![Pike Place Fish 1](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5a/Pike_Place_Fish_1.jpg)
Pike Place Fish Market is an open-air
fish market
A fish market is a marketplace for selling fish and fish products. It can be dedicated to wholesale trade between fishermen and fish merchants, or to the sale of seafood to individual consumers, or to both. Retail fish markets, a type of wet mar ...
at
Pike Place Market
Pike Place Market is a public market in Seattle, Washington, United States. It opened on August 17, 1907, and is one of the oldest continuously operated public farmers' markets in the United States. Overlooking the Elliott Bay waterfront on Pu ...
in
Seattle, Washington
Seattle ( ) is a port, seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the county seat, seat of King County, Washington, King County, Washington (state), Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in bo ...
, United States, located at the corner of Pike Street and Pike Place. Founded in 1930, it is known for its tradition of
fishmonger
A fishmonger (historically fishwife for female practitioners) is someone who sells raw fish and seafood. Fishmongers can be wholesalers or retailers and are trained at selecting and purchasing, handling, gutting, boning, filleting, displaying, me ...
s throwing the fish purchased by customers prior to wrapping it.
[ ] The fish market was near to bankruptcy in 1986, but after the introduction of new practices such as the fish throwing, games, and customer performances, it received significant exposure in national media and on television shows. Pike Place Fish Market is today a world-famous tourist destination, attracting up to 10,000 daily visitors.
History
The Pike Place Fish Market was purchased in 1965 by John Yokoyama, a former employee of the fish market, who bought the store to make enough money on an owner's salary to afford the car payments on his new
Buick Riviera
The Buick Riviera is a personal luxury car that was marketed by Buick from 1963 to 1999, with the exception of the 1994 model year.
As General Motors' first entry into the personal luxury car market segment, the Riviera was highly praised by au ...
.
Initially, Pike Place Fish Market was unknown outside of the Seattle area, but Yokoyama and his staff decided to change that in a meeting with a business coach in 1986.
Prior to the meeting, the Pike Place Fish Market was near to
bankruptcy
Bankruptcy is a legal process through which people or other entities who cannot repay debts to creditors may seek relief from some or all of their debts. In most jurisdictions, bankruptcy is imposed by a court order, often initiated by the debtor ...
, and the consultant, Jim Bergquist, was helping them to conceive of ways to save the business.
A fish market employee at the meeting suggested that they not only save the business, but make it "world famous", with the ideas for the business' flying and thrown fish, games with customers, and staff attitudes of always enjoying their work, so that customers would as well.
In an interview, Yokoyama stated, "We took a stand that we were going to become world famous. We just said it and it became so."
The bronze piggy bank sculpture nicknamed "Rachel", a popular symbol of the market, was created by
Whidbey Island
Whidbey Island (historical spellings Whidby, Whitbey, or Whitby) is the largest of the islands composing Island County, Washington, in the United States, and the largest island in Washington State. (The other large island is Camano Island, ...
sculptor Georgia Gerber in 1986. It raises approximately $10,000 per year in donations for housing and services in low income areas.
The Origins of Pike Place Market's Famous Pig
, Seattle Magazine, July 2016
Four years later, in 1990, Ted Turner
Robert Edward "Ted" Turner III (born November 19, 1938) is an American entrepreneur, television producer, media proprietor, and philanthropist. He founded the Cable News Network (CNN), the first 24-hour United States cable news, cable news ch ...
's Goodwill Games
The Goodwill Games were an international sports competition created by Ted Turner in reaction to the political troubles surrounding the Olympic Games of the 1980s. In 1979, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan caused the United States and other ...
were held in Seattle. News crews at the Pike Place Market discovered the fish market and its performances with customers, and they filmed them. Soon afterwards, the fish market appeared on ''Good Morning America
''Good Morning America'' (often abbreviated as ''GMA'') is an American morning television program that is broadcast on ABC. It debuted on November 3, 1975, and first expanded to weekends with the debut of a Sunday edition on January 3, 1993. Th ...
