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The Gargoyle Statuary, marked with its distinctive and spooky carved sign that simply states "Gargoyles," has quietly been fulfilling all of Seattle's, uh, gargoyle needs for years.

Inside the store is all the proof you need that Goth is not dead. The shop is dark, draped with velvet and tapestries, the perfect mood-setter for its watchful stock.

Fat gargoyles, skinny gargoyles, pocket-sized gargoyles, cute gargoyles, angry gargoyles, cat gargoyles, gargoyles with wings, hats, glasses, bow ties—the sheer variety of small plaster or concrete grotesqueries available for “adoption” is staggering. Even if you aren’t customarily a gargoyle fan, it’s a difficult task to not find some small beast figurine that you don’t fall in love with—at least a little.

If a free-standing tchotchke isn’t in the cards (and there’s a wide selection of those, too, both greeting and tarot), there's a collection of g

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Seattle and coffee. Every cliché is absolutely true. On any given city block, you can find at least one coffee shop, if not multiple—chains, local chains, tiny mom-and-pop establishments—all competing for your caffeine dollar.

It’s no different on University Avenue. The main drag that runs parallel to the University of Washington has at least 3 coffee shops per block. With all that competition, though, tiny, hard-to-miss SureShot holds its own.

It can’t be for the atmosphere. SureShot doesn’t attract students looking for a quiet place to study or groups of UW staff between classes looking for conversation. Even if the music is low, which it hardly ever is, the blood-red walls and bleeping of vintage pinball machines and video games don’t create an atmosphere conducive to relaxation. In fact, the only reason I can think to linger inside (unless you are a vintage game fanatic) is during one of the few very hot summer days the

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If you have any love for cheese (and aside from the vegan abstainer and the lactose intolerant, who doesn't?), than Beecher's Handmade Cheese is a dairy wonderland. It's Willy Wonka's chocolate factory, in miniature, only with cheese instead of chocolate, and smiling cheese-mongers replacing the oompa-loompas. All cheese, all the time. And it's delicious.

Cheese lover Kurt Beecher Dammeier had a vision: to combine his love of fermented, curded dairy with his firm personal commitment to artisan, slow foods and opened Beecher's in 2003. Since then, the small shop with glass-enclosed cheese-making "lab" has been dishing up decadent mac-and-cheese lunch specials as well as hawking their own variety of handmade cheeses (including extremely addictive fresh cheese curds--mild, slightly salty nuggets that squeak delightfully between your teeth).

There's a zillio

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Westlake Mall seems like it must be bereft of surprise. It’s a pretty typical mall—slightly smaller in stature than traditional malls, and centered right in the heart of downtown. And at first glance, those seem to be its main distinguishing features. It has gift shops and shoes stores—even a food court.

Westlake Mall is hiding something, though. Deep in the basement, right by the entrance to the underground transit tunnel, Seattle’s Daiso location could be easily missed. A shame. Daiso is a savvy shopper’s dream.
Now, by savvy shopper I don’t mean one with a discerning eye for quality, per se. Daiso is a classic Japanese “100 yen” store—the eastern equivalent to our dollar store. Everything in Daiso is Asian in origin and 95% of it is $1.50. While some items go for a little more ($10 seems to be the upper limit), nearly everything in the store can be had for less than a deuce.

And by everything, I mean eve

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It's easy to nearly walk right by Velouria. It's an unassuming, robin egg blue storefront,, recessed a bit into the turn of the century Ballard building it occupies. But for anyone interested in the indie artisan movement, double back up Market Street if you miss it the first time; Velouria is filled with treasures.

Inspired by the growing interest in handmade, as evidenced by local craft fairs such as I Heart Rummage and Urban Craft Uprising, the success of internet marketplaces such as Etsy and Artfire, and magazines such as MAKE, Velouria's founder, Tes de Luna, has been hand curating the wares sold in her shop for over six years.

Her eye is good—most of the artists and wares de Luna stocks at Velouria are well ahead of the trend curve. It's not surprising to see styles you saw at Velouria months previously make their way, slowly but surely, into the mainstream months later. The

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