After 53 Years, Buck's Spices Is Closing Its Olympia Storefront

One of the oldest independent shops in downtown Olympia is closing.

Buck's Spices, at 209 5th Ave SE, will close its physical store at the end of July 2026 after 53 years in the same historic building.

Anne Buck opened the shop in 1973 as "Bucks Fifth Avenue." A single-location, family-run specialty store in downtown Olympia. She ran it for decades.

Anne's son, Beau Buck, took over the business in 2019 and has been running it since. He's the one making the call to close the storefront.

Per the family, a smaller online catalog will continue after the physical store closes. So the brand doesn't disappear, but the storefront does.

Buck's Spices is exactly the kind of business a downtown loses when nobody's paying attention. It's not a chain. It's not on Amazon. It's the reason a certain kind of person planned their trip through downtown Olympia. When that kind of shop closes, the walkable downtown gets a little less interesting.

They're open through the end of the month at 209 5th Ave SE, Olympia. Go buy a jar of something. Support the family. Tell them thanks for 53 years.

Real estate note: downtown Olympia has been slowly recovering the small-business density it had before 2020. Buck's Spices closing isn't part of that story, this is a family decision, not a market signal. But it does mean 209 5th Ave SE will be an open storefront in a corridor that could really use a strong replacement tenant.