Seattle's most notorious hot tub rental joint is gone, demolished, and lovingly un-disinfected in our memories. This is the official royal tribute. Please wipe your feet on the way out.
Some girls are born princesses. Some marry into it. And some find out, years after the fact, that their father was part owner of the 7 Gables Theaters — and that the deal came with one (1) legendarily questionable hot tub establishment in the U-District.
And so, by accident of birth and a truly baffling real estate transaction, I am the Princess of TUBS. It is not a title I asked for. It is a title I accept with grace, a towel, and a strong antibacterial soap.
It is a heavy crown. Somewhere out there, thousands of Seattleites who were "around in the '90s" are clearing their throats and changing the subject. I see you. I honor you. I would not sit where you sat.
This site exists to remember TUBS as it truly was: steamy, iconic, deeply unhygienic, and somehow beloved. Long may it soak (in memory only).
TUBS stood at Roosevelt Way NE and NE 50th St, where it spent 25 years being the place your friend's roommate's cousin definitely went once.
The site starts life as a respectable home with a little shop attached. Innocent times. Nobody suspected a thing.
Becomes a grocery store, later run as Big Bear, Lucky, and P&C. Produce gets misted. Foreshadowing.
The District Tavern (an early rock venue) and a Fotomat drive-thru move in. Film is developed. So is the building's personality.
TUBS opens. Private rooms with hot tubs and saunas, rented by the hour, plus tanning and massage. Some rooms have beds. Some evenings have champagne. All evenings have consequences.
Peak TUBS. Grunge is on the radio, flannel is on the floor, and absolutely nobody is asking about the filtration system.
The bathhouse closes its doors. Microbiologists across the region exhale for the first time in 25 years.
Twenty-plus artists cover the empty building in murals for a "memorial" show. TUBS becomes Seattle's most beloved graffiti canvas. Glow-up achieved.
TUBS is demolished. Some say you can still smell the chlorine on a warm day. Those people are lying. It never smelled like chlorine.
A dramatized, deeply unofficial menu of the TUBS experience, reconstructed from rumor, legend, and things people only admit after their third drink.
*Room descriptions are comedic reenactments. TUBS no longer exists. Nobody can book anything. Please stop calling.
TUBS was iconic. TUBS was romantic. TUBS was also, according to every Seattleite who ever mentioned it, a thriving ecosystem. We commissioned a completely made-up lab to analyze a completely imaginary sample.
*Not a real report. If it were real, it would be on fire.
Officially sanctioned by the Princess. Unofficially sanctioned by the Washington State Department of Health, who have not been asked.
The same pink script that hung on the building and graced every steamy brochure. Merch so authentic you can almost smell it. (Please don't try.)
Limited drops in the royal workshop. Hit "Notify Me" on your favorites, and the most-wanted get made first.
Every Seattleite of a certain age has a TUBS story, and every single one of them happened "to a friend." Tell us about your friend.
This item is still in the royal workshop. Leave your email and we'll tell you the minute it drops.