Icky Finks owners Karen and Aaron Kaye reflect on 23 years of work making a variety store into Albany icon

Every day while on lunch break, Karen and Aaron Kaye would sit together on the rear balcony of their small York Street shop and brainstorm what they would do with the empty warehouse across the street if they owned it. The English expats had emigrated to Perth in 1988 and moved to Albany eight years later with their young children, eventually purchasing the Two Buck Shop which Ms Kaye managed. It was while working there that the couple’s dream for Icky Finks emerged, originally envisaged as a larger version of their discount variety store. Named after a pub in London’s east end with a sign hand-painted by one of their daughters, the store opened its doors in 2002 with hay bales used in lieu of shelving as a cost-cutting measure. The summer heat, however, made the shop smell like a farm and had customers leaving their wares at the doors as they left in fits of hayfever-induced sneezing. “My first idea for the store wasn’t my best,” laughed Mr Kaye. “Fortunately, by the time that had happened we had earned enough money to go out and buy our first fixtures. “So we built the business up literally from scratch.” Over the years, the price ceiling of the store gradually lifted as customers requested different sorts of goods until the quality of the Chinese-produced items deteriorated so much that the store was receiving “tennis balls that wouldn’t bounce, ping pong balls that wouldn’t go over the table and corkscrews that snapped when you put them in your wine”. “So with that in mind we thought ‘well, let’s get out of this trade and start upgrading our stuff’, which we did, and that went down exceedingly well,” Mr Kaye said. “People were loving our shop, and we increased our art suppliers and increased our craft until we were then building up a reputation of being an art and craft store rather than a discount variety store.” This suited the couple, who had both studied art and design, down to the bone, as they were able to use their expertise to guide customers in art supply purchases. “We never actually made it as artists at that point because we entered into business, but we’re both still very arty and crafty,” Ms Kaye said. “It certainly did help with selling the product, us knowing what we were talking about.” A steady stream of catchy radio jingles, TV advertisements and newspaper cartoon strips — all featuring the Icky character — as well as the warehouse store’s kitschy nature secured its reputation as an Albany icon. Perth woman Poppy Heeson said the store was the first place she would visit upon arriving in Albany to visit her nana. “It was one of my favourite parts about visiting on the school holidays,” she said. “I used to love going with my nana and grabbing lots of random things.” The Kayes put the business up for sale in 2022, as the effort of having worked almost seven days a week for 20 years caught up to them, but were unable to find any buyers. Now, “two years past the point of exhaustion”, the couple are pulling the pin on the venture, keeping the doors open until most of their stock is sold. “We’ve been getting so many messages from people saying how sad they are to hear we’re closing,” Mr Kaye said. “The community support has been outstanding and so lovely. “The amount of people just coming in and wanting to talk to us and reminisce about old times and how we started, and that type of thing, it has been lovely, and how they brought their grandchildren in here. “I’ve even had people come in and they can recite every word of my TV ad or my radio songs — I’ve even forgotten that.” The pair admit they have no idea what will be next, but are happy to enjoy the last weeks of the store with their tight-knit crew of staff. “We’ll have to see what comes our way,” Mr Kaye said, “We’ve really gone through life like that, standing at the edge of a cliff holding hands and we jump together.”