Fresh Fried Fish at Lowell's Restaurant & Bar in Historic Pike Place Market in Seattle, Washington

We were in Seattle, Washington wanting fresh fried fish. After all, Seattle seemed to be the capital of salmon fishing! We went from one stand to another and from one restaurant to another. The fried fish is frozen. At least the salmon and cod are frozen and that's what we wanted. One young man suggested we go to Pike Place Market. So we did. Even there it took a couple of stops to finally find Lowell's Restaurant & Bar. The exact address is 1519 Pike Place. It's right in the middle of Pike Place Market and large enough not to miss.

Lowell's was in business as Manning's Cafeteria in the early 1900s. It became Lowell's in 1957 and has been serving Seattle residents and lots of tourists since.

Lowell's is a sit down restaurant rather than a store front. We walked into a line which moved quickly. This was dinner time on a weekday. Lowell's has three floors and a view of the Olympic Mountains and Puget Sound. Note though that this is not a romantic setting. Lowell's is busy, noisy, and casual and in front of the water is a highway! However if you want a bit of quiet choose the second floor and leave a tip!

The menu was on a chalkboard along with specials of the day. My husband and I got the fresh, fried fish (cod) and chips for $10.95. We ordered and paid. The woman who took our order wasn't friendly. None of the staff was. I got the feeling they were either too busy or too tired of walking up and down three floors. The other option was that the first floor was quite warm. The cashier told us that we'd have more room in the larger dining room on the third floor so up we went. However my husband stopped on the much fancier second floor to get a beer. He wanted a dark beer. The first floor was out of the only dark beer in a bottle so she sent him to the large bar on the second floor for a draught. As it turned out they were out of dark draught beer but he was able to get a Porter at the bar.