Bush Garden, a storied Seattle classic for karaoke and community, is set to return to the Chinatown International District at last, owner Karen Akada Sakata has announced. After a two-year delay, there’s no exact date set, but she hopes to reopen the Japanese restaurant, bar and meeting place in a new space at Eighth Avenue South and South King Street as soon as this coming March.
“It’s taken quite a while,” Sakata said, “but we’re so close now.”
The new space, just a few blocks away from Bush Garden’s longtime former location on Sixth and Maynard, is on the ground floor of Uncle Bob’s Place, an affordable housing development. It is named after CID community leader and unofficial mayor Bob Santos, a Filipino American activist who fought against gentrification and displacement in the neighborhood.
The new Bush Garden will accommodate 140 guests, adjoining the Bob Santos Community Room with a retracting wall allowing it to open into a larger space for community events, meetings and celebrations. Plans include the restaurant and a full bar — and, of course, karaoke at night.
Previously, the restaurant planned to reopen in 2024. The source of the delay, Sakara said, has been “a combination of things,” including “on the contracting side, getting the numbers, being able to (get) the funding.” The Bob Santos Community Room is all set and looks great, she said, and now the kitchen for the restaurant is being outfitted.
“It’s a unique opportunity to bring back to the neighborhood — and to the city — a space like Bush Garden … what it meant to so many people,” Sakata said. She counts herself “lucky to grow up in a city where we could have a place like Bush Garden throughout our lives.”
Bush Garden closed down on Maynard during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, after that building had changed hands. Known for its gardenlike foyer, pagoda-roofed bar and decadeslong pioneering karaoke scene, the place fostered community culture as local politicians, neighbors and fans from across Seattle met and sang there together. This isn’t its first move: Founded by Kaichi Seko and family at the Bush Hotel on Jackson Street in the CID in 1953, Bush Garden relocated to Maynard in 1957.
Sakata started going to the restaurant with her family as a child, then worked there in high school as a busser and later as a karaoke host. She married Bush Garden sushi chef Masaharu Sakata in 1999, became one of the owners and then took sole ownership for the place’s last four years.
For many years, Bush Garden also functioned as “Uncle Bob” Santos’ after-hours office. He was a karaoke regular, along with his wife, Sharon Tomiko Santos; she was known for a very fine rendition of Sade’s “Smooth Operator,” while he performed Sinatra winningly. Santos continued to be a Bush Garden fixture until his death at age 82 in 2016; Sharon Tomiko Santos continues her role as a member of the Washington House of Representatives.
Now, Sakara said, “The next generations (will) have something like Bush Garden to go to, too.” With the last years at the former location functioning as a bar only, Sakara is intent upon creating a family-friendly new space — especially welcoming elders, which she now considers herself.
Sakara said Bush Garden will once again be “a space for everybody … for activities, for the neighborhood, for the community.” They will, she said, “do what we did before, and maybe a little more.”
“Things just take longer than you think,” Sakara said.
Bethany Jean Clement: 206-464-2050 or bclement@seattletimes.com. On Facebook at bethany.jean.clement and on Instagram @bethanyjeanclement. Clement has written about food, restaurants and the people and cultures intrinsic to them for The Seattle Times since 2014.
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