Scandinavian Specialties

Seattle's last Scandinavian grocer, Scandinavian Specialties began in 1962 as the Norwegian Sausage Company, opened in the Ballard neighborhood by Alf Sagland, a trained Norwegian butcher who shipped his sausage equipment over from home.

The shop passed through Ruby and Herb Anderson and then the ScanSelect importers Anne-Lise Berger and Ozzie Kvithammer before coming, in the autumn of 2017, to Berger's son Bjorn Ruud, who runs the store and its small cafe of open-faced sandwiches and yellow pea soup alongside a Nordic pantry of tinned fish, crispbread, and imported groceries.