Lost City: Seattle Edition: Showgirls

Whenever I visit an American city for the first time, I usually find a place like this close to my hotel, right  in the center of downtown. Big, bawdy and kinda wonderful in its antiquated signage. In Seattle, the place was called Showgirls, a festival of purple and pink that was, I'm sure, named long before the Elizabeth Berkley film gave showgirls a bad name.

It's actually called Deja Vu Showgirls, for reasons I can not fathom. ("Wait a minute! I feel like I've seen that pole-dancer before!) I have no idea what the history of the place is—strip clubs aren't generally big on nostalgia. And I don't know what it looks like inside; ain't gonna happen, folks. I just like the big cheesy sign. And the old building it's attached to. And that the Military get free cover on Sundays. And that you can't buy alcohol inside owing to Seattle law.

Lost City: Seattle Edition: Turf Restaurant & Lounge

Parts of downtown Seattle made me more nervous that the dicier sections of New York. The wide avenues can be desolate on weekends, the crazy people crazier, the panhandlers more aggressive and seeming to be working scams in pairs.

The Turf Restaurant & Lounge is an apt expression of this edginess. You don't want to mess with this place, which takes up the corner of a parking structure on Third Avenue and Pike, and offers "Burgers Fries Shakes Teriyaki." The interior is sketchy, the patrons sketchier. Past the diner counter is a back room, the bar, which was open for business in the morning and already had claimed a few elderly barflies. As a Yelper said, the people here are "full of crazy"; even one guy who loves the place said it was "scary." I agree, and I saw it in broad daylight

Lost City: Seattle Edition: Bruno's Mexican Cuchina

Is Bruno's Mexican Cucina a Seattle landmark? I doubt it. But the downtown joint, on a dicey stretch of Third Avenue, it's so weird I feel I have to celebrate it.

Such a strange cuisine mash-up. It's a pizzeria! It's a Mexican cucina! It's both. And it's a Margarita Bar! I don't remember the last place I say that advertised itself as a Margarita bar. Looking at the Yelp reviews, it's pretty clear the food here is bad. I wouldn't have guessed otherwise. But it's very cheap. And I'm thinking the joint has a certain dive bar appeal to some. Something must have kept it in business since 1974.

I like this Yelper the best. She seems to have captured the crazy spirit of the place: "Overall, so bad it's entertaining except I had to eat it...What I bought: Chips & Salsa, Garlic Bread, Salad, 2 Calzones. Total: $30. Well, what to say, what to say... this place confuses the heck out of me, I half expected someone to jump out during dinner and say "gotcha!" or "you're on candid camera!"...We were so flabbergasted that someone could actually A) serve this stuff as edible fare and B) charge you for it! Avoid like the plague unless you want a hilariously bad dining story to share with friends - I have to give this place that much - it wins every worst dining experience story contest we've ever told it in. And for that: 1 star."

Lost City: Seattle Edition: Pike Place Signs

Pike Place Market, a public market that brings together 500 vendors every day along the edge of a steep hill leading down to the Puget Sound, is the spiritual heart of Seattle. It was founded in 1907. After the city threatened to tear the place down in the 1960s, a populist movement led by architect Victor Steinbrueck saved the property. (There's now a part named after him.) It's now on the U.S National Register of Historic Places and a federally recognized historic district.

The are many stalls here and you can buy most everything (lavender anything; straws filled with honey). But mostly you can buy food, from vendors and from restaurants. Some of the sellers have been here for decades. Place Pigalle was founded in the 1950s. The Athenian Inn goes back to 1909, when it was a bakery. Three Girls Bakery dates from 1912. Lowell's, seen below, started in 1957, and has three levels looking out on the water.

As for Loback Meat Co., seen above, the business no longer exists. But the sign does. As do many other fantastic signs, neon and otherwise. It's a feast of signage. Even the sign that tell you where the stairs and bathrooms are are stylish and flashy.

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Lost City: Seattle Edition: Virginia Inn

The Virginia Inn is on First Avenue, just up a very steep hill from Pike Place Market, the teeming open-air/indoor food and wares market that gives Seattle's waterfront its vibrancy—and which, unthinkably, the city tried to tear down in the 1960s and replace with a parking structure and a convention center. (I've never met an "urban renewal" scheme from that era that wasn't a piece of numbskulled, short-sighted, civic idiocy.)

The Virginia Inn is older even than that market. This corner was a bar, called the Virginia Bar in 1903. During Prohibition it was reportedly a cardroom. Irritatingly, the website for the current restaurant only talks about the joint's history from 1981 on (aside from saying it had a "colorful Skid road history"). That's when Patrice Demombynes and Jim Fotheringham took up ownership. They converted it into a casual French bistro and bar, and earned a reputation for fostering art exhibitions.

Aside from the great neon sign, and the bar, which looks on the oldish side, the Virginia Inn has a fairly contemporary look inside. The floor plan has altered; the place expanded into a neighboring storefront recently. I've read accounts that say it's been in "almost continuous operation." Almost. Perhaps the hiccup in time was Prohibition. But I'm pretty good at sniffing out former speakeasies. And the Virginia feels like on. In 2008, police found some old bones in a crawl space below the Inn, but it was determined that they weren't human remains. 

Below is an picture of how the bar looked in the first decade of the last century. At that time it was owned by two men called McNamara and Herdman. Not sure what the boat nonsense is all about. Probably something to do with the appalling state of the street. Imagine a frontier city having dirt roads and Seattle weather. A prescription for year-round mud.

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