Rantz: Biased media picking wrong side in Virginia Inn vs. Pike Place Market debate

The Virginia Inn is closing after 122 years, and Seattle media is in full mourning. But the Pike Place Market Preservation and Development Authority (PDA), the landlord, isn’t the bad guy in this story. In fact, they appear to be the good guy getting taken advantage of.

The restaurant is being cast as the tragic victim of a greedy landlord at Pike Place Market, and reporters are practically writing eulogies. Restaurant ownership posted on social media that it will close due to “failed negotiations for an equitable lease” with the PDA. Naturally, local media sides with the restaurant.

The narrative is classic Seattle media: beloved historic business gets priced out by evil landlord. This isn’t journalism—it’s sentimentality dressed up as outrage, with not a single hard fact to back it up. The more you learn, the more it becomes clear that PDA isn’t in the wrong.

Seattle media frames Virginia Inn as an innocent victim

The Seattle Times does not hide which side it’s rooting for. “The Virginia Inn is a relic of old Seattle,” the reporter noted. Translation: media’s nostalgia has replaced objectivity. KING 5 and Eater Seattle followed suit, parroting the same narrative: historic bar, good; landlord, bad. Facts? Optional.

Never mind that the PDA is a non-profit whose mission is literally to keep the market affordable for small businesses. It’s a progressive institution that subsidizes rent. But that fact doesn’t fit the sob story template, so most reporters, and plenty of locals, conveniently leave it out or bury it 15 paragraphs deep.

Here’s a wild idea: maybe the Virginia Inn closed because what they were asking for was unfair. Cue the collective gasp from locals who haven’t stepped foot in the place since the 80’s—if ever.

This is another Seattle tradition: publicly grieving the closure of a restaurant you drove past 200 times and never bothered to support. “Oh no, not the Virginia Inn!” they cry on Instagram. “This city is losing its soul!” Meanwhile, they’re posting from their favorite poke bowl spot that opened six months ago in Ballard.

Pike Place Market Preservation and Development Authority may just be the good guys

Hate to break it to the media, but it appears PDA was trying to do the admirable thing and still got burned for it.

The PDA, via a statement, says it offered the Virginia Inn a lease extension “with terms in line with similar businesses at the Market,” as well as the option to “either negotiate a new lease or sell the business.” To me, they implied that it was the Virginia Inn that wanted special treatment. “As a public agency, we must ensure leases are consistent across tenants and cannot offer significantly lower terms to one business over others,” the spokesperson told Eater Seattle.

That sentiment seems to be confirmed by one of the owners, Craig Perez.

“The one sticking point that I had with our lease was the percentage-based rent that (the PDA) charges on top of the base rent and the maintenance and that is 6% of our total sales after $1.2 million,” Perez told The Seattle Times

Perez apparently wanted to adjust that $1.2 million for inflation. But if PDA is being honest, it sounds like what Perez wanted would be different than how other tenants are being handled. In other words, the Virginia Inn is redefining “equitable” like any Seattle progressive activist: inequitable, with the restaurant getting the benefit.

Every closure is not a tragedy

Can we stop pretending that every old restaurant that shuts down is a tragedy? Sometimes, it’s just business. And a business’ age doesn’t mean it’s worth special treatment.

The restaurant industry is brutal, especially post-COVID. Margins are thin, labor is expensive, and customers are fickle. And if your business model relies on below-market rent forever? That’s not a plan—that’s a hope and a prayer.

And for all the locals and media feigning outrage, perhaps you can revisit the Seattle minimum wage and the removal of tip credits you fought for. Maybe they’d be able to pay the rent if they weren’t pushed out by outrageous expenses courtesy of Democratic policies?

You didn’t eat at the Virginia Inn

Why is the PDA automatically the villain for expecting a tenant to pay a fair rate, especially when they’re a non-profit using that rent to support other local businesses?

Maybe it’s because media outlets know their audience. They know Seattleites love a good “corporate greed” story—even when the villain is a taxpayer-funded non-profit. They know people will click on a headline that says “122-year-old restaurant forced to close” more than one that says “Lease not renewed, business failed to adapt.”

And they know that sentiment sells.

Nostalgia is a powerful drug, especially in a city that’s changed so much, so fast. But romanticizing the past doesn’t excuse the knee-jerk impulse to blame institutions trying to keep the lights on.

If you’re heartbroken about the Virginia Inn closing, I get it. But ask yourself: when was the last time you ate there? If the answer is “a decade ago” or “never,” then maybe the problem isn’t the rent. Maybe it’s that the public already let go of the Virginia Inn long before the PDA did.

And maybe, just maybe, the media should report that.

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