'', leading to the business and its employees being filmed by various film crews, and being featured in numerous magazines.
Today, the fishmongers at Pike Place Fish Market perform in front of up to 10,000 visitors a day during the summer tourist season. Another popular feature of the Fish Market is the monkfish
Members of the genus ''Lophius'', also sometimes called monkfish, fishing-frogs, frog-fish, and sea-devils, are various species of lophiid anglerfishes found in the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. ''Lophius'' is known as the "monk" or "monkfish" ...
, which sometimes is made to "snap" at customers by use of a hidden line. The success of the business has been attributed to its human resources and employee attitudes. The Fish Market's employees are known to give motivational speeches at businesses, civic groups and schools, and have been featured in various motivational books.[ ]
In 1991, CNN
CNN (Cable News Network) is a multinational cable news channel headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. Founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld as a 24-hour cable news channel, and presently owned by the M ...
named the Pike Place Fish Market as one of the three most fun places to work in America. It was bought by four of its former employees in 2018.
Fish throwing
The Pike Place Fish Market is widely known for its custom of hurling customers' orders across the shopping area. A typical routine will involve a customer ordering a fish; the fishmongers in orange rubber overalls and boots will call out the order which is loudly shouted back by all the other staff, at which point the original fishmonger will throw the customer's fish behind the counter to be wrapped. The repeated shouting of fish orders started out as a prank on one employee, but became a tradition as the display was enjoyed by customers. When at work, the fish market's staff continually yell to each other and chant in unison while throwing ordered fish. Occasionally they will throw a foam fish into the crowd to scare bystanders, or select a customer from the crowds to participate in the fish toss. The market displays a sign in the general area which reads "Caution: Low Flying Fish".
Films, books and popular culture
In 1998, the Pike Place Fish Market was the subject of a documentary film and accompanying book, '' FISH! Philosophy.'' The Pike Place Fish Market has also been the setting for several best-selling corporate training videos, the aforementioned ''FISH!'', and also ''FISH!Sticks'', which have been used by firms such as Enterprise Rent-A-Car
Enterprise Rent-A-Car is an American car rental agency headquartered in Clayton, Missouri, in Greater St. Louis. Enterprise is the flagship brand of Enterprise Holdings, which also owns other agencies including Alamo Rent a Car and National Car ...
, Sprint Nextel
Sprint Corporation was an American telecommunications company. Before it merged with T-Mobile US on April 1, 2020, it was the fourth-largest mobile network operator in the United States, serving 54.3 million customers as of June 30, 2019. The co ...
, Southwest Airlines
Southwest Airlines Co., typically referred to as Southwest, is one of the major airlines of the United States and the world's largest low-cost carrier. It is headquartered in Dallas, Texas, and has scheduled service to 121 destinations in the U ...
, Sainsbury's
J Sainsbury plc, trading as Sainsbury's, is the second largest chain of supermarkets in the United Kingdom, with a 14.6% share of UK supermarket sales.
Founded in 1869 by John James Sainsbury with a shop in Drury Lane, London, the company wa ...
, Saturn
Saturn is the sixth planet from the Sun and the second-largest in the Solar System, after Jupiter. It is a gas giant with an average radius of about nine and a half times that of Earth. It has only one-eighth the average density of Earth; h ...
, and Scottish and Southern Energy
SSE plc (formerly Scottish and Southern Energy plc) is a multinational energy company headquartered in Perth, Scotland
Perth (Scottish English, locally: ; gd, Peairt ) is a city in central Scotland, on the banks of the River Tay. It is th ...
, for employee training. The Pike Place Fish Market has been featured in a variety of television shows and commercials. These include a Spike Lee
Shelton Jackson "Spike" Lee (born March 20, 1957) is an American film director, producer, screenwriter, and actor. His production company, 40 Acres and a Mule Filmworks, has produced more than 35 films since 1983. He made his directorial debut ...
