HOULTON, Maine — An Aroostook County business owner’s experiment transformed her downtown Houlton business over the holidays, drawing new patrons to her eclectic shop.
When an opportunity to rent a portion of her 8,000-square-foot shop fell through this fall, Katie Sloat, owner of Serendipitous Dragonfly and Fish N’ Friends, invited local artisans and small businesses to create holiday season pop-up shops in the space.
“I knew that toys were only going to sell in December and then I was trying to figure out how to pay to heat an 8,000-square-foot building,” she said. “It was an interesting experiment over Christmas. We had a variety of things in there and saw what people were buying.”
And what started as an emergency plan was so popular, it may become a permanent arrangement.
Over the past few years, it’s been a challenge for many downtown shops and small restaurants to survive Maine’s long winters and dwindling downtown traffic during the bitter cold of January and February. To survive in Houlton you have to figure out what people want, and finding something that people need year round and can’t buy online is key, Sloat said.
Of the 15 holiday pop-ups, nine chose to stay in Sloat’s historic downtown Houlton toy and gift shop past the Santa rush because of renewed interest in their goods.
Along with the original toy shop, most popular are the multiple rows of estate finds, including antique and vintage furnishings, books, art, yarn and lamps as well as a packed supply of women’s clothing consignments from On the Rack, handmade soaps, teas and other delights from Willow Wood Farm and Apothecary and Hours in a Day Macrame.
Sloat said the estate items, especially, are drawing a whole new set of patrons who are interested in the ever-changing supply of found treasures. People can easily spend an hour or so in the shop and not see everything, she said.
“It’s a serendipitous surprise and you don’t know what you’re going to find,” she said. “It still has the original toy store in the front, but there is more for adults of all ages now and men are coming in a lot now. They love that stuff. We’ve added a little bit for everyone.”
This opportunity, born out of a setback, started when Sloat decided to move the pet store out of Serendipitous Dragonfly, the toy and gift shop. Fish N’ Friends, the only pet store north of Bangor, is now located next to the Temple Theater on Market Square. But the move freed up a very large space in the rear of the toy shop.
When the rental fell through three months ago, Sloat was discouraged, but now sees it as a positive thing, she said.
“An opportunity that did not happen created a new opportunity,” Sloat said. “And so just having people really interested in the furniture and old stuff gives me a little hope for the winter.”
Before taking over the two family businesses, her parents, Jean and Richard Sloat, owned the shop, then called Jean’s Serendipity and Fish N’ Friends, for more than 25 years. They survived all that time by always changing and adding new things, because you have to have a variety, she said.
When her parents decided to open Hidden Spring Winery several years ago, Sloat did not want to see the family legacy end and decided to take over the shops in January 2020.
In keeping with the store’s long history of change and reinvention, she renamed it Serendipitous Dragonfly, because dragonflies symbolize change and transformation, she said.
The new shop offerings come with good prices: a vintage table and four chairs for $150, art from a recent art estate at $10 each, book shelves for $10 and books that are $1 each.
“The artwork we just pulled in, who knows, some of it could be really expensive because that came out of an estate of art, but they just said, ‘Well it for $10,’” she said.
For now, she plans to keep going with the new shop items and see how it goes through the winter months. If someone is looking for something, she will try to get it.
“It’s a place where people of all ages can now explore and discover, not just kids,” Sloat said.
Serendipitous Dragonfly is open Tuesday through Friday, 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. and Saturday 9:30 a.m. to 3 p.m.
