In 1907, Seattle housewives were furious. The price of onions had skyrocketed, and middlemen were pocketing the difference between what farmers earned and what consumers paid. City Council member Thomas P. Revelle seized on an 1896 ordinance allowing the city to designate public market land, and on August 17, 1907, Pike Place Market opened on the mudflats and bluffs above Elliott Bay. The response was immediate. Demand for stalls doubled by 1911. The west side of the stall lines gained an overhead canopy, becoming the "dry row," and by 1916 the market expanded into the Economy Market building. An Italian immigrant named Giuseppe Desimone, who had arrived in America as a stowaway, became the market's owner by slowly buying out shares starting in 1925. He ran the place on handshake deals until his death in 1946, and his son Richard kept that tradition alive for nearly three more decades.

By 1963, the Seattle establishment had plans to demolish Pike Place Market entirely and replace it with a development called Pike Plaza: parking garages, high-rise housing, and upscale retail. Architect Victor Steinbrueck and activist Betty Bowen led the opposition through Friends of the Market, rallying a city that had grown sentimental about its chaotic, unpolished gathering place. On November 2, 1971, voters passed an initiative creating a historic preservation zone and returning the market to public hands. Two years later, the Pike Place Market Preservation and Development Authority was established under a charter that mandates the PDA to preserve the market's buildings, incubate small businesses, and provide services for low-income residents. That dual mission, commercial vibrancy alongside social services, defines Pike Place to this day. The market houses a free medical clinic serving 3,600 patients, a senior center used by 900 people, a food bank distributing groceries to 1,000 people weekly, and a preschool for 90 to 100 low-income families.

The market's founding principle remains its operational heartbeat: consumers must be able to "Meet the Producer." Farmers take historic precedence in daystall assignments, but craftspeople have earned a permanent place alongside them. To maintain seniority, farmers must be physically present at least one day a week, craftspeople two. New craft vendors must demonstrate genuine skill and make their own wares. Hmong flower vendors fill stalls with brilliant arrangements, while Sol "The Cod Father" Amon of Pure Food Fish, whose family has been selling fish in the market since 1911, holds court outside his stall. In 2006, the Seattle City Council named him "King of the Market" and permanently designated April 11 as Sol Amon Day. At the market's busiest, the tension between tourist attraction and working marketplace surfaces: as farmers' markets multiplied across Washington from about ten in 1990 to over sixty by 1999, Pike Place's daystalls shifted increasingly toward flowers and crafts rather than edible produce.

The first Starbucks store opened in 1971 at 2000 Western Avenue before moving one block to 1912 Pike Place in 1976, where it has poured coffee ever since. Its sign still bears the original logo, a bare-breasted siren modeled after a fifteenth-century Norse woodcut, distinct from the sanitized version found on cups worldwide. Nearby, the herbal apothecary Tenzing Momo, named for a Tibetan phrase meaning "divine dumpling," has dispensed herbs and advice since 1977. Three Girls Bakery traces its origins to 1912 and may have been the first Seattle business started by women. The Pink Door, entered through a nearly unmarked entrance on Post Alley, has been a favorite first-date restaurant since 1981, while French bistro Maximilien earned high praise from Julia Child herself. And at the corner of Pike Place, under the glowing "Public Market Center" sign, Rachel the bronze pig has collected six to nine thousand dollars a year in world currencies since 1986, every cent funding the market's social services.

Pike Place Market is not just a place to shop. Nearly 500 people live within its buildings, many in low-income housing units spread across eight structures. The LaSalle Hotel, once a legitimate seaman's lodging whose Japanese American operators were forcibly interned during World War II, now provides 41 low-income units. The Sanitary Market, so named because no horses were allowed inside when it opened in 1910, was rebuilt after a 1941 fire and later converted its rooftop parking into two floors of residences. Buskers have filled the arcades since at least the 1960s, from Artis the Spoonman, immortalized by Soundgarden, to jump blues musician PK Dwyer, who formed the first-ever street band to busk at the market in 1971. In 2023, the market recorded 20.9 million total visitors and $177 million in commercial sales. In 2025, Pike Place itself was closed to automobile traffic for the first time in its 118-year history, a trial that market leaders extended after reporting increased foot traffic and sales.