University Way Northeast, University District

Not a big fan of University Way NE. The street offers cheap residential housing if safety is not a concern. The place is flooded with bums and some seedy looking residents. The street is very close to the UW campus but offers no ambience or college feel. It is dirty and very few shops that are worth anything are found along the area. You will locate a bookstore or two but that's about it.

Food ranges from low-quality/low-cost to good-quality/low-cost to high-quality/good-cost. Has a plethora of coffee houses and bars/pubs and has three movie theaters on and one off The Ave. Has a number of choices of pretty much every ethnicity of food, often even on the same block, and even has two vegetarian and vegan eateries on or within two block of The Ave. Many choices in clothing shopping from the new and trendy to the ethnic to an excellent selection of second-hand. Has a handful of bookstores, a news-stand, and two comic shops. For convenience it has one grocery store and two drug stores.

The place is busy and many places are not open late enough. There is a very noticeable young homeless population and an easy to stumble on drug trade and to go with both an police presents.

Living on and just off The Ave usually means bad parking options and not very great living conditions for the cost... thankfully it is fairly easy to eat well on the cheap.

I've been down to University Way a few times. This being Seattle, you would think the street right outside of U Dub would have some pretty cool stuff. I just wasn't that impressed. There are quite a few bookstores, and tons of camera shops, and Chinese restaurants, but really I felt like that's about all there was. I took my family down here one day to hang out, and just ended up browsing a few overpriced t-shirt chain stores, and then feeling really ripped off that I had to pay for parking.

We did come down when they had closed off the street, that was quite nice, and really enjoyable. If there is something going on, then definitely check it out. On a normal day though, you're not missing much.