Every Fish Has a Tale

City Fish is the oldest continuously operated fish market in Seattle and one of the oldest in the United States. City Fish was founded in 1918 when the Washington State Governor developed a plan to guarantee the state-controlled supply of fish be delivered to Seattle consumers at the lowest possible price during soaring prices as a result of WW1 scarcity and rationing.

Originally named the Municipal Fish Market; it opened in one of the original stalls on Pike Place.  On the first day, over 1,391 pounds of salmon alone were sold to hungry Seattleites. Five years later, the city elected to get out of the fish business and leased the market to a private owner. Rechristened City Fish, Seattle’s original seafood company, stood at the entrance to Pike Place Market, offering a full line of fresh seafood at a fair price, now direct from the fisherman to the consumer.More than a hundred years later, City Fish still stands in its original location in the heart of the Pike Place Market.