Jack Mathers is a Seattle native who hasn't minded the fish scales on his hands (and on his shoes, and in his truck, and all over his house) for the past twenty-five years. After working on fishing boats in Alaska and in fish processing plants, he started Jack's Fish Spot in Seattle's Madison Park. His first grass-roots marketing effort was a door-to-door campaign, featuring a coupon for fresh Dungeness crab at two dollars a pound. The Spot later moved to historic Pike Place Market where Jack has been daily since 1982.
Today Jack's Fish Spot is a bustling scene of crab pots, shellfish tanks, and salmon on ice. The Spot features the best in Northwest seafood delicacies - Dungeness Crab, Littleneck or Manila Clams, Sockeye, King, and Silver Salmon, Quilcene Oysters, Halibut, and Penn Cove Mussels, to name a few. After customers have selected their seafood to take home, they can swing around back to enjoy the seafood bar, where Jack has put together a sensational menu including fish n' chips, steamed clams and mussels, Northwest-style clam chowder, cioppino, and seafood cocktails topped with a generous dollop of Jack's special spicy cocktail sauce. All the seafood for the menu comes straight off the ice and into Jack's special recipes.
Despite all the oceanic chaos, customers are likely to have Jack himself weigh their clams, filet their salmon, offer serving suggestions, or help select a piece of his alder-smoked salmon, the only fish smoked right at Pike Place Market. The charm of this seafood market has not gone unnoticed - Jack's Fish Spot was recently selected as an Editor's Choice Pick in Seattle Weekly's Best of Seattle issue. Alaska Airlines Magazine named Jack's one of the 10 Undiscovered Treasures of Seattle, and it is also covered in the August issue of W Magazine.
"Over the years, our motto remains: Fresh Fish at a Fair Price," said Jack, while breaking up a crab fight. "That's why we attract regular local customers as well as the tourists at Pike Place." With a friendly staff and seafood at its freshest, Jack's Fish Spot truly captures the essence of the Northwest.