Big Top Curiosity Shop

Big Top Curiosity Shop is a strange and unique store that resides in Seattle’s South Park neighborhood.

Inside this haven for the strange and bizarre is a collection of items that’ll make visitors gasp and ponder their reality. On the shelves of Big Top Curiosity Shop are bug specimens enclosed in glass cases, rare collectible comics, and fascinating taxidermy specimens. Every wall and stand is packed full of hard to find collectibles, even a few with grim origins, such as a prison form signed by serial killer Gary Ridgway. 

One of the shop’s more interesting items is the Duwamish Mermaid, which has drawn comparisons to the more-famous Fiji Mermaid. There is also a glass case inside the shop that houses a single molar, said to have fallen right out the mouth of a Bigfoot-like creature. There are drawers overflowing with teeth and a cyclops skull if you have a little room on your bookcase at home.  

Amid this wonderful collection of strangeness, there is also a colorful, and almost endless, collection of circus memorabilia. The shop hopes to dispell the notion of the “scary clown.” There is a vast selection of clown art, very popular throughout the 1970s and 1980s, for visitors to add to their own curiosity cave. 

The overall goal of Big Top Curiosity Shop is to reinvigorate the world with the innocence of curiosity, and to turn a few frowns upside down in the process. 

Update: The Big Top Curiosity Shop closed in March 2024.