As reported by The Seattle Times, 22 Seattle-based restaurants closed in 2025 including the Pike Pub and Pike Fish Bar. While many Seattleites and tourists to the Emerald City may have fond memories of these venerable establishments, both located in Pike Place Market near the infamous Gum Wall, are they aware of the icon behind this local legend?
I became acquainted with Charles Finkel when I moved to the Pacific Northwest in 2014 and was making press inquiries to cover the Pacific Northwest craft culture, including beer, wine, cider, spirits and cannabis/CBD, as well as the regional festival scene. In the forward he penned for my book Distilled in Washington: A History, Finkel describes our initial meeting:
I first met Becky when she interviewed me for an article on craft beer. An accomplished journalist, Becky studied theology at Yale. She was in town to expose, in print, a nefarious con man, a preacher, who used church money to buy his own book to place it on the bestseller list. If Becky’s soul was in religion, I could tell at our first meeting that her heart was in drinks, fermented and distilled. As she says: “With this book, I seem to have made the formal shift from covering the Holy Spirit to distilled spirits, a move that saved both my soul and my sanity.”
Every time I visited Seattle, we would gather at Pike Pub or Pike Fish Bar. Finkel encouraged me to sample Pike’s latest seasonal beer or one of their beer cocktails that set the mood for our conversations. Over the years, we discussed a range of topics from the collapse of the Mars Hill Church network to his latest innovative research project into specialty grains done in conjunction with the WSU Bread Lab.
Along the way, he introduced me to Jason Parker, Pike’s first head brewer and the co-founder of Copperworks Distilling Co., a leader in the American Single Malt Whiskey revolution. Through Finkel and Parker, I learned how to experience this craft culture by using all my senses — especially the value of listening for the stories behind a given product. Through them I received a master’s level education in the nuances of curating a craft business that embodied the values of community, sustainability and spirituality. These attributes continue to guide my writings on the Pacific Northwest craft culture.
In the Beginning
In terms of Finkel’s own history, his Midwestern accent speaks to his childhood in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, where he was exposed to fine arts at an early age. He met and married Rose Ann Finkel in Houston, Texas. They co-founded Bon Vin, Inc., where they had the distinction of creating the term “boutique winery” to describe handcrafted family-owned wineries. They moved to Seattle in 1974 where Finkel joined the team that built Chateau Ste. Michelle in Woodinville. There he pioneered the concept of marketing Washington state wines nationally.
As I reported in The Grapevine Magazine, “Following his lifelong passion for imported beers, Finkel founded Merchant du Vin in 1978, so he could introduce consumers to craft beers from England, Scotland, Germany, Belgium, France and Norway, as well as several small American breweries.” In our conversations, Finkel conveyed the difficulties in trying to convince even high-end establishments that they needed to treat their beer menu with the same care they gave to their wine list.
Finkel would enter a restaurant and ask to see their beer menu. Inevitably, the waiter would respond, “We don’t have a beer menu, but I can tell you what we have. After the waiter recited names of commercial beers like Budweiser, Coors Light and Rainer, Finkel would reply, “Oh, just bring me some jug wine.” When the waiter noted they don’t serve that type of wine, he’d respond, “Yes, but you serve that type of beer.” Following this exchange, he would set out some imported beers and encourage them to up their beer game.
The Story of The Pike Brewing Company
In the late 1980s, Finkel took his experience influencing some of the finest breweries on the way that they brewed, packaged and marketed their beer, and founded his own brewery. On October 17, 1989, the Pike Place Brewery became the third brewery in Seattle when it hosted its grand opening with the World’s Shortest Non-Motorized Uphill Parade. John Farias of Liberty Malt Supply led the parade by pushing a two-wheeled silver hand truck filled with a keg of Pike Pale Ale. Others in the parade included the Finkels, Franz and Angela Inselkammer from Bavaria’s Ayinger Brewery, Parker, dogs, a cat, a walking geoduck from the Sheraton Hotel, a llama from the Herb Farm, and an oyster, along with with local media and about a hundred beer aficionados. When this menagerie arrived at Cutter’s Bay House after marching for two blocks, Inselkammer tapped and poured the inaugural pint of Pike Pale Ale.
Pike’s initial uphill location on Western Avenue that was once the site of a winery afforded Finkel the opportunity to install a gravity-flow system. At the time, the brewery’s equipment was state-of-the-art with a four-barrel wood-jacketed mash tun and a three-barrel copper kettle custom-made by Seattle’s Alaska Copper and Brass Company that was heated by an electric water heater element. Also, they were one of the first breweries to brew an IPA.
In 1996, they moved to a larger 30-barrel brewery located at the site of a former bookstore on First Avenue that also houses the Microbrewery Museum, a collection of the Finkels’ personal artifacts that document 9,000 years of brewing history. Rose Ann’s experience of owning a cooking store played a seminal role in their mission to combine craft beer with local, sustainably sourced food. Along with her commitment to craft culture, Rose Ann championed community causes through events such as Pike’s Women In Beer. This annual celebration of craft beverages, local foods, and the women who make them, benefited the Planned Parenthood of the Great Northwest and Hawaiian Islands. Other community touches often go unnoticed, such as their construction of a community garden located in Post Alley right outside the brewery designed as a place of respite for anyone in the neighborhood — especially those with no homes.
After Rose Ann’s death in early 2022, Finkel sold Pike to Howard Wright of the Seattle Hospitality Group. In 2025, long overdue, the Finkels’ accomplishments were recognized both locally and nationally when Rose Ann and Charles were selected in the inaugural group of seven inductees in the newly created Washington State Craft Beer Hall of Fame and 12 individuals selected for the American Craft Beer Hall of Fame.
Savoring the Spirit
While the physical structures are no more as of November 30, 2025, the spirit of the Finkels lives on with the release of Pike Kilt Lifter Whiskey (100 proof), a limited-edition collaboration with Pike Brewing Company. This project began five years ago when Copperworks teamed up with Pike Brewing to craft an American Whiskey distilled from an unhopped version of Pike’s Kilt Lifter scotch-style ale, a recipe that Parker helped develop during his time at Pike Brewing. As Parker opines, “By transforming Pike’s Kilt Lifter into whiskey, Copperworks and Pike honor a legacy of innovation, friendship and craft that spans more than three decades.”
Order this spirit online or, better yet, sample this collab at Copperworks Distillery and Tasting room located along Seattle’s waterfront, or their Kenmore tasting room that’s becoming a burgeoning community center replete with a full scale restaurant courtesy of De La Soil.
I’ll drink to that.
