History of the OK Hotel
The OK Hotel in 1937
The OK Hotel has played a long and prominent role in Seattle History. Originally completed in 1917, the building was designed as a low-cost hotel, containing 192 small rooms and communal facilities available to workers in Seattle's growing downtown and waterfront areas. The Buttnick family's OK loan and wholesale clothing businesses were the original occupants of the ground floor retail spaces, and the basement served as a warehouse.
Patty O in the doorway of the
OK Hotel Cafe & Nightclub around 1990
A Flyer for the OK Hotel Cafe,
from 1991
The hotel closed in 1971, but enjoyed a revival in 1988 when a new tenant reopened the building as a cafe, performance venue, and art gallery. The club's 15-year-plus life span came to an end with the Nisqually earthquake of March 2001, which damaged numerous buildings in the historic district.
Most widely recognized as a prominent location in the movie Singles (1992), the OK Hotel was one of several active rock venues during the celebrated local scene of the late eighties. Local bands such as Mudhoney, Tad, Mother Love Bone, Soundgarden and Nirvana (including the first performance of Smells Like Teen Spirit) played at the OK Hotel, as well as touring punk, rock and jazz artists from around the country.
In its final years, the OK Hotel had became a treasured home for Seattle's lively creative music scene, featuring such artists as Bill Frisell, Wayne Horvitz and Zony Mash, Robin Holcomb, the Living Daylights, Amy Denio and the Black Cat Orchestra.
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