“We just pulled up,” I said into my phone as Francis and I parked a half block past the hotel’s entrance. “We’re a bit early, but we’d love to check in if that’s possible.” I was squinting at the street parking sign, trying to calibrate the 2-hour parking spot, our 2:40 arrival, and our 6:00 game time into a math solution that worked in our favor. I was unsuccessful.

Francis and I are Yankees fans. We’re from New York, so it’s no surprise our blood runs in pinstripes. For years, we have made the pilgrimage to Seattle to watch the Mariners play the Yanks, staying in cheap, sterile, soulless hotels. Oddly, staying with friends has only worked out once (and that person has moved since). Maybe if we were there to support the Mariners…

This year, we decided to stay in a historic, little hotel in Japantown, with an easy, though dodgy walk to the stadium.

The woman on the phone replied excitedly, “Yes, yes. Is that you in the red car? Listen, there’s someone walking up the street right now that’s having a bit of a hard time, so stay there and give me a second to make sure he’s all right.”

I peered into the passenger rearview mirror and saw a man with low-hanging, well-worn dungarees and a frayed tan work jacket talking to himself as he sloppily weaved his way in our direction.

I liked how she said she wanted to ‘make sure he was all right.’ Her tone wasn’t alarmist or judgmental. It was maternal and proactive for both her incoming guests and the drunk. It’s clear this is something that a small hotel manager in downtown Seattle witnesses often, and I liked that her plan wasn’t just to bark at him to get off her property.

Suddenly more focused on the ticket I knew we’d get if we parked on the street, I said to Francis at the wheel, “Let’s park in the lot instead,” which was right next to us and the hotel.

I walked to the sign describing how to pay online for the lot space, which I did on my phone, and then grabbed my overnight bag from the backseat.

In front of The Panama Hotel’s doorway, there stood a slim woman with red lipstick and curly jet black hair pulled into a bun. Sporadic corkscrew tendrils defiantly danced free from the hairdo like a wild halo. She nodded as she spoke with the scruffy drunk, who then walked across the street, smiling and passed out on a bench. She looked up the block and waved to us.

Booking a hotel is a task I have failed at many times in my life, and I was worried Francis might freak out about this one. Its reviews online are mixed. It’s a historic landmark, built in 1910, with very few updates, so if you’re looking for flashy amenities, this ain’t the place. There are many stairs to climb; the bathrooms are in the hallway, not in the rooms; and a lot of the furniture is original, like from 1910. But I am always interested in weird, bona fide old spots that feel frozen in time. No, that’s a lie. Sometimes I want a big first-class hotel to prove to me that they’ve considered every single molecule of comfort, safety, and ease for a traveler. Sometimes I want to feel spoiled. Sometimes I want to feel rich. Because sometimes traveling is about becoming someone different than who you are. For this simple trip, though, we didn’t need any bells or whistles, and the price and location fit us perfectly.

“It’s right this way,” she said as she held the heavy front door for us. We walked up the two original leatherbound flights of stairs to the main floor with Jan Johnson, the owner/ manager/ history teacher of The Panama Hotel. As we entered the office, her ringtone, Vivaldi’s “The Four Seasons,” blared from her cell – possibly the only modern-day appliance in the building. She gestured for us to sit at the large, paper-strewn dining table she uses as her office desk. Done with her call, she leapt into a lengthy narrative about when the hotel was built, what it was used for, its place in the historic registry, and her purchase of it in 1984 (a monumental task for a single, unwealthy woman).

One by one, I thought of friends and family members who would not have coped well with these surroundings. My mother couldn’t have climbed the entrance stairs, good friends wouldn’t have cared about Jan’s love of the building, a younger me would have rudely rolled my eyes at this 30-minute pre-check-in monologue, and even me at 55 on the wrong day would have been annoyed.

On that day, though, in that moment, I felt like we had found a trunk full of maps to guaranteed hidden treasures. We hadn’t found the gold, we’d found the person who knew where it was. I welcomed this character’s contortion of time and space because it’s so different from my own regimented existence. I could find her passions easily; in this property, in this city, and neighborhood, with a close-knit community looking out for each other. She’s a small business owner in 2025, playing by her own rules as a quirky, spirited caretaker. She doesn’t sugarcoat what to expect about the hotel – she highlights its uniqueness. I was expecting the area to feel scary, and it didn’t because of her watchful eye. I was expecting the hotel to feel dingy, and it felt like a single woman was taking care of something she loves with a small, like-minded staff. I was expecting the manager to be a bit nutty, and she absolutely, positively is.

We were shown to our room, the Chickadee Room, which was lovely with original detailing, art, and antiques (there is a lamp with chickadees painted on the glass shade that is gorgeous!). It’s stuck in time—it’s like Analog Land–there’s no TV and I’m not sure they even had Wifi. Again, it’s not for everyone, but for a brief stay, I’ll take this kind of authenticity over a hotel with Allen wrench bedroom sets that would fail a black light inspection in 2 seconds.

