in Fremont.

Ancient Gate CoffeeThe University District is chock full of coffee shops but the actual coffee tends to be pretty blah — good enough for students who just need a jolt before midterms, but too dark, bitter, and bland for the true beanheads. That changed in 2024, when self-described “coffee nerd” Kegan Weatherford opened Ancient Gate. The space is clean and light-filled enough to accommodate study sessions, but you come here for the single-origin Makeworth roasts (no blends allowed here) that celebrate all the floral, fruity, surprising flavors of the coffee bean. The drink menu is short, but it’s worth getting the bicerin, which is sort of like a mocha that leans into the bitterness of dark chocolate.Harry Cheadle

Get your kelp Caesar salads while you can: Seabird, the Bainbridge Island seafood standout from local restaurateur Brendan McGill is closing after service on September 28, the Seattle Times reports.When it opened in 2022, Seabird snagged practically every award under the sun. It earned an Eater Seattle Award and Bon Appetit put it on its list of the best new restaurants in America. McGill’s restaurant dazzled diners with its artful preparations and creative use of seaweed — a yuzu-and-koji-marinated cut of salmon came wrapped in sugar kelp, the focaccia is paired with a briny algae butter.As time went on Seabird shed a little bit of its over-the-top presentations but maintained its high quality, serving dishes like mussels cooked with honey mead instead of white wine or wood-fired oysters sweetened with yuzu.But McGill told the Times that Seabird’s high-end style of dining was no longer profitable during the drizzly Seattle winters, when Bainbridge gets many fewer visitors than it does in the summer.“All our costs doubled and tripled, and the appetite to spend is just not there anymore,” the chef told the paper. “It worked great during summertime when everyone is visiting the island. But I know what will happen in November when it’s 42 degrees and rainy outside. We are just not going to see a lot of people.”Seabird’s closure may be a blow, but McGill’s Hitchcock restaurant group is still going strong. It operates Bruciato on Bainbridge and opened the impressive Oyster Cellar in downtown Seattle last year; the casual Cafe Hitchcock has locations on Bainbridge and in Seattle.And while Seabird is flying off into the sunset, McGill says that he’s keeping the space and will debut a new restaurant there sometime in the future.

Years ago, Christina Wood hopped into her friend’s car and drove across the country from Gainesville, Florida, to Seattle, a city she knew almost nothing about. Wood had little more than a suitcase and an evangelical passion for pastry, which she parlayed into jobs at some of Seattle’s top bakeries (Bakery Nouveau, the now-defunct Besalu). In 2020, she opened her own bakery, Temple Pastries, a destination for pilgrims seeking flaky cruffins and chocolate-rye croissants, or whimsical black sesame macarons, or custom tins of intricate Christmas cookies.Now Wood is stepping into the cookbook game with Pastry Temple: Baking with Inspired Flavors (Sasquatch Books), a tome for the intermediate or advanced home baker who is looking to take their game to the next level. The book focuses on the three “pillars” of pastry, which Wood defines as brioche, croissant, and puff pastry. There are detailed instructions (with photos) on everything from making a butter block to proofing dough — which, Wood advises, you can do in a dishwasher if the rest of your house is too chilly during the persistent Seattle winter.You could read Pastry Temple and get a solid foundation in these techniques without even delving into the recipes. But the recipes are impressive concoctions that showcase Wood’s creativity, including things like cheese-crusted scallion French toast, gochujang babka, and ‘nduja doughnuts. This isn’t for baking novices or the faint of heart — this is for folks who, like Wood years ago, want to get really, seriously into baking.In advance of the book’s October 7 release, and Wood’s pub day event at Book Larder, Eater Seattle caught up with her to talk about the book’s trickiest recipe, the difference between working in a bakery and home baking, and more. This interview has been edited for clarity:Eater: In the introduction you talk about how this is a book that you wish you would have when you were starting up. Who is your ideal reader?Christina Wood: The ideal reader is someone who bakes at home a lot but doesn’t quite know how to level up as far as going beyond cakes and cookies. There’s a lot of technical information about that kind of stuff online that you can find. But there was nothing to guide me as far as, “How do I make a laminated dough? How do I make a brioche properly and understand why?”How different is it to dream up recipes for Temple where you have the facilities and the staff versus a home kitchen?Here at Temple, when I’m deciding on menu items, they have to be able to sit in a case for several hours without wilting or looking kind of gross or drying out. And they have to be reproducible on a grander scale. So when I was doing it at home, it was like, I only have to make like 12 of these, they can be as involved as I want them to be. So I got a little more involved and fanciful.I really wanted to make sure that it was actually doable at home, because at the bakery, we have so many special pieces of equipment. Doing it at home is so much harder. Yeah, it feels like I’m cheating sometimes, because we have proofers that have specific temperatures and humidity levels, and our ovens are specifically made to make pastry and the laminator, obviously, is a huge plus.Christina Wood. Christina WoodWas there a specific recipe that you found particularly hard to develop?The banh mi sausage roll was really hard. I’m not a savory cook by training or nature. So getting that one specifically was such a challenge — forming raw meat into a perfect cylinder and getting it to not burst apart in the oven.Are there any recipes in the book that are going to make their way to the Temple?Some of them have. I’ve probably done about four or five different menu changes since the writing was done, and I have definitely taken some things from myself. We did a gochujang cheddar brioche roll last fall, and we’re doing a banh mi sausage croissant right now.How do you feel about the book now that it’s about to come out?It’s a huge deal. It’s not something I ever even thought I would do. It’s not something I set out to accomplish. The fact that I was able to is like a dream. I mean, everything to do with Temple is like a dream. I am a little nervous, like I’m gonna go out into different cities and promote it, and public speaking is not like my super jam, I don’t love it. But I try to think of it as another challenge.Pre-order Pastry Temple: Baking with Inspired Flavors here, and get tickets to Wood’s October 7 talk at Book Larder in Fremont here.