Salsa Gardens and Home Decor: 'A Southwestern Pier 1'

At the southern edge of Columbia, a home decor store sells wares found deep in the heart of Texas and beyond.
Salsa Gardens and Home Decor offers talavera pottery, chimeneas, statues of desert critters and an assortment of other Tex-Mex-style furnishings and yard ornaments, including Toro, a 4-foot-tall scrap metal bull who greets customers in the parking lot out front. The 2,400-square-foot shop, located across from Angelo’s Pizza and Steak House on Providence Road, is overflowing with handmade items ranging in price from $15 to $300.

Owner Kim Vesecky, who was born in Springfield, Mo., but spent most of her life in Texas, describes Salsa Gardens as a “Southwestern Pier 1.”
“There’s nothing like it here,” she said. “You don’t walk into a town in Missouri and see a store that’s Texas-like.”
The idea to open Salsa Gardens came to Vesecky five years ago when she moved to Columbia and married her husband, Jim. As a stay-at-home mom with 16 years of retail and management experience, Vesecky felt the urge to get out of the house and start her own business.
“I have a sign on my counter that says, ‘My barn, my rules,’” she said. “That’s what I like.”
After accompanying her parents, who own a similar store in Delaware, on a buying trip to Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, Vesecky decided to come back with her husband and go on a shopping spree. Three semi loads later, the couple returned to Columbia and opened Salsa Gardens last July.
Since then, business has been growing steadily, with repeat customers who make special requests for Vesecky to buy certain items in Mexico, such as fountains and armadillo knickknacks, and folks who like to look around and talk Longhorn football. Vesecky and her husband plan to hire a few part-time employees and are considering the idea of franchising.
After a year of being in business, Vesecky still appreciates the flexibility her job provides; it allows her to bring her dogs to work and take time off whenever she wants, such as when her granddaughter was born in May. Most of all, she enjoys interacting with customers and sharing in their excitement about all things Texas.
“People come up and hug me and say: ‘Thank you! We love this stuff. It reminds us of home,’” she said. “It’s really neat.”