We moved to Bothell from Seattle almost three years ago. My first experience of our fair city was when I wrote grants for a now-defunct biotech start-up our first year in Washington. I fell in love with the quaint downtown and the Yakima Fruit Market. The latter reminds me of the fruit stands near my hometown in New York.
The Yakima Fruit Market
Bothell’s about 10 miles northeast of downtown Seattle as the crow flies. Unfortunately, we humans have to drive here via either Lake City/Bothell Way or Routes 520 and 405. Route 520 necessitates going over a toll bridge and 405 is consistently congested, so cheapskates clog up the other route. There are days when paving over Lake Washington seems like a good idea. However, the destination is worth the trip.
Downtown Bothell is bordered to the south by wetlands and the Sammamish River. Even though the Sammamish is technically a slough, it gets a lot of traffic from kayaks, canoes, and paddle-boarders.
Stand-up paddle boarders on the Sammamish, as viewed from our upper deck.
A couple of parks and two bike/hike trails also abut the river. Two colleges occupy the eastern edge of downtown, the University of Washington Bothell campus and Cascadia College, part of the community college system. The biotech ghetto is in the northern part of town, along with a series of strip malls. Some of the stores have a distinctive East Indian flavor, courtesy of the large number of immigrants who call Bothell home. Also north of downtown is Country Village, a shopping center that features a large wrought-iron rooster sculpture in front. We consider it the most significant landmark in town. (Seattle has the Space Needle, Bothell has the chicken.)
While Bothell’s restaurant scene is under development, we do have several good to excellent eateries in town. Pen Thai is a branch of a Thai restaurant in Bellevue, and serves outstanding food. Earlier this year we discovered Korea House, in the northern part of town. They make their own kim chi, and their soup broths are umami bombs. The McMenamins Anderson School complex opened last month and added at least three restaurants to the downtown area. It also boasts an indoor salt-water pool that’s free for Bothell residents. The best thing about Bothell restaurants: On most Friday or Saturday nights you don’t need reservations. There are few good restaurants in Seattle that can make that claim.
Is our fair city perfect? No. Some decisions of the Planning Commission and City Council tilt too far in the direction of developers. For example, who decided that the best first impression of town coming from the west would be a hilltop self-storage place that looks like a Medieval Times fortress? The clincher was the brouhaha over the golf course near our condo complex. The owners wanted to sell and get the property rezoned to accommodate mass quantities of townhomes and houses. The only way we found out was a rezoning sign that mysteriously appeared one Friday night last December. The back nine of the course was almost sold to a development group that included the mayor, and he did not disclose his involvement in the deal until late in the game. While this didn’t meet the “legal” standard of conflict of interest, the impression was not good. Fortunately, the upcoming election may change city operations for the better. Two of the pro-development council members are not running, and the one member running for re-election has been helpful in the fight against developing the golf course. Stay tuned for election results.
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