It's way bigger, it's got beer, and you can get a bucket of corn (and, of course, the Caribbean roast-pork sandwich, too).
Seattle’s storied Fremont sandwich shop now has a second branch. The new Paseo, in Sodo, is comparatively massive — 4,000 square feet, including a dining room with seating for 100, room for 150 more on the patio and a private party room — and, unlike the original Fremont shop, serves beer, wine, cider and sangria. Also on offer: buckets of Paseo’s famous roasted corn.
The space at First Avenue South and Holgate — most recently Mac’s Smokehouse — is near CenturyLink and Safeco Fields. Press materials note that it was “leased from developer Chris Hansen…  Hansen, as many may know, is working to bring an NBA [team] back to Seattle and his team was very happy to have Paseo’s brand take over and renovate this old diner.” The Sodo Paseo grand-opened on Thursday, July 28.
In case you just moved here (or you’ve been living under a rock), the saga of Paseo is already the stuff of local food legend. First the 2014 shutdown and bankruptcy of Seattle’s most-famous-ever sandwich purveyor caused a major uproar. Then a new owner reopened the shop, rehiring former Paseo workers to help reverse-engineer the recipes. Then the sons of the original Paseo owner opened their own sandwich shop, Un Bien. Then, this spring, the sons-of-Paseo opened another branch of Un Bien in Shilshole, where, confusingly, a second branch of Paseo used to be.
After a story last year comparing Paseo’s famous Caribbean roast-pork sandwich to Un Bien’s version, 53.54 percent of voters in a Seattle Times reader poll chose Un Bien as “the real Paseo,” while 14.16 percent voted for Paseo in Fremont. (As for the rest: 9.61 percent said they taste the same, while “Who cares? It’s a sandwich” garnered 22.69 percent.)