Belltown Pan Historical Marker

From 1978 to 1982, the Belltown Cafe served the neighborhood as a "cultural hearth," preparing delicious homestyle food and contributing to civic projects, such as planting street trees along First Avenue and helping to establish the Belltown Co-op. The Cafe's Groundhog Day pie was locally famous, and it became part of an annual tradition in Seattle's Belltown neighborhood. Because the Cafe sometimes swapped food for art, it also helped to foster the local arts culture, while supporting residents of the community who might not otherwise be able to pay. For Groundhog Day each February, the Cafe used a special bell-shaped silver baking pan to cook root vegetables for its pies. This unusual pan also doubled as a Cafe sign, which hung above the front door during the rest of the year. The bell-shaped pan was later repurposed as a historical marker and placed on the exterior of the building that housed the original Belltown Cafe, commemorating the history of a unique community gathering place.

A fixture in Seattle's Belltown neighborhood, the Belltown Cafe operated at this location from 1978 to 1982. Although the Cafe was only open for a few brief years, it quickly became a beloved community gathering place, known for its homestyle cooking and Groundhog Day root vegetable pies. In honor of the February holiday, the owners were often willing to trade a warm dish of their pie for a donation of art. In this way, they inadvertently supported the local arts scene, while assisting those who could not otherwise afford to pay for a meal. On one occasion, a food-for-art trade resulted in the Cafe's acquisition of a bell-shaped baking pan, which was thereafter used to prepare the root vegetables for the annual pie.

Throughout the rest of the year, the Cafe's proprietors would hang the bell-shaped pan above the front door as advertising, and the unusual outdoor sign would entice customers to come into the shop. Yet, when Groundhog Day rolled around in February, the owners would traditionally bring the pan back inside, wash it, and fill it with diced root vegetables for their special mid-winter pie. The locally famous pie included a wide variety of root vegetables, such as yams, beets, celery, parsnips, carrots, garlic, and rutabagas, all mixed together and baked into a delicious golden crust. Flavored with olive oil, salt, pepper, and other spices, the root pie's aroma often wafted down the block.

The day after the holiday, the bell-shaped pan was once again washed and returned to its place above the Cafe's front door, to remind the community of its roots. Although the Belltown Cafe closed down in the early 1980s and the building was damaged in a fire just a few years later, the Cafe's unique Groundhog Day tradition was not forgotten by neighborhood residents. Its unique legacy lives on in other local eateries, such as the Macrina Bakery, which reflects a new evolution of the original Belltown Cafe. Meanwhile, the historic bell-shaped pan has been repurposed as a historical marker and placed on the exterior of the building that formerly housed the Cafe. The bell-shaped marker has been inscribed with a brief history of the Cafe's significance to the Belltown community.

Humphrey, Clark. Seattle's Belltown. Images of America. Charleston, SC. Arcadia Publishing, 2007.

Hunter-Grah, Alina. "Looking Back on the Roots of the Belltown Pan Tradition", 6AM City. January 31st, 2021. Accessed June 23rd, 2023. https://seatoday.6amcity.com/looking-back-on-the-roots-of-the-belltown-pan-tradition.

Seewald, Joel. "Belltown Pan", Historical Marker Database. August 24th, 2021. Accessed June 23rd, 2023. https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=180272.

Scott, John L. "The History of the Belltown Pan", Will Springer Real Estate. January 26th, 2021. Accessed June 23rd, 2023. https://willspringerrealtor.com/2021/01/26/the-history-of-the-belltown-pan/.