4 Great Seattle Mother’s Day Outings That Aren’t Brunch

If you’re one of those people lucky enough to a) have a mother who is b) worth celebrating, Mother’s Day (May 14! This Sunday!) can nonetheless be a source of stress. The easiest traditional route is the card-and-flower routine, but your mom may want something a little bit more special than that, and the family may want to get out of the house. So... brunch?

This year at Eater Seattle we’re saying no to Mother’s Day brunch. For one thing, this late in the game it might be a bit late to score a reservation at your favorite place. For another, Mother’s Day brunch is so ubiquitous that you’re going to be surrounded by throngs of families trying to celebrate, and that can be a little less than relaxing. Thirdly, we get a lot of emails from PR people — whom we love! — about Mother’s Day brunch and the prospect of weeding through all of them is not sparking joy.

That said, if your mom loves brunch, if she’s got a coffee mug that says, like, “#1 BRUNCHETTE” and is a mod on multiple brunch Discord channels — okay, take her to brunch. If you’re into brunch you likely have your favorite spots, and those places are probably doing Mother’s Day brunch too. For inspiration, check out our list of Seattle’s most essential brunch spots.

But if brunch isn’t your mom’s cup of tea, here are some alternatives:

Pick up a meal kit

Takeout is always a solid option for celebrations, and while there are plenty of great takeout places in Seattle, we’d like to point you to a couple Mother’s Day–specific ideas. If you have $255 to splurge on mom, Canlis offers a Mother’s Day Kit, which includes everything from take-and-bake cinnamon rolls to tangerine mimosas to flowers to a scented candle. There are still a few of these left last time we checked on Tock.

OK, we hear you: “If I had $255 to spend on my mom I’d just buy her an XBox!” you say. A less expensive choice is Magnolia’s Petit Pierre Bakery, which is offering boxes with pastries, flowers, and sparkling wine — a great one-stop shop for Mother’s Day.

Go to the Pike Place Flower Festival

If you forgot to get your mom flowers, no worries, just pretend that you were planning to go to the 15th Annual Pike Place Market Flower Festival, which runs 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. this Saturday and Sunday. More than 35 flower farms will be selling their wares, and of course after you get your flowers you’ll be in one of the best dining neighborhoods in the whole city.

Head to Maddy’s Bakeshop’s pop-up

Just down the street from Pike Place, Here Today Brewery and Kitchen is hosting a pop-up from Maddy’s Bakeshop, which specializes in flaky, photogenic croissants and gorgeously decorated cakes. Better still, these cakes a gluten-free, making them a perfect treat for the celiac queen who raised you.

Pet a dog or cuddle a cat

Uptown’s Maxwell Hotel is “celebrating this Mother’s Day with a paw-tay for all the fur-baby moms out there,” according to a press release. (We told you we loved our PR people.) The hotel, part of the pet-friendly Staypineapple chain, is hosting a Seattle Humane event from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. where guests can snuggle a dog or a cat with a $5 minimum donation. We needed to find a food angle to mention this, so you can go to the hotel cafe for a meal post- or pre-snuggle, where there are specials on mimosas and rosé. It’s billed as a Mother’s Day thing, but you don’t need a mom to pet a dog.