Columbia City & Mount Baker
Most Seattle itineraries never leave downtown, which is a shame. Columbia City and Mount Baker sit side by side in South Seattle, a 15-minute train ride away: one has the restaurant row, the other has the lake, and we host a vacation rental between them.
The Restaurant Row
Columbia City's few blocks of Rainier Avenue are a designated historic landmark district, and the brick storefronts hold one of the city's best small dining strips. The lineup shifts the way restaurant rows do, but the anchors have been here for years: Columbia City Bakery for the morning, Geraldine's Counter for a diner breakfast worth a wait, Island Soul for Caribbean, and a neighborhood movie house, Ark Lodge Cinemas, for a rainy night. The neighborhood around it, zip code 98118, is one of the most diverse in the country, and the food shows it: East African, Vietnamese, Caribbean, and Italian within a couple of blocks.
From spring into fall, the Columbia City Farmers Market takes over a block on Wednesday afternoons. If you're cooking at the house, time a grocery run around it.
Mount Baker: The Quiet Side
Cross Rainier Avenue heading east and the streets turn leafy and residential. Mount Baker was laid out around boulevards from the Olmsted plan that shaped Seattle's park system, and the payoff is Lake Washington Boulevard curving along the water, made for a morning walk or run. Mount Baker Park runs down to a swimming beach on the lake; bring a towel in summer. Behind the neighborhood, trails wind through the Cheasty Greenspace, a strip of woods on the hillside.
Come in early August and you'll catch Seafair week, when the hydroplanes race on Lake Washington and the Blue Angels practice overhead. The south end of the lake turns into one long festival that week.
The Practical Part
Two Link light rail stations serve the area, Columbia City and Mount Baker, with downtown about 15 minutes north and Sea-Tac Airport about 25 minutes south. Neither direction involves a transfer, and both stadiums are roughly 10 minutes up the line. There is a grocery store next door to our place for the nights you cook, and street parking is easy if you drive.
This is a city neighborhood rather than a resort district: busier along the Rainier Avenue arterial, quiet on the residential streets where the house is. If you want a bellhop, stay downtown. If you'd rather spend the week in a neighborhood, stay here.
What Visitors Ask About the Neighborhood
Is Columbia City a good area for visitors to stay?
Yes, if you'd rather stay in a neighborhood than a hotel district. There's a walkable restaurant street, a light rail station with a 15-minute ride downtown and a direct ride to the airport, and the residential streets are quiet at night.
How far is Columbia City from downtown Seattle?
About 15 minutes on the Link light rail from Columbia City Station, with trains roughly every 10 minutes. Driving takes about the same when traffic is clear and much longer when it isn't, which is why most people here just take the train.
What is there to do in Mount Baker?
Mount Baker is the quiet, green side of the area: the swimming beach and park on Lake Washington, the tree-lined Olmsted boulevards, and the Cheasty Greenspace trails. It borders Columbia City, so the restaurant row is a few minutes away when you want dinner.
Stay in the Neighborhood
Hirico Prime sleeps four in Mount Baker, between Columbia City's restaurant row and the lake.
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