Scandinavian Specialties was founded in 1962 as the Norwegian Sausage Company by Mr. Sagland with the goal of bringing its customers the finest quality Scandinavian Foods. Mr. Sagland was a trained butcher from Norway. They operated out of a very small space in Seattle’s Ballard area. Equipment was brought over from Norway to make all the sausages, etc. Mr. Sagland retired in 1980 and the store was purchased by Ruby and Herb Anderson who continued to make the highest quality Scandinavian foods available to the Scandinavian community in Seattle. The Andersons expanded the the product line and added the mail order business which opened up the company's line of Scandinavian Foods and Imports to the entire USA.

In September 2000 the Andersons retired and the store was purchased by Anne-Lise Berger and Ozzie Kvithammer. They already owned a business that imported food and other products from Scandinavia. This company was known as ScanSelect, Inc., and adding a good quality Scandinavian food retail store was the next logical step.

The current owners felt it was time to expand the store and moved to a larger location close by.  A small café was also added and now Scandinavian open faced sandwiches  and yellow pea soup are served 6 days a week.  We offer a full selection of Scandinavian imported foods and in our store you can buy all the homemade goodies as well. The gift items have grown to include Scandinavian Sweaters, Jewelry, Books, Home Décor, and many souvenir type items, and lots of Ole and Lena fun items.

Anne-Lise and Ozzie are very anxious to keep Scandinavian traditions alive in the US and have already added many new products to the list of hundreds of products.

We carry a full line of Scandinavian Food products from Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Finland, in addition to all the Scandinavian Gift items that we are now in the process of adding to our website.