Brick & Mortar >>

• Best Boiler Destroyers: Seattle Steam Co.
  The primary steam plant of the Seattle Steam Co. sits at the edge of the waterfront, with a faded mural of dolphins and a whale on its southern facade. Inside, a complex jumble of pipes, valves, and gauges runs proficiently, alongside a few workers in hard hats who ensure that the heat doesn't... More >>
• Best Seaworthy Security: Kvichak Marine Industries Inc.
  We've been building new boats since 1987," says Brian Thomas, one of three partners running Kvichak Marine Industries Inc., whose production yard is nestled along the Lake Washington Ship Canal midway between the Ballard and Fremont bridges. While the name Kvichak (it comes from a river in... More >>
• Best Steel-Tooth Repair (by the Ton): The Gear Works
  Let's say you happen to own a vital transportation link, a bascule bridge spanning a ship canal that was built around World War I. And let's say that bridge starts to shudder and make grinding noises every time it opens to let a sailboat pass. And then everyone starts honking and cursing. If... More >>
• Best Father-Son One-Two Punch: Brown Bear Car Wash
  Vic Odermat remembers driving through Alexandria, Va., in the early 1950s and seeing a car wash for the first time. He paid $1.50, and a group of men thoroughly cleaned the exterior, Windexed the windows, and vacuumed the interior. "I was impressed," the 77-year-old says in a deep, Johnny... More >>
• Best Industrial Waterfront Viewing
  It may seem incongruous, but there's a fantastic view of our working waterfront in the middle of Harbor Island. Heading to West Seattle, there's a roadside park situated just before the exit to Terminal 18. This unmarked park—technically named the Terminal 18 Public Access Park—is a... More >>
• Best Alternative to a Half-Million-Dollar Belltown Studio
  A prediction: A thousand years from now, the adult human frame will shrink back down to the size of a monkey in response to the evolutionary pressure to squeeze into tiny, overpriced condos. But it need not be: Since the new millennium broke, Rainier Industries—the folks who create the... More >>
• Best Alternative Seating Arrangement in a Restaurant
  All the communal tables and underground restaurants held in frat houses you encounter these days seem to fall right in line with boho Seattle's discomfort over splurging on dinner. But nothing brings the dining experience down to earth more than, well, sitting on the floor. HOSOONYI, a cult... More >>
• Best Thing About Living Near a QFC Dumpster
  To most, crows are loud, obnoxious scavengers. And I admit that I was never fond of them either, until I watched one drag a QFC deli bag out of a Dumpster and, with its claws and beak, tear open the bag, pull out the plastic container inside, pry it open, and feast on the chicken scraps inside.... More >>
• Best Hardware Store That Sells More Than Just Tools
  Remember those old mom-and-pop hardware stores? The U District's Hardwick's is a family-owned place that has the tools that were used to build those old stores. Around since the Depression, Hardwick's is part hardware store, part furniture store, part Goodwill, and part museum. Its warren of... More >>
• Best Place to Become Even More Cutting
  I bought a 6-inch vegetable knife years ago, after seeing Jacques Pepin use one to do the most amazing things with everything from shallots to cucumbers. But the knife's been a disappointment since day one, barely capable of slicing florets off cauliflower heads. That is, until I took it to... More >>
• Best Library Branch in Which to be Distracted From Reading by Architecture
  The Ballard Branch runs a close second here for one particularly striking feature: Its ceiling is built of thin wooden beams, while at the front of the large, airy space there's a round meeting room, the metallic walls of which curve up to a point. It looks very much like the prow of a ship,... More >>
• Best Way to Live Easy as a Poet
  Paying your rent as a writer is best done in one of a few ways: lying, marrying money, sleeping on the couch, selling your soul to a P.R. firm, or making the cut in the Hugo House Writer-in-Residence program. If you achieve the latter, you get to spend nine months chilling at the "Hugo Huts,"... More >>
• Best Aggregation of Massive Amounts of Housing Data
  For those who say that nothing good ever came out of aggregating massive amounts of public records, the definitive counterargument comes in the form of the local venture Zillow.com. "From sale records, we get the statistical information about the homes, such as square footage, number of... More >>
• Best Bathroom Sink
  The best things in life are comically oversized: posteriors, the Great Wall of China, martini glasses, clown feet, bow ties, and really big breasts. Adding flat to that equation is usually a recipe for disaster: After all, who likes big, flat butts? And shouldn't bow ties have a bit of a puff?... More >>
• Best Way to Give Your Boots a New Lease on Life
  Some things were built to last. They're hard to come by these days though, what with crappy condos, fiberglass-bodied cars, and $200 denim that blows out in a matter of months. A good pair of cowboy boots should still last a gal a good number of years, though, and my brown beauties with the... More >>
• Best Quickie on the Water
  Don't have a rich friend with a boat? Can't fathom an afternoon cheese-fest on the Duck? The Electric Boat Company can give you a ride. No, seriously, they will give you one of their 21-foot-long cruising boats for less than $100 an hour. Divide the cost between 10 or 12 people, and a mere... More >>
• Best Place to Buy an Ultrasonic NDI Immersion Tank
  For home improvement, go to Home Depot. For penis-size improvement, visit Boeing Surplus. Where else would you find a 10-foot-long "chicken cannon," used for simulating midair bird collisions? Or a wind tunnel? For years, Boeing's dumped its spare and outdated equipment—no serious airplane... More >>
• Best Real-World Approximation of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
  A good description of Theo Chocolate's factory tour comes courtesy of James, a schoolchild whose thank-you note is framed in the Fremont chocolatier's lobby: "It was as fun as a bar is to drunk people!" James is not speaking metaphorically, for it's difficult not to abuse Theo's company policy... More >>
• Best Way to Waste $8
  Sure, you have to pay $14 to get into the Museum of Flight. And then you must wait in a long line to pay another $8 for a ride in one of two X-10 flight simulators. But once you get into this shiny-white flying chariot, all cost-benefit doubts vanish. For three minutes, you're the pilot in a... More >>
• Best Non-Billion-Dollar Form of Public Transportation
  You may have noticed that we're spending several billion dollars, and untold resources, to build a humongous elevated light-rail line to the airport. Cool! Except, of course, you can already get to the airport, quite happily and efficiently, on public transportation, thanks to the mighty Metro... More >>
• Best Fiberglass Ungulate
  To paraphrase Orwell, all pigs are equal, but some pigs are more equal than others. In a reprise of the 2001 public-art program, to raise money for human services programs and to celebrate the Pike Place Market's centennial, decorated pig sculptures, about 4 feet tall, are littering (get it?)... More >>
• Best Exhibition of Trash Turned to Treasure
  Some people call it a tourist attraction, a window into the real nature of Seattle. And some people call it gross. But everybody wants to see it. The Gum Wall outside the Market Theater is perhaps one of the first testaments to Seattle's love of the outdoors, its participatory art, or maybe just... More >>
• Best Place to Bum Wireless and Check Out a Killer Vespa Collection
  Owner D.J. Norman went all out when engineering the look of Motore Coffee to sync with the Italian scooter theme implied in the name, going so far as to convince Ducati of Seattle to loan him some Vespas to place in the shop for customers to sit on while they wait for their lattes. Order for... More >>