Gus Sako said he was “protected by ignorance” when he opened Octopus’ Garden nearly 50 years ago in Richland’s Uptown Shopping Center. With a straight face, the owner of the quirky shop said that when he was born, his parents held a party and the village witch cast a curse on him that he’d spend his life working in retail.

That’s how the interview about this beloved Richland mainstay began and it didn’t get more analytical than that.

Joking aside – which is hard to do with Sako, who’s got both a quick wit and a dry sense of humor evident in nearly every response – the shop has remained solvent for almost five decades, quite a feat when many local and national retailers struggle to keep up with rising costs and the challenges posed by online retailers.

Quick to downplay his role, Sako sums it up by saying, “I never lost quite enough money to consider closing.”

Octopus’ Garden is both a gift shop and a Tri-Cities tourist attraction, selling greeting cards, incense, T-shirts, metal lunch boxes, snarky coffee mugs, magnets, board games, tarot cards, jewelry, bobble heads, local souvenirs, cat wall clocks – you get the picture.

But don’t try nailing Sako down on describing the store to someone who’s never been: “I tell them it’s long and narrow and better lit than it used to be.”

Gail Malin, a customer who’s been shopping the store for years, said, “I come in a lot, and I buy cards and also these cute little coasters that are nice to put in with a card when you’re sending something instead of a full gift. It’s a good place to come. You’re probably going to find something you won’t find anywhere else.”

Oldest in Uptown

Now that Richland’s Spudnut has transferred ownership, Sako may be the longest original owner at the Uptown. He couldn’t confirm that but also couldn’t think of someone who might eclipse him on that 49-year mark.

“I think most of that runs on luck,” Sako said. “I’ve seen people far smarter and far better at retail than me not make it for a variety of circumstances. I think I’d have it figured out by now.”

He has figured out some of the quirky items to stock that also drive people through the door, including Sonny Angel and Smiski HIPPERS. Never heard of those? You must not be in the market for a variety of mini figurines that stick to your monitor, desk or phone.

Sako has a hard time keeping them in stock and limits the quantities customers can buy when he gets a shipment in. Shoppers in the know learn of the drops through the store’s Instagram account. Sako says items like this are always on order, but the suppliers can’t always get them in.

Started as plant shop

Octopus’ Garden has been in the same spot at 1327 George Washington Way for nearly all of its existence. It started as a plant shop on the mezzanine of JCPenney when the department store was at the north end of the outdoor shopping plaza in the 1970s, now occupied by Adventures Underground.

“Houseplants were extremely popular then,” Sako said. “I thought I knew everything about them.”

He had visited some plant shops while at the University of Washington in Seattle and used his “life savings” to open the shop.

“After my first year in school, I had this weird desire to have a business. It was strictly planned out,” he laughed.

Houseplants led to pottery and some quality wicker baskets to put plants in.

“That kind of led into other things,” Sako said. “And then there were some greeting card add-ons. It’s a slippery slope once you’re dealing with card companies. It’s a natural evolution. Every business will eventually sell whoopee cushions.”

A “radioactive mutation” of his indoor plant shop into what it is today took about a decade and a move to its current location.

One might say greeting cards are having a moment and their recent resurgence has benefited independent companies, many of which can be found at the Richland store.

“We find things that resonate for us and hope somebody else likes them also,” Sake said.

Octopus’ Garden customer Linda Maina said she frequently looks at jewelry and cards but had no idea what she was shopping for when she visited the store recently. “Anything cool. Something unique; it all describes me,” she laughed. “I want everything.”

One of Octopus’ Garden’s biggest sellers is incense.

“We’ve worked really hard to have a wide quality and selection,” Sako said.

At a low price point, incense still adds up for his bottom line.

“It’s like a dollar here, a dollar there,” though Sako doesn’t keep meticulous notes. “I’m sure the computer could do the math for me, but I guess I never cared to look.”

Gus Sako stands inside the Octopus’ Garden, which is both a gift shop and a Tri-Cities tourist attraction, selling greeting cards, incense, T-shirts, metal lunchboxes, snarky coffee mugs, magnets, board games, tarot cards, jewelry, bobble heads, local souvenirs, cat wall clocks – you get the picture.

| Photo by Robin Wojtanik

You get the feeling there’s no spreadsheets or strategy to his success, which he repeatedly chalks up to luck. A typical response to inquiries about how he stays relevant in 2025 is, “See, there’s another data point that somebody who’s smart would know.”

Shooting from the hip has seemed to work all these years, including back in 1976 when the new plant store needed a name.

“I just had to have something to put on forms and my friends were not helpful, but we were all big Beatles fans, so, yeah, that works.”

The Beatles released the song, “Octopus’s Garden” in 1969 on their Abbey Road album. The song is said to be about the way octopuses collect shiny objects to build gardens on the sea floor – a fitting description for today’s shop seemingly named on a lark by a then 18-year-old focused strictly on plants.

Lunafish

Sako opened a second retail store, Lunafish, in 2011, just a couple storefronts to the south of Octopus’ Garden. Both are held by the same property owner and management company Sako has leased from for nearly five decades. He blames slim margins for making it unrealistic that he could ever own the property himself.

Lunafish opened as a women’s boutique and shifted a bit during the Covid-19 pandemic.

“We were dealing with companies committed to philanthropy or giving back to different communities and stuff. And we realized it was really satisfying, so we started switching over. Most of the clothing (we sell) is fair trade, or there’s something else going on like a small, woman-owned company.”

Sako said there’s been quite a learning curve but credits his store manager to being the “genius” behind it.

While he’s usually at Octopus’ Garden, he sometimes fills in behind the counter at Lunafish.

“They prefer not to have me over here because I do a lot of, ‘Hey, where’s this?’ or ‘What did you do with that?’ It was even funnier when it was mostly women’s clothing because I’d get the occasional, ‘Be honest about how this looks,’ or somebody would ask me to match colors. Look at what I’m wearing and reconsider who you’re asking,” he said.

Not without challenges

Nearly 50 years on for the original shop, it hasn’t always been smooth sailing for the Octopus’ Garden, though Sako said he wasn’t always aware at the time.

“It’s been dire, but I think a lot of those times I didn’t realize it until looking back. You just knuckle down and eat more Top Ramen. I think there were times people smarter than I would have closed instead of being stubborn,” he said.

He attributes his ability to navigate the past decades to his stubbornness mixed with the personal identity he has wrapped up in the shop.

Sako has about nine employees working various part-time hours, but he’s the one you’ll typically see behind the counter much of the time.

“I still enjoy the people I work with and 99% of the people who come in are people who are fun to deal with,” he said.

Some of the plants in the front windows that look out onto George Washington Way are original to the shop in its original space, and Sako even has customers who own plants they bought from him decades ago.

While that feels impressive to an outsider, he shrugs it off with a phrase that might serve as his business model: “After the first 20 years, I guess you’ve figured it out and it’s probably still going to work.”

Octopus’ Garden: 1327 George Washington Way, Richland; 509-946-0077, octopusgarden.com.