Pike Place Fish Market
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Pike Place Fish Market is an open-air
fish market A fish market is a marketplace for selling Fish as food, fish and fish products. It can be dedicated to wholesale trade between Fisherman, fishermen and fish merchants, or to the sale of seafood to individual consumers, or to both. Retail fish ma ...
at
Pike Place Market Pike Place Market is a Marketplaces#Types, 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 B ...
in
Seattle, Washington Seattle ( ) is the List of municipalities in Washington, most populous city in the U.S. state of Washington (state), Washington and in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. With a population of 780,995 in 2024, it is the List of Unit ...
, 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, ...
s throwing the fish purchased by customers before wrapping it. The fish market was near bankruptcy in 1986, but after the introduction of new practices such as the fish throwing, games, and customer performances, it received exposure in national media and on television shows. Today, Pike Place Fish Market is 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 believed the purchase would ultimately enable him 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 ...
. Little known beyond the Seattle area, the market was nearly
bankrupt 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 de ...
in 1986, when Yokoyama and his staff sought advice from consultant Jim Bergquist. At a meeting with Bergquist, an employee suggested that they attempt to make the market "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 said, "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, Island County, Washington (state), Washington, in the United States, and the largest island in Washington stat ...
sculptor Georgia Gerber in 1986. It raises about $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,
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'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 breakfast television, morning television program that is broadcast on American Broadcasting Company, ABC. It debuted on November 3, 1975, and first expanded to weekends wit ...
'', 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" to ...
, 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 Cable News Network (CNN) is a multinational news organization operating, most notably, a website and a TV channel headquartered in Atlanta. Founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld as a 24-hour cable ne ...
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 Fish! Philosophy (styled FISH! Philosophy), modeled after the Pike Place Fish Market, is a business technique that is aimed at creating happy individuals in the workplace. John Christensen created this philosophy in 1998 to improve organiza ...
.'' 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
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Sainsbury's J Sainsbury plc, trading as Sainsbury's, is a British supermarket and the second-largest chain of supermarkets in the United Kingdom. Founded in 1869 by John James Sainsbury with a shop in Drury Lane, London, the company was the largest UK r ...
,
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, 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, actor, and author. His work has continually explored race relations, issues within the black community, the role of media in contemporary ...
Levis jeans commercial;
MTV MTV (an initialism of Music Television) is an American cable television television channel, channel and the flagship property of the MTV Entertainment Group sub-division of the Paramount Media Networks division of Paramount Global. Launched on ...
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The Real World ''The Real World'' (known as ''Real World'' from 2014 to 2017) is an American reality television series produced through MTV and Bunim/Murray Productions that most recently aired on Facebook Watch after airing on MTV from 1992 to 2017. It wa ...
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'', and
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's ''Good Morning America''. In films, they have appeared in ''
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''. Reference to the Pike Place Fish Market is also made by American hip hop duo
Macklemore & Ryan Lewis Macklemore & Ryan Lewis were an American Hip hop music, hip hop duo from Seattle, Seattle, Washington, formed in 2009 by rapper MacklemoreTrust, Gary (2013)Macklemore & Ryan Lewis' 'Can't Hold Us' Makes Hot 100 History, ''Billboard (magazine), B ...
in their 2015 single "
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Kool Moe Dee Mohandas Dewese (born August 8, 1962), better known by his stage name Kool Moe Dee, is an American rapper, songwriter 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 ...
and
Grandmaster Caz Curtis Brown (born April 18, 1960), better known by the stage names Grandmaster Caz and 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 k ...
.


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 {{Fishing industry topics 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 Restaurants in Pike Place Market Retail buildings in Washington (state) Tourist attractions in Seattle Central Waterfront, Seattle Seafood restaurants in Seattle