Three Girls Bakery

1514 Pike Place

Three Girls Bakery, Pike Place Market, August 21, 2019, HistoryLink photo by David Koch
Three Girls Bakery storefront, Pike Place, Seattle, August 5, 1986, Photo by John Stamets, Courtesy UW Special Collections (MPH4143)
Three Girls Bakery kitchen, Seattle, 1976, Courtesy Seattle Municipal Archives (37851)
Three Girls Bakery, Pike Place, Seattle, 1917, Photo by Calvin F. Todd, Courtesy UW Special Collections (CFT0019)
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This business has had a few different locations within Pike Place Market — not to mention having expanded, within a few years of its 1912 opening, to multiple locations around Seattle. It’s one of the most historic anchors in the Market.

The “three girls” namesakes, a Mrs. Jones and two of her friends, held what is believed to be among the first business licenses granted to women, just two years after state constitutional amendment gave women the right to vote. They opened at the prominent corner of First Avenue and Pike Street, where you began the tour. With selections that included layer cakes, coffee cakes, and warm-from-the-oven breads, the bakery boomed. A 1915 newspaper article noted the Three Girls Bakery as “one of the most unusual business successes in Seattle,” under a headline “Business Conducted by Women Flourishes.”

Owned by the Levy family since 1979, the bakery moved to this then-newly-refurbished Sanitary Market location in 1981. For dining, you have two choices. Step to the right for grab-and-go selections from the window. Step to the left for a seat at their luncheonette counter, where you can try the signature meatloaf sandwich, soups, and market-inspired items.

Continue past The Pike Place Market Creamery on your left, a tiny shop packed with outstanding butter, milk, eggs — a dairy lover’s dream — and then turn right past another set of public restrooms.

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