Seattle’s Pioneer Square shops and restaurants are preparing for an influx of customers for the Seahawks’ first regular-season home game.

Game days in Seattle bring in an average of 60,000 fans, according to estimates from the Alliance for Pioneer Square. The APS claims that foot traffic is crucial for longtime businesses and new ones as the neighborhood grows and works to recover from the pandemic.

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“We have not stopped making cheese, pepperoni, dough, garlic knots,” DeLeo Bros. Pizza Owner and Operator Nathaniel Dahlman explained while making a pepperoni pizza on Saturday. “Our motto is: ‘In garlic we crust.'”

It’s been a whirlwind first month for his 80s-themed pizza spot, which is one of Pioneer Square’s newest businesses in the former Mod Pizza location on Occidental Avenue. The preparations were underway for the Sunday football crowds, like shaping roughly 350 dough balls that will each be cut into six large, New York-style slices.

The Seahawks’ match-up against the San Francisco 49ers is expected to draw in much-needed business for the historic neighborhood that has been working to recover from the pandemic, while battling ongoing public safety concerns from violence to drug use.

KOMO News most recently reported on the city’s efforts to curb nighttime violence after a deadly shooting outside a Pioneer Square nightclub.

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“With football, I feel like that is when the city really shows up, and [we see] so many more locals, for sure,” Cone and Steiner General Store Founder and CEO Dani Cone said. “We do at least double [our usual] sales.”

Cone has seen the neighborhood change over the course of her 11 years working off S. King Street and Occidental Ave.

“As we all know, there have been waves, ups and downs, but it’s been so great in the last couple of years,” Cone said. “Especially this past year, [we’re] seeing so much more life coming back to it, so many new things opening. [There’s] just a renewed energy.”

“We’ve seen a lot of rebuilding going on,” added Alliance for Pioneer Square Executive Director Lisa Howard.

Howard adds that the neighborhood has exceeded the numbers from 2018 for their monthly art walk events. They have vacant storefront space to fill, but report a successful year of adding more than 20 new businesses in their slice of Seattle.

“There’s a big sense of community here. There’s a lot of really great businesses and places to go and things to see,” Howard added. “If you haven’t been down for a long time, now’s the time to come check it out.”

Gates open at Lumen Field on Sunday at 11 a.m. On Ticketmaster on Saturday, prices for verified resale tickets ranged from $148 to nearly $800.

The Seattle Police crime dashboard showed 97 reported violent crimes in Pioneer Square so far this year. Those incidents include 71 aggravated assaults, 21 robberies, two homicides and two reported rapes. There were 119 violent crimes reported in the neighborhood in 2024.