Count me in a someone who was happy to have an entire extra week between Thanksgiving and the first of December. I heard on the radio recently that this year has the largest possible number of days between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Count me in as pleased. Here’s a few things coming up I wanted to [...]
Read more →
A blue, brick wall. A white door. An understated sign. Although they are on Fore Street, in a prime location, it would be easy just to walk right past. Don’t do it. Open the white door and go inside: stepping into Lovely Things was the best surprise I’ve had in some time. You should open [...]
Read more →
I’m going to be blunt. I was pretty dismissive of Shipwreck & Cargo before I walked in the door. There is a review on Yelp that kind of sums up my misgivings about even going inside: “It’s a tourist trap that definitely caters to the cruise ship crowd. It has your typical assortment of tees, [...]
Read more →
My inside voice always subtitles Blanche & Mimi with the words “that great baby store” although it’s not really true — they certainly have a wide assortment of treasures that aren’t related to babies in the least. It’s just that, whenever I have a baby-shower related need (now that my own baby has grown tall [...]
Read more →
I’m often suspicious of businesses with ‘Maine’ in the name. Often they’re not much more than tourist traps, putting a ‘Buy Local’ veneer on shoddily-made, mass-produced products. Maine’s Pantry, however, is a notable exception to that rule. On of the founding businesses of the original Portland Public Market, Maine’s Pantry moved to it’s current Commercial [...]
Read more →
Why drumming squirrels? Diane Toepfer, the genius behind Ferdinand, explains that when she and her husband moved here from California, they were told by locals that they could tell how bad the winter was going to be by how fat the squirrels were. Which led her to thinking about squirrels needing tiny sweaters. And she [...]
Read more →
I have a confession to make. I’ve walked or driven past Ember Grove probably ten dozen times, and have always been laboring under the misconception that it’s some kind of new age gift shop. I could not have been more wrong. Ember Grove is, instead, one of the most interesting and well-curated galleries of handmade [...]
Read more →
Long before Etsy, before the kitchen-craft explosion, before, in fact, the Old Port was cool, there was Abacus Gallery. The Portland location is the second of four locations statewide (it opened in 1984) and has, for all that time, been one of the premier venues for artisans and craftspeople from around the country to sell [...]
Read more →
If you have to pick one business that represents everything that is good and vibrant about Portland’s creative economy, Pinecone + Chickadee would have to be that single shop. Their location at 6 Free Street puts them in the center of the city, and their work has been central to the development of the city’s [...]
Read more →
Let’s be clear up front: Fun Box Monster Emporium is a comic book store (Coast City Comics, in fact). But it is not just a comic book store. Instead, imagine if you crossed a comic book store with Hot Topic and your favorite vintage shop. Throw in a few great pinball machines at the back [...]
Read more →