Seattle History Through Restaurant Menus

Restaurants, the food they serve, the buildings they're in,  the prices they charge and how they change over time tells us a lot about the history of food and culture in a city. Let's go back in time review some options for going out to eat in Seattle.

​We scraped dozens of historic menus and photos from the Seattle area (1880's to present) to highlight interesting dishes, cultural history and changing prices for dining out. Main sources of information used include of: University of Washington Menus Library, Seattle Library Special Collections and MOHAI historical photos. Some highlights:

Dining hall and general market on Ballard Avenue, circa 1890. Image copyright MOHAI.

• ​​In 1888 if you went to the Occidental Hotel in Pioneer Square and ordered the Mock Turtle a'l Anglaise off the menu (imitation green turtle soup), you would notice that the address was "Seattle, W.T, " with "W.T." short for Washington Territories. On November 11, 1889 Washington became the 42nd state of the Union. The hotel went on to become the Seattle Hotel and was eventually demolished in 1961 to make way for the Sinking Ship parking garage.​
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• In 1944 you could have made your way to Harold's Charcoal Broiler located at 304 Eastlake Avenue for dinner and ordered a hamburger for $0.70 ($10.25 in 2020 dollars). If you head to that location now, you will find...I-5. In the 1950's the construction of I-5 wiped 15,000 homes from Seattle and the commercial property that was once Harold's.
  
  
•  In 1965 you could have gone to Cantonesia's restaurant in Green Lake and ordered the shark fin soup for $3.50  ($28.64 in 2020 dollars). Located at 7850 East Green Lake Drive North, the former restaurant is now real estate firm...and shark fin soup is illegal in Washington State.
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• In 1975 if you went to dinner at Alexander's and ordered the New York steak you could purchase either the regular portion for $5.95 or the Ladies portion for $4.95 ($28.51 and $23.72  in 2020 dollars, respectively).​​ Gender-specific sizes have since disappeared from menus.

Historical Menu Price Comparison

Let's see how much it costs to go out to eat over the last hundred years and common menu staples: a cup of coffee, a cup of soup, a drink (beer, wine and cocktail)  and - in proper Pacific Northwest fashion - a salmon entree.

Hover over each menu item to see the cost for a given year and the restaurant that served it. The data provides a snapshot of historical costs, but is no means a comprehensive analysis.