We were lucky to catch up with Daniel & Julie Sas recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Daniel & Julie, thanks for joining us today. We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.

So my wife and I moved to Seattle in Sept 2019 from Minneapolis to work at Blue Geisha Tattoos, the main shop in West Seattle. And unfortunately shortly after COVID hit and shut everything down. Such a big shop like many others didn’t last during the pandemic and had to close down permanently. We all took the necessary time off and in Sept 2020 we set up a private studio in WS still trying to abide by the COVID guidelines. But I had always wanted to open a shop and kept my eyes open for potential locations. And suddenly it happened over the course of a weekend. We found the perfect spot on Friday, met with and confirmed the location over the weekend and were signing the lease by Monday. So a year after opening the private studio in Sept 2021 we closed down the studio and opened up West Seattle Tattoo in Oct. We have more artists now but we originally wanted to hire one more person and the man who hired us at Blue Geisha as his last hires ended up being our first hire here at WST. We really filled the need here as so many shops had closed and in WS there really weren’t many options, definitely not for walk-ins since everything was mostly by appointment. But we really wanted to bring back the street shop with not only custom tattoos but walk-ins and fun tattoo games. It’s been a year and a half and already have that reputation. Excited to see it grow and evolve.

Daniel & Julie, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

So we, Daniel & Julie, have both been tattooing since 2009. We started in different cities, me in Vancouver CAN and her in Minneapolis MN. We both grew up in very religious homes and struggled to find our path in life until tattooing found us. I studied to be a priest before getting into tattooing and Julie went a Christian college as well before doing a cosmetology degree. Ever since we started tattooing we both have had more motivation and drive than ever before in our lives. She remained in MN while after 4 years in Vancouver and winning my first 1st place convention trophy decided to pack a suitcase and go traveling around the world to tattoo. I got through a good chunk of Europe where I was born until I made the decision to come back to the states because my mother wasn’t doing well. I worked in a few cities like Miami, LA, Vancouver & Toronto before going to Minneapolis in 2017 to be closer to family. And that where we met and started dating. We are both confident tattooers and becoming a couple really sharpened both our skill sets as iron sharpens iron. We stayed in MN before moving to Seattle and had a private studio there as well before the move. So we really grew together as tattooers and professionals once we teamed up and took both our careers to the next level. We just love making art for a living and being our own bosses. And when we opened up WST it was to make the most comfortable tattoo shop for tattooers because we wanted to have the perfect work environment. And we knew that if artists liked it, clients would LOVE it – and that they do. We have won convention trophies in Minneapolis and now in Seattle as well. We get traveling clients and tourists as well as locals every week.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

Well we have had several moments like this most of which being pivoting during the pandemic and opening the shop – but we already told that story. Another big one would be when we lived in MN together and had finally decided to start working in the same shop together out of convenience as we did not originally when I moved there. And once we started working together at the mutual shop they announced they were closing down in a month. We had no idea what we were going to do but we made a fast plan to visit some shops in Seattle because we wanted to move there. We went and got a job in 2018 at Blue Geisha Tattoo as mentioned but we waited a year to make the move until 2019. We did that so we could wrap up our clients in MN as well as prepare for the move. So we quickly set up our first ever private studio where we did good business working for ourselves for the first time in the year of transition. We came back to WS for a guest spot half way through that year to plant some seeds and before you knew it we closed down our studio, packed all our belongings and made the move out west to Seattle. The rest is history. It was not easy and very stressful for Julie has she has never moved out of state before. But I had done it many times and was familiar with how to get jobs in other cities already. So with a very calculated plan we executed what became the best decision of our lives to start new in West Seattle which proved to be even more fruitful later.

How’d you meet your business partner?

So I moved to Minneapolis to be closer to my mother who was ill at the time and I had gotten a job at a busy street shop which is always the plan when you’re new in town. I had found out that I had replaced a really talented artist named Julie who had moved to a more clientele based shop since she had really becoming a heavy hitter tattooer at that time and didn’t need walk-ins as much anymore. We were both transitioning and just missed each other. I don’t ever give out fake compliments so when I compliment a tattoo I really mean it. And I had complimented 2 really nice tattoos at the new shop not knowing they were both done by her so I already admired her as an artist which is huge for me. I don’t think I could date a bad artist haha. But everyone used to tell me that the girl who’s spot I took was really really good and since we sort of had the same group of friends we ended up meeting. The rest just fell into place and grew very organically. Almost immediately friends of ours like the shop owner who hired me and was still a good friend of Julie’s always called us a power couple. It was super flattering and always made us blush because we really just felt like we found our soul mates.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.westseattletattoo.com
• Instagram: @westseattletattoo @mr_sasink @mrs_sasink
• Other: Google West Seattle Tattoo for our long list of great reviews