She gave us some maps and recommendations for galleries and museums and bookshops, and restaurants to visit before the game. “Tell ’em Jan sent ya,” she said, again and again. I think she knows every person in Seattle.

Around the 3^rd inning, I got a call from a local number. The screaming crowd made it impossible to hear, so I let it go to voicemail. It was Jan. She said someone on the street just let her know that a red car in the lot was getting a ticket. Dammit, I said under my breath, frustrated but also impressed with her ‘eyes on the street’ community.

I texted back, “I truly hope not because I paid for the space until 12:45 am. We’re at the game now, so there’s nothing we can do. Thanks for letting me know.”

“Enjoy the game!” Jan texted back. And we did.

When we got back to the hotel and the parking lot, the ticket was tucked under the wiper. I had mistyped my license plate number into my phone when I got the space. I knighted myself the stupidest person on the entire planet but eased up eventually. Mistakes happen. At least the Yankees won handily.

The following morning, we had coffee in the tea house on the main floor of The Panama Hotel, which has a handful of colorful regulars who meet for a daily coffee klatch. There was an older woman in a long red overcoat who instantly let us know she’d had a double hip replacement, and her grandson calls her The Bionic Woman. There were a few grey-haired gentlemen whose double espressos didn’t need to be ordered, the barista just knew. There was a cat named Miu Miu who rolled on her back at the foot of my chair, achieving the belly scratch she craved. All the regulars said she was having a very good day, and you trusted their gauge of Miu Miu’s mood because that might be the only thing that changes daily. Her mood and the random hotel guest venturing down for a latte and a scone.

Ready to hit the road, we were unable to find Jan to return the key to our room, so we gave it to the barista.

I was just clicking my seatbelt shut when Jan knocked on our car window.

“I’m so glad I caught you!” She said, grinning and waving papers in her hand.

I said, “We just gave the key to the barista. Thank you so much for…”

She batted her hand like she couldn’t have cared less about the key. “I called the people from the parking lot where you got the ticket. I think you wrote the wrong license number on the form when you got the space, so that’s why they tagged it. Anyway, she said it happens from time to time, and if you have the receipt, she’ll void the ticket.” She handed us a small stack of torn scratch papers, with the name and number of the parking lot owners and various scribbles of information all over. “I didn’t want you to leave Seattle with a bad feeling.”

How perfect is it that I got a ticket due to a cell phone blunder while visiting analog land? And then it was solved by communication with real people? The ticket was dismissed, and my faith in humanity was restored. Thank you, Jan and The Panama Hotel, for making us feel seen in an anonymous key-drop world. 

Many people over the years have said that I should run a B&B, mostly because of the pastries I’ve baked. I don’t know if I have the temperament to pull it off. My patience has its limitations. But I’ll keep baking and see what happens. Here’s something I’m serving at a brunch soon. It’s special because it’s not a buttery pastry, but a sweet focaccia. Trust me, you won’t miss the butter because the focaccia is so pillowy soft and delicious. Enjoy!

And if you are serving this for breakfast, you can make the dough the night before. Let it rise in the fridge after making the dough and then pound it down, let is rise for another 30 minutes, cover it with streuesel and berries and bake!

Sweet Focaccia with Cinnamon Streusel and Fresh Berries

Makes 2 10×5 inch loaves

Focaccia Recipe

• 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons water, warm but not hot
• 1 tablespoon yeast
• 1 teaspoon honey
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 3 ¼ cups all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons salt

1. In a large bowl, or the bowl of a kitchen aid mixer fit with a paddle, mix the water with the yeast and the honey. Let it sit for 5 minutes for the yeast to bloom (it will get foamy).
2. Add the olive oil, the flour and the salt and mix until it comes together. Then knead on a board for 10 minutes or with the paddle for 5 minutes. Oil the bowl lightly with olive oil and coat the dough ball for rising. If you’re baking this for breakfast the following day, this is when the dough goes into the fridge.
3. Cover the bowl and let the dough rise for an hour. Punch down and let rise another hour.
4. On a lightly floured board, cut the dough in half. Press each piece down into two rectangles that are about 10 inches by 5 inches and transfer them onto a baking sheet. Let rise for 30 minutes.
5. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Prepare the streusel:

Streusel Ingredients

• 4 tablespoons unsalted butter
• ¼ cup brown sugar
• ¼ cup white granulated sugar
• ¼ cup all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons cinnamon
• ½ teaspoon nutmeg
• ¼ teaspoon cloves
• pinch of salt

• 2 pints of berries (I used 1 pint each of raspberries and blackberries)

1. With your fingertips, blend the butter with the rest of the ingredients until it’s well mixed and there are no big pieces of butter.
2. Sprinkle the streusel onto the risen dough on the sheet pans and then press the berries on top of the streuseled dough.
3. Bake in the preheated oven for 25 minutes.

And here is a clip of me making this sweet focaccia on KATU’s Afternoon Live. Click on the picture to watch.