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You'll be in the away supporter section on Saturday, but where should you not go before and after the game? I checked out Yelp to see what places around CenturyLink Field you are going to want to avoid.
Hotels
Hotel Seattle
This place had a lot of mixed reviews and a grand total of two stars on Yelp. It's positives were pretty much started and ended with the fact that it is located downtown and close to everything. The first review was a positive one from a guy who gave it four stars. The second is from a women who gave it one star. The four star calls it a 'dive hotel' while the second review compares it to sleeping in a cardboard box on the sidewalk. Someone also uploaded photos of the bathroom where the hotel had used a sheet as a shower curtain.
"If you like dive bars then you'll surely love The Hotel Seattle because I would have to call it a dive hotel supreme. That being said it is an awesome piece of history with its hissing water pipe heating and one single rickety elevator that ditched me one night in the basement in front of a locked iron gate where I thought a dungeon might lay on the other side. Fortunately, no dungeon. Turns out that on the other side of that gate is Bernard's which is possibly the most dive of dives that I've ever been to and is totally subterranean. No windows. Bernard's was also a lot of fun esp w the live electric guitar duo mixing it up with folk and rock songs. Yes their last set culminated with the lead guitarist soloing from on top of the bar. Hotel Seattle put me up on the top floor w a corner room overlooking the waterfront and the views were amazing. I loved the room and it surely enhanced my stay. This is NOT a hotel for everyone. If you want anything posh in your hotel this is not the place for you. Yes it's a bit dilapidated and the walls in the basement stairway are peeling and in obvious disrepair. Your first impression will likely be that the place is haunted. I'm not saying it isn't but I am saying that I paid $108/nite for my room in the heart of downtown, stayed two nights and could not have asked for a better location. I would stay there again."-Scott G.
"So I read the reviews before we stayed here, and I thought to myself, "people complain a lot, and I'm not picky so it will be fine." It was not fine.
The pro to this place is it's in a good location, but I could have slept in a free cardboard box on the sidewalk and it would have been the same.
The place pretty much could be used for a horror movie back in the 70's. There is one elevator and it's the creepiest, and slowest thing. Now for the bedroom... The gross bedspread was too small for the bed so the end hung out. There was a small box tv with about 4 channels. A lovely suicide widow, open, with no screen it. You could tell they were really into recycling though because the shower curtain was made out of an old bedspread, and there were holes ripped out for the shower hooks (no liner). The sink wasn't attached and it wobbled around. I think the best part was at about 4am when it sounded like someone was in our bathroom smacking our pipes with a bat for 30 mins straight. Our nonsmoking room smelled like sewer and smoke.. Good combo."-Lauren D.
Food
Westernco Donuts
Craving tasteless donuts filled with flavor gel that leave you with a stomach ache? Then this is the place for you. With a whopping one and a half stars on Yelp this place has sub-par donuts and some shady sounding patrons.
"Wow. Selection @ 11 on a weekday, maybe 7 varieties, 4 of which were filled with some flavored gel. Very dirty, can't fault the store for the clientelle, but I was picked up on by a toothless guy for 5 min while waiting for service, only to have the lady come out from the back picking her teeth then not wash her hands before helping me. Tried a plain cake but it was so oily it went "scroosh" when I bit it so I tossed it. I won't be going back, so if anybody wants my Dukedom, come 'n get it! I dare you."-Ava S.
Sandy's Seafood Market
All in all Sandy's is rocking three stars on Yelp so middle of the road. Several of the reviews said that their smoked salmon is the best you will ever have even more reviews bitched because they weren't open during posted business hours. This review is just too great to pass up on. It really has nothing to do with the quality of the fish but more to do with the fact that this poor guy was in his own personal Gitmo with the chatty lady that works there. The lady overshared everything from her sex life to crying when she talking about the Sonics leaving town.
"STAY AWAY FROM PLACE!
First I went to the place next door, Jensen's Smokehouse, they're still closed for renovations?, since March...hmmmm..something fishy.
I went to this place, Sandy's, to ask about their smoked salmon, the lady that was there informed me of their prices and I asked her if she does mail order. BIG MISTAKE, for 20 minutes she didn't shut up, I was her hostage I couldn't go anywhere, I was trapped, I was in Gitmo, I was in hell, it was worse than being in a Mexican prison. She talked about everything, she told me more things that I didn't want to know about her personal life, she told me how they put a Santa hat on a wooden sculpture by the window at X'mas season. She cried when she told me that the Sonics should have never left Seattle. She cried when she told me about her family and how she told her youngest son that if she died tomorrow that he should continue., continue what?, exactly. She got really close to me when she told me how her husband lost his hair due to a neurological disorder and it didn't matter because when the lights are out in the bedroom you can't see anything anyways and mentioned how her husband is a good kisser.....I was creeped out and was inching my way to the door. I was looking around for a hidden camera, thinking someone is pranking me. You can't believe how much information she spewed out of her trap in 20 minutes. She also said that her friends are millionaires and movie stars. I didn't want to look her in the eye hoping she would notice that I wasn't interested so I looked down at her shirt and there was a tiny piece of smoked salmon clinging to her shirt. There were a lot more that she had told me that would be inappropriate to mention here. Finally I got out the door and started heading towards my car, she was still yappin' as I was walking away. Finally daylight I escaped from the nut asylum where the lunatics are in charge, I nearly had to chew my leg off Just to get away. Oh yeah, she eluded something about listeria and next door.
The food there? Never got a chance....didn't want to."-Alakake K.
Bonus
Top Pot Doughnuts
This is at CenturyLink Field and sounds like you may want to avoid it. The most recent review is from 2012 so they may not even be there anymore. But if they are consider yourselves warned!
"I have to say, I'm a huge Top Pot fan. I was excited to see them at Qwest Field. Hell yes I wanted a chocolate donut topped with blue and green sprinkles.
But unfortunately, the plastic wrap that they put the donuts in (only at the stadium) does something to them. Something very bad.
I've tried them twice at 2 different Sounders games. Once on a cold day, and once on a warm day. They sucked both times, and both times I threw them out unfinished. Usually it would take a crowbar to get a Top Pot out of my hands. They were heavy and cakey and tasteless. They lacked all of the fineness of a normal Top Pot treat. So my very scientific conclusion is that the plastic wrap ruins them.
Sad, sad, sadness."-Kandice K