The 10 Best Places for Grunge Fans to Visit in Seattle, WA

While this museum isn’t completely dedicated to the genre, it certainly offers a great overview to any entry-level grunge heads. The education begins before you’ve even set food in the building, with a statue of Soundgarden frontman Chris Cornell greeting you on arrival. However, once you’re inside, head straight upstairs where you’ll find the Nirvana: Taking Punk to the Masses exhibit.

I could’ve spent hours in this little room, poring over each and every item in the extensive collection, which includes stage props from the band’s final tour, instruments played in their famous Unplugged in New York set and some fascinating early days trinkets, like homemade t-shirts designed by Kurt, containing discarded band names, like Fecal Matter.

Once you’ve learnt all about the music, you can even have a go at playing some of it in jam rooms on the top floor of the museum, with guitars, keyboards and drums all in place for anyone inspired by what they’ve seen. Other Seattle musicians are also represented, including a separate exhibition about Jimi Hendrix. I personally couldn’t help but play through Mr Moustache a couple of times, after seeing the Bleach-era items.

For anyone hoping to take a step into an important part of grunge history, Central Saloon is an absolute must. This scuzzy dive bar is the site of Nirvana’s first performance in Seattle, while Soundgarden, Alice in Chains, Mother Love Bone and The Melvins all took to its stage at some point or another too. It’s a particularly poignant destination for Nirvana because it’s where Sub Pop Records founder Bruce Pavitt first saw the three-piece perform and where he decided they were worth taking a punt on, despite there apparently being just ten people in the audience that evening.

Today it still retains a lot of its humble dive bar charm and plays up its significance with old gig posters plastered over the walls, while the male and female toilets are indicated with pictures of Kurt and his wife, Courtney Love. It also still hosts live music to this day and has a great selection of beers on tap.

The Moore has been in Seattle since 1907 and is the city’s oldest active theatre. It more than played its part in the grunge years, with live concert footage for Pearl Jam’s video for track Even Flow filmed there, while Soundgarden and Alice in Chains both recorded at the venue too. Nirvana also graced its stage, including in June 1989 for a Sub Pop showcase event titled Lame Fest. They were on a bill with grunge stalwarts Tad and Mudhoney. Amateur footage from a 1990 performance can also be found on YouTube, as can footage of a Sonic Youth show.

The theatre hasn’t changed much since the nineties and is still very much in use today, with comedian Bill Burr recording his special Drop Dead Years there in 2024.

As you descend the steps into this basement dive bar, beneath a poster of a gurning cartoon face declaring: “all aboard for funtime” it’s not that hard to believe that you’re following in the footsteps of Kurt and bandmates Dave Grohl and Krist Novoselic. However, there’s not a lot on the maddening stairway that hints at just how important this bar is for the history of both Nirvana and the grunge genre.

After their debut, Bleach, and before the release of their most popular album, Nevermind, the band would regularly make that the trip down those same stairs to rehearse, meaning that subterranean dwelling was almost certainly the location where some of the their best known hits were perfected before being immortalised on a record that has since sold more than 30 million copies worldwide.

Today, it’s a very fun place to hang out, serving cheap and cheerful cocktails (would recommend Captain Groovy and his Bubblegum Army) as well as some great Chinese dumplings, in surroundings festooned in kitschy rock ‘n’ roll memorabilia and decorations. Although Nirvana’s history in the bar isn’t explicitly detailed, a large hand-painted picture of Kurt does hang above one of the booths.

As someone who enjoys getting outdoors, I was delighted to find out that not all of Seattle’s grunge history is confined to the darkened corners of its dive bars. One of the genre’s lesser-known stories, Temple of the Dog, involved several high profile members of other bands, performing in tribute to Andrew Wood, singer of Mother Love Bone and Malfunkshun, who died at the age of 24 after a heroin overdose.

The group was formed by Chris Cornell and included several others who would later go on to be part of Pearl Jam. They filmed the video for their song Hunger Strike on the beach at Discovery Park, with famous sights like West Point lighthouse appearing. Although the music isn’t quite as noisy and scuzzy as grunge fans may insist upon, it was still created by some of its best-loved musicians.

The park itself is a wonderful place to go to get out of Seattle to enjoy some of the natural beauty of the Pacific Northwest, with bald eagles soaring overhead and hummingbirds found buzzing between its trees and flowers.

Since it opened back in 1985, London Bridge Studio has hosted and recorded its fair share of influential artists, including plenty of grunge acts like Pearl Jam, Alice in Chains, Mother Love Bone and Soundgarden. Today guests can learn more about its storied history by taking guided history tours through the studio, where they can stand in the live room where bands perform, or the vocal booth where Eddie Vedder laid down the vocals for Pearl Jam’s seminal album Ten.

This Seattle record shop is a great place for Pearl Jam fans, with the band even recording live there during a surprise in-store performance in 2005. Seven songs from their 16 song set were committed to tape and later released as the Live at Easy Street EP for Record Store Day, 2019.

The store has also housed some important Nirvana items as well, with owner Matt Vaughan once discovering an uncashed royalty check paid to Kurt Cobain in March, 1991 in a box of tour itineraries and records he bought in 1993. The check was for the princely sum of $26.57, worth about $60 in today’s money.

This bar is one of the oldest in the Capitol Hill area and fills up very quickly once its doors are open. Grunge fans know it as the the last place Kurt Cobain was seen alive in public before his death at the age of just 27. Some people even refer to it as the “grunge Cheers” due to its friendly and welcoming atmosphere, with a strong selection of cheap affordable drinks, great food and a wonderful record rotation. Come for the Nirvana memories, stay for the deep fried pickles.

Kurt’s official memorial is found in a park in his home town of Aberdeen, south west of Seattle. However, this bench, found a stone’s throw from the house where he died, has become an unofficial site of pilgrimage for fans, like me, who want to pay their respects. It’s easy to spot in the small stretch of park overlooking Lake Washington, with trinkets, alcohol and graffiti completely covering it, all left by people who want to pay homage to the enduring legacy of Nirvana. It’s a couple of bus rides out to reach the Denny-Blaine neighbourhood where it’s found, but it’s a peaceful and poignant spot for some quiet reflection.

The Sub Pop store, also known as “Sub Pop on 7th” sells merchandise from the record label that first released a Nirvana record, along with albums by both Soundgarden and Mudhoney, making them a big name in the proliferation of grunge. The label is still going strong to this day, however, with plenty of artists from other genres on their roster, including Fleet Foxes, Foals and Sleater-Kinney to name just a few. As well as this branch, there’s also a Sub Pop shop at Seattle-Tacoma airport.