Panties and hula hoops. Crepes and plants. Jewelry and live music. Tintype photography and cold brew coffee.
You maybe, just maybe, could find a big box store with all of that under one roof. You definitely won't get such a shopping experience on Amazon. You'll never find another store like it featuring the goods of only Kalamazoo area entrepreneurs and makers.
Main & Drake has been holding weekend makers' markets at a Westwood Plaza (4606 W. Main St., Kalamazoo) storefront since Sept. 4. Market organizer Melissa Al-Azzawi says she hopes that it will be a source of gifts for holiday shoppers during their Holiday Market weekends of December.
If you see the gift you're looking for don't put off picking it up. With a revolving selection of merchants and products each weekend, it might not be there next time. This is the place to find unique and local gifts for those on your list.
The December Main & Drake Holiday Market hours are Fridays 4 p.m.-8 p.m., Saturdays 10 a.m.-6 p.m., Sundays noon-4 p.m. Closed Christmas weekend.
"You come in and get something special, interesting--you look at it and you say, 'this is totally my wife,'" Al-Azzawi says. And with each item, "there's a story there, there's a family in your neighborhood that's making these." You're giving a story, and a bit of the community when giving something made by locals.
And, obviously, "you're keeping your money in your community.”
Pop-Up Selling
Al-Azzawi is selling something more than Kalamazoo-made gifts. She's selling the pop-up shop model.
Along with co-founder Bailey Mead, she began the Handmade Kalamazoo pop-up shop in November 2012. They sold local products and art in Vine neighborhood and downtown Kalamazoo spaces.
She heard a lot of interest from others about pop-ups, questions about how one could do their own shop.
Opening a long-term storefront is impossible for most makers who are just getting started. "It comes down to money. It's expensive, and taking the risk is something that a lot of people aren't willing to do," Al-Azzawi says. "It takes everything that they have, financially, to have their own space."
Pop-ups have their unique advantages, and challenges.
Handmade Kalamazoo worked with Thomas Huff of Peregrine Reality to rent vacant spaces on a short-term basis. They could get cheaper rent than the typical two-to-five-year lease, but still had insurance costs, utilities and the other expenses of long-term storefronts to deal with.
She learned that they had to move fast, be ready to enter a space, and to find a new one when the time came.
Also, "you have to create a following in the community that understands you'll be moving around." Social media is an essential means to let customers know where a shop is at.
Potential Kalamazoo pop-up shop owners need to know "what the consumers want and how they want it. I think that what they're interested in is knowing the story of the people behind the products," she says.
To gather the people, products and stories under one roof, Al-Azzawi worked with Treystar Development, owner of the Westwood Plaza. Main & Drake opened in the former space of Mackenzies Bakery (now at the other end of the shopping center) the first weekend in September.
Each maker gets 100 square feet for $500 a month, $160 for a weekend or $20-$60 for table space.
It all goes directly to Treystar rent. "We don't make anything. I'm basically volunteering my time and resources to market and promote it for the greater good of the group," Al-Azzawi says.
Main & Drake serves as a place for makers and small businesses to try it for themselves. It's "all about community-building," in a space where customers, makers and sellers are "friends and neighbors."
Meet The Neighbors
Kori Jock calls herself the "Cheek Executive Officer" of La Vie en Orange, "Handmade undies that put a party in your pants." On a late November Friday at Main & Drake she was selling her brightly-colored (under) wares in a booth shared with Shani Blueford's
Emerge and Circulate, custom made hula hoops and hoop arts workshops.
They work together, selling each other's products. Teaming up makes sense, since "I hear that hoops grip better to bare skin, so a lot of hoopers, like you see on Instagram, will be in undies," Jock says, laughing.
The two had been selling at the Kalamazoo Farmers Market in the summer. Main & Drake gives them more room to sell their whole line. "And it's heated!" Jock says with another big laugh. "And there's such a great energy with all the different vendors and makers here."
Blueford shows a little toddler the ways of the hoop while another Farmers Market regular, Crepes by the Lakes fills the space with the smell of their product.
We had to wait for Daniel Juzwiak to finish his crepe before he could speak. He and wife Kara Aubin are Kara|Daniel Jewelry. Juzwiak has been making jewelry since 1989, and, in collaboration with Aubin, for the past ten years has been selling
high-end jewelry way beyond the Kalamazoo market
"We sell things all throughout the world, but I don't think that a majority of the people right here (in Kalamazoo) know that we even exist," he says. They on the Internet, travel the summer art fair circuit around the region and have a display area in their downtown studio--but have never had a storefront.
"It's been fantastic. We've met an incredible amount of people who've just stopped by," he says.
It's a more-human way to connect with customers. He feels it's all about "supporting the individual rather than the corporate.... You don't get that at Amazon or Best Buy."
Every weekend there's something different, Al-Azzawi points out. Eric Hennig of Vague Photography has done old-fashioned tintype portraits on-site, where people could see the images slowly appear on the plates like 1880's Polaroids.
Artist Bonus Saves painted his whimsical bunnies on the space's wall while selling t-shirts and art. Local acoustic musicians often performed in the lounge space up front.
New and seasoned sellers rub elbows. Though Beer and Skittles has their store in Richland on Gull Lake, they've opened a Main & Drake booth to give Kalamazoo fans of their old Whites Road store another taste of their specialty foods selection.
Opposite them is Pam's Petals, Pam Coffiy's brand-new business selling flowers and plants. She was getting advice from Al-Azzawi on her first day at Main & Drake.
Al-Azzawi wants the space to be a networking/learning experience. "Having a group of small businesses and creative entrepreneurs has given us a chance to support each other when it comes to merchandising, promotion and advertising."
New people are learning from the seasoned, and vise versa, Karen Matson says. She, an artist in jewelry, fabric and illustrations, was selling with husband
Jeff Matson, a woodworker in cutting boards, kitchen utensils and furniture.
"The cool thing that I love about this place--Jeff and I have been making art for gazillions of years, it seems like--I love the fact that there are new, young people who are just getting started," she says.
"I mean, panties and hula hoops! Best crepes in town! I just love the mix, the demographic. Incubate!" Matson declares.
Mark Wedel has been a freelance journalist in Southwest Michigan since 1992.
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