Levis jeans commercial; MTV
MTV (Originally an initialism of Music Television) is an American cable channel that launched on August 1, 1981. Based in New York City, it serves as the flagship property of the MTV Entertainment Group, part of Paramount Media Networks, a di ...
's ''The Real World
Real World or The Real World may also refer to:
* Real life, a phrase to distinguish between the real world and fictional, virtual or idealized worlds
Television
* ''The Real World'' (TV series), 1992–2017
* "The Real World" (''Stargate Atla ...
''; NBC
The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an Television in the United States, American English-language Commercial broadcasting, commercial television network, broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Enterta ...
's ''Frasier
''Frasier'' () is an American television sitcom that was broadcast on NBC for 11 seasons. It premiered on September 16, 1993, and ended on May 13, 2004. The program was created and produced by David Angell, Peter Casey (screenwriter), Peter Case ...
'', and ABC
ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script known as the alphabet.
ABC or abc may also refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Broadcasting
* American Broadcasting Company, a commercial U.S. TV broadcaster
** Disney–ABC Television ...
's ''Good Morning America''. In films, they have appeared in ''Free Willy
''Free Willy'' is a 1993 American family drama film, directed by Simon Wincer, produced by Lauren Shuler Donner and Jennie Lew Tugend, written by Keith A. Walker and Corey Blechman from a story by Walker and distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures ...
''. Reference to the Pike Place Fish Market is also made by American hip hop duo Macklemore & Ryan Lewis
Macklemore & Ryan Lewis are an American hip hop duo from Seattle, Washington, formed in 2008 by Macklemore, a rapper,Trust, Gary (2013)Macklemore & Ryan Lewis' 'Can't Hold Us' Makes Hot 100 History, ''Billboard'', May 8, 2013. Retrieved January ...
in their 2015 single "Downtown
''Downtown'' is a term primarily used in North America by English speakers to refer to a city's sometimes commercial, cultural and often the historical, political and geographic heart. It is often synonymous with its central business distric ...
" featuring Eric Nally
Foxy Shazam is an American rock band from Cincinnati, Ohio formed in 2004. , the band's lineup consists of lead vocalist Eric Nally, pianist Sky White, trumpeter and backing vocalist Alex Nauth, bassist Trigger Warning, guitarist Devin Williams a ...
, Melle Mel
Melvin Glover (born May 15, 1961 in The Bronx), better known by his stage name Grandmaster Melle Mel (or simply Melle Mel) () is an American hip hop recording artist who was the lead vocalist and songwriter of Grandmaster Flash and the Furiou ...
, Kool Moe Dee
Mohandas Dewese (born August 8, 1962), better known by his stage name Kool Moe Dee, is an American rapper, writer and actor. Considered one of the forerunners of the new jack swing sound in hip hop, he gained fame in the 1980s as a member of one ...
and Grandmaster Caz
Curtis Brown (born April 18, 1960), better known by the stage name Grandmaster Caz or Casanova Fly, is an American rapper, songwriter, and DJ. He was a member of the hip hop group The Cold Crush Brothers from 1979 to the mid-1980s. He is best know ...
.
References
Further reading
* ''When Fish Fly: Lessons for Creating a Vital and Energized Workplace — From the Word Famous Pike Place Fish Market'', Yokoyama, John and Joseph Michelli. New York: Hyperion, 2004.
* "Catch: A Fishmonger's Guide to Greatness", Crother, Cyndi and the crew of Pike Place Fish. Berrett-Koehler Publishers (January 1, 2005)
External links
Pike Place Fish Market
official website
5:12:60
official blog
{{Good article
1930 establishments in Washington (state)
Companies based in Seattle
Culture of Seattle
Fish markets
Fishing in the United States
Food markets in the United States
Pike Place Market
Retail buildings in Washington (state)
Tourist attractions in Seattle
Central Waterfront, Seattle