Ex-governor Gary Locke roamed the Market as a child

Gary Locke grew up at Pike Place Market long before he grew up to become governor.

In the 1950s, when Locke was a boy, his parents ran Sadie's Cafe, a Chinese and American food diner with a U-shaped counter, swivel stools and high-back booths, located down the ramp at the foot of Pike Street.

From the same space over the past 30 years, Il Bistro has served traditional Italian cuisine by candlelight. Locke, 57, likes to take his wife there for special occasions.

The young Locke spent a lot of time at Sadie's, sweeping the floors for his parents and doing his homework in the back. When it was time to play, he'd explore the Market's serpentine passageways with his sisters and friends whose parents also worked at the Market.

"This was our childhood," Locke says. "All we knew was to roam around and run around the Market. The passageways were great places to run up and down and to get away from my sisters or friends when they were bugging me or trying to follow me."

The children enjoyed visiting the matron who sat outside a public women's restroom at the end of the ramp past Sadie's. "She was like our grandmother of the Market."

Farther down the hill, a shopkeeper sold driftwood, shells, dried plants and other gifts. Her inventory didn't really appeal to Locke, but the pet rabbits she raised in the back of the store did.

"At the end of the day, we'd go up to the main arcade and pick out discarded lettuce leaves and carrots from the farmers' stalls and feed the rabbits," he says. "It was fun."

Locke also remembers a Goodwill store in the DownUnder where he flipped through the wooden magazine racks.

"We'd sit there for hours and read old comic books because Mom and Dad wouldn't let us read comic books at home. Ever."

-- Stuart Eskenazi, Seattle Times staff reporter