Exploring Seattle: Sky City Restaurant
I know, I know. No Seattleite worth their salt ever goes to the Space Needle. It’s $16 for an adult one-way ticket on the elevators to the observation deck. And it’s crowded. With tourists. Tons of tourists. I was warned about it almost as soon as I arrived in Seattle- “too expensive,” “the food is terrible,” “only for tourists,” “don’t waste your money.”
But this week, my parents were visiting, and they wanted to go to the top of the Space Needle. Of course, at $16 a pop just to ride the elevator, I thought it might be a better deal to check out Sky City Restaurant, which rotates 360 degrees every 47 minutes.
In reality, despite the minimum $35 charge per person for dinner (meaning that you can’t get away with ordering a $10 salad), it was probably the highlight of their visit. The food was really good- it wasn’t amazing, but it was well prepared, artfully arranged, and tasty. Many of the meat dishes are local to Washington, and a good deal of the rest of the food is from the Pacific Northwest, which I certainly wasn’t expecting. And really, if you’re technically paying $16 just for the view anyway, the food is somewhat reasonably priced. It was much higher quality than I’d expected as well.
Towards the end of our meal, the people at the table next to us ordered the Lunar Orbiter dessert, a sundae that sits atop a dish full of dry ice made to smoke when waiters pour a bit of water on it as it’s served. Even though we didn’t get one ourselves (those meals are pretty big, which I don’t expect when it comes with a high price tag), my dad loved the entertainment provided by the dessert. And the views were phenomenal, even though we had been to the viewing deck at the top of the Columbia Tower- the tallest building in Seattle- earlier in the day.
The observation deck, of course, was a totally different story- completely packed, and super touristy. Some of the interactive exhibits on the observation deck were nice, but the sheer amount of people around didn’t make me want to stick around any longer than necessary.
So, I guess my semi-Seattleite take on the Space Needle is this- paying $16 to get to a crowded observation deck is not worth it. But paying $35 a plate for an hour long meal with beautiful views of the city? Definitely worth considering, particularly if you’ve got friends or family in town that you want to show off Seattle to.
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It seems like locations like the Space Needle are easy for Seattle residents to dismiss, and that doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. Maybe the "big city" sights still hold some kind of romantic allure for me because I grew up in the suburbs, or maybe, like you learned here, it’s smarter to try things and then pass judgment.
Yeah, I tend to try to judge for myself, but I think I let the nay-sayers sway me a little much on this one. It was great :) And perhaps I do have my non-city background to thank for it, but I imagine even most city-dwellers would enjoy the experience :)
Its the same as "Real New Yorkers dont visit the Empire State Building."
It hurts to look like a tourist in your own city!
I got the same experience from visiting the Needle … the food was good, not great, it was definitely full of tourists, but I enjoyed myself and I’m glad I did it. Now, Pike Place Market, on the other hand….
It’s always OK to visit the tourist spots when you are with actual tourists. Also just because you live here doesn’t mean you can’t be a tourist yourself, especially if you are transplant. You gotta get to the know the city right? You can’t make recommendations to people unless you’ve done at least all the touristy stuff once.
I like the market, but hate the tourist aspect of it… so I gave up on going.
Well, I totally understand the distaste for having to shuffle through the hordes waiting for the fish guys to throw something around- I still love the market, but I always come in from the back now- down on Western or from Steinbrueck Park. But it’s always pretty bad in summer. Winter is a much better time for visiting (though not the week right after Christmas, as I discovered when I took a friend to visit then and there were literally no booths set up in the crafts area- it was spooky).