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Mountain Bar Gets a Nutty Update

Mountain Bar Gets a Nutty Update

Brown & Haley introduces its first new Mountain Bar flavor in more than 50 years.

Tacoma confectioner Brown & Haley is raising the bar. Earlier this summer, the century-old candy maker rolled out a new Mountain Bar featuring rich milk chocolate and pieces of Oregon-grown hazelnuts. Developed in partnership with Oregon Hazelnut Growers, the release celebrates a crop with deep regional roots. Oregon produces 99% of the hazelnuts grown in…

The 2026 Washington State Book Award Finalists Are Here

The 2026 Washington State Book Award Finalists Are Here

Your fall reading list just got 41 books longer.

The 2026 Washington State Book Award finalists are in, and readers may want to clear some space on the nightstand. Judges selected 41 titles from 308 books written by Washington authors and published in 2025. The finalists span fiction, memoir, nonfiction, poetry, picture books, books for young readers, and young adult literature. Seattle is well…

Giving Black Artists Their Flowers

Giving Black Artists Their Flowers

Now in its fifth year, Black & Loud Fest is building community, expanding the region’s sound, and making sure recognition doesn’t come too late. 

Categorically, throughout the entire history of music and American culture, Black artists have not received the love and credit they deserve. When recognition does come, it is not until decades after their passing. From Sister Rosetta Tharpe to Seattle’s Tina Bell to contemporary pioneers like Fishbone, Black-fronted bands in the Pacific Northwest and beyond have…

Let Him Cook: Matt Broussard’s Rise From Restaurant Chef to Social Media Star

Let Him Cook: Matt Broussard’s Rise From Restaurant Chef to Social Media Star

With a forthcoming cookbook and a Capitol Hill restaurant, the Seattle chef is taking his laid-back approach beyond the screen.

Matt Broussard doesn’t know how to describe his food. The chef’s forthcoming cookbook, Now We’re Cooking, has everything from his grandma’s dolmades—grape leaves stuffed with lamb and rice cooked in duck fat—to cantaloupe gazpacho and seared tuna steaks coated in fennel furikake. It’s a culinary hodgepodge that defies categorization, but Broussard defies categorization himself. “I…

Washington to Offer First-Ever Toll Discount for Lower-Income Motorists

Washington to Offer First-Ever Toll Discount for Lower-Income Motorists

It will launch in December on stretches of two expressways in the Puget Sound region and could eventually be expanded.

Drivers with low incomes will soon be able to pay less to travel on two of Washington’s newest tolled roadways. After months of conversation, the Washington State Transportation Commission approved a new program last week offering a 50% discount on tolls on the state route 509 and 167 expressways in the Puget Sound region. People…

PlantCon Is Coming for Seattle’s Windowsills

PlantCon Is Coming for Seattle’s Windowsills

The nation’s largest gathering for houseplant lovers makes its Pacific Northwest debut this August with 200 booths, hands-on workshops, and a DJ.

My house is full of plants, enough that I’ve lost count. Houseplants have the same suspicious math as tattoos: One is rarely the final number. I propagate cuttings in jars of water, regularly rearrange corners of the house in pursuit of better light, and like to imagine the entire collection is improving the air. That…

Earth, Wind & Fire Keeps the Groove Going

Earth, Wind & Fire Keeps the Groove Going

Ahead of the band’s Seattle return with Lionel Richie, Grammy Award-winning drummer, percussionist, singer, and songwriter Ralph Johnson talks performing, enduring songs, and his new memoir.

Through the years, Earth, Wind & Fire drummer Ralph Johnson has stepped onstage in Seattle more times than he can count, but it was far from love at first sight. “I was born and raised in Los Angeles, so we had nothing but sunshine and 70-degree weather,” Johnson says. “When I went to Seattle for the…

A Spa for People Who Are Bad at Relaxing

A Spa for People Who Are Bad at Relaxing

Circle Wellness is bringing its private thermal circuit to Seattle, where a calm voice keeps time so you don’t have to.

From the outside, Circle Wellness does not look like a spa. It looks like the sort of large black structure you might hesitate to enter without first texting someone your coordinates. I arrived at its Vancouver, B.C., location on an unusually warm June afternoon and found no windows, almost no signage, and one massive steel…

Why I Built a Pickleball Club With My Daughter

Why I Built a Pickleball Club With My Daughter

My father showed me how to turn my love of sports into something lasting. Pickle at the Palms carries that lesson forward. 

Looking back, I wouldn’t say my family teaming up to launch Pickle at the Palms—a new 20-court indoor pickleball club—was inevitable, but it may have been predictable. Sports have shaped my life for more than 50 years. I fell in love with rowing as a 17-year-old college freshman and went on to compete on two…

A Landmark Year: Rare National Archives Documents Come to Seattle

A Landmark Year: Rare National Archives Documents Come to Seattle

MOHAI marks the nation’s 250th anniversary with a free exhibit featuring a draft of the Constitution and other records from America’s early history.

The United States celebrated its 250th anniversary earlier this month, and to mark that milestone, Seattle’s Museum of History & Industry is welcoming Freedom Plane National Tour: Documents That Forged a Nation, a traveling exhibit from the National Archives. As one of only eight host venues, MOHAI is the final stop on the national tour…

Local Canned Coffee Brand Seattle Strong Is Still Fighting Nestlé Over Its Name

Local Canned Coffee Brand Seattle Strong Is Still Fighting Nestlé Over Its Name

The multinational company says that Seattle Strong’s name and logo violate Seattle’s Best Coffee’s trademark.

It’s been a while since Seattle’s Best Coffee had a lot to do with its namesake city. Founded in the 1960s by Jim Stewart on Whidbey Island, the company was first called the Wet Whisker, then Stewart Brothers Coffee before changing its name in 1991 to Seattle’s Best. It was bought by Starbucks in 2003,…

Three Things to See at Seattle Art Fair This Weekend

Three Things to See at Seattle Art Fair This Weekend

From tufted wool creatures to shimmering mother-of-pearl waves, these standout works demand a closer look.

There was joy in the air as the Seattle Art Fair opened the doors for its 10th edition Thursday, July 23, with visitors streaming in to the cool, dark interior of Lumen Field Event Center to be greeted with flutes of champagne and a fantastic feast of art.  Though the theme this year is textile…

Opening Night: This Tiny Pioneer Square Restaurant Is About to Be Standing Room Only

Opening Night: This Tiny Pioneer Square Restaurant Is About to Be Standing Room Only

In the former Salumi space, Doris serves martinis and playful snacks at tables close enough to make a new best friend. 

Welcome to Opening Night, our new column about hot new restaurants around Seattle. For our debut edition, we went to a media preview at Doris, a teeny-tiny Pioneer Square spot that oozes style. Longtime Seattleites may get a bit of a shock when they walk into Doris. The narrow, hallway-shaped space on the corner where…

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