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Ever since getting here I've wondered why there are *so* many teriyaki joints in and around Seattle. This Seattle Weekly article goes into great detail:

Food: How Teriyaki Became Seattle's Own Fast-Food Phenomenon (Seattle Weekly): "Nothing seems to stop the exponential growth of teriyaki shops in Seattle and its surrounding environs, including market saturation. To wit, the Washington Restaurant Association recently generated a list of all the restaurants in its master database with "teriyaki" in the name, listed by date of entry. As of 1984, the database contained 19 (that is, restaurants still in business). That number doubled by 1987. In the mid-1990s, 20 to 40 teriyaki joints appear to have been opening every year, and the database now contains 519 listings statewide (there are more than 100 teriyaki shops within Seattle's city limits alone)—which doesn't include restaurants that favor "Bento," "Wok," or "Deli" over "Teriyaki" in their titles.

And that's far from the extent of the dish's omnipresence. Pho shops pad their menus with chicken teriyaki. Asian-operated burger joints like Herfy's, Stan's and Dome Burger all feature teriyaki dishes. A Somali cafe down in Tukwila that I reviewed last month offered halal chicken teriyaki; not to mention sushi restaurants, even ultratraditional ones, which offer teriyaki chicken and beef on their menus—something (surprise) you'd never see in Japan."