Seattle karaoke classic Bush Garden reopens soon - here's a look inside

Get your celebratory song picked out - Bush Garden will survive! After a pandemic closure and multiple delays, the Seattle classic for karaoke, community and Japanese food is at last set to make its comeback next month.

The grand reopening of Bush Garden is nigh, with a ribbon-cutting ceremony taking place at 3 p.m. on June 3. The restaurant and bar will be open every day but Tuesday, with happy hour, dinner until 9 p.m., and a late-night menu to go along with karaoke from 9:30 p.m. to 1 a.m.

The new location for the beloved Chinatown International District institution is just a few blocks from its previous incarnation, and while the style is vastly different, longtime fans may still experience goose bumps. Simple and elegant, the room honors the past with graceful shoji screens and ranma transom carvings brought from the former space. Over the bar is the same decorative irimoya roof as before, transplanted to Bush Garden's new home, and a flat-screen TV awaits to unspool lyrics for karaoke.

"I'm excited for Bush to be back in the neighborhood," bar manager Carmelita Valenzuela said on site last week. "It's been a very, very missed place to come hang out, especially late night and karaoke."

At the bar, cocktails like The Gang of Four - whiskey, soy sauce, orange and Angostura bitters - will be served. The drinkhonors local civil rights leaders Bob Santos, Roberto Maestas, Bernie Whitebear and Larry Gossett, who together worked for the greater good of their diverse communities.

Santos sangFrankSinatra at the old Bush Garden, and his signature drink is on the new menu, too: a Wild Turkey with a mini-Miller High Life.Also known as Uncle Bob," Santos remained a Bush Garden fixture until his death at age 82 in 2016. His wife, Sharon Tomiko Santos, is currently a member of the Washington House of Representatives and has been known to do a very fine rendition of Sade's "Smooth Operator."

The Filipino American activist who fought against gentrification and displacement in theCIDis depicted, microphone in hand, in the new Bush Garden entryway - on the ground floor of Uncle Bob's Place, an affordable housing development and community hub named in tribute to him.

"We couldn't make it the same," owner Karen Akada Sakata said at the new location as preparations for the opening continued all around. "So, we wanted to make it as welcoming as we could - intergenerational, (for) family, and singing, and community activism." The new Bush Garden is open to all, with a cordoned-off bar area; Sakata is making plans for all-ages-friendly daytime karaoke, and eventually the restaurant will open up to the adjacent Bob Santos Community Room for neighborhood events, meetings and celebrations.

"I want for the next generation to know what that feels like to have a place like that - and not just our community, but it going out much broader than that," Sakata said.

She pointed out gilt-edged mosaics on the floor paying tribute to Santos' love of salmon, his favorite dessert and his pastime of boxing (with "JUSTICE" across one glove). More imagery, as Sakata showed, represents longtime neighborhood organizations the Danny Woo Community Garden and the International District Emergency Center.

Sakata said she hopes Bush Garden "has the energy that's welcoming to all, and showing the diversity of our neighborhood, and how rich a place it is for all of us.

"It's something that Seattle has to offer that I think is special," she said.

In the gleaming kitchen, Bush Garden chefs Ed Tang and Alisha Davis spoke of some of their favorite dishes on their new menu. Tang, whose résumé includes Mikado Teppanyaki, Nijo Sushi and Uwajimaya, is a particular fan of the salmon with Japanese white miso. "It's just a great dish," he said, "especially here in the Northwest." He mentioned the sukiyaki as well: "home cooking," he said, "the warm cooking."

"The sukiyaki is definitely something that we're very excited to bring back," Davis, of Tigers Eye pop-ups, agreed. "It's such an emblem of Bush Garden, and bringing it back with us into the new location - it honors the old tradition." Historically, she pointed out, sukiyaki was "essentially a fusion dish … something that brought more people in and was a good bridge to understanding Japanese food."

As one of Seattle's first Japanese American restaurants, Bush Garden needed that bridge. Founded by Kaichi Seko and family at the Bush Hotel on Jackson Street in the CID in 1953, Bush Garden relocated to its space on Maynard in 1957. There, it became known for its gardenlike foyer, private tatami rooms and comfortable bar that hosted a pioneering, decadeslong karaoke scene. Along with honorary CID mayor Santos, local politicians, neighbors and fans from across Seattle met, sang countless songs and sometimes danced among the tables there together.

That Bush Garden closed down during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, after the building had changed hands.

Fans worried it was gone forever, but Sakata was not about to let Bush Garden die - her ties to the place are strong ones. She'd started going to the restaurant with her family as a child; she began working there in high school as a busser, later hosting karaoke. She married Bush Garden sushi chef Masaharu Sakata in 1999, became one of the owners and then eventually took sole ownership.

Sakata originally hoped to reopen in 2024, but delays ensued, including on the contracting side and with funding. "Things just take longer than you think," Sakata said at the end of 2025.

Once they get the laser disc karaoke up and running for enka, a genre of classic Japanese songs, Sakata's planning to sing one that she says Santos always wanted to learn: "Kawa no Nagare no You ni by Hibari Misora. The title translates to "Like the Flow of the River," and the lyrics use that as a metaphor for the unpredictable journey of life, practicing acceptance and continuing to chase your dreams. "It's a beautiful song," Sakata said.

It's a song that reflects Bush Garden's own journey - twists and turns, and now its return as the culmination of a dream to continue serving the CID and Seattle for as long as possible.

"I'm excited about people coming in and filling the space with the energy that we had before," Sakata said. "Maybe they never went to the old one, but I want them to be able to experience what that felt like."

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