Need a shopping break from the stress of everyday life? Southwest Vendors Mall at 806 Robb St. in Summit has just what the doctor ordered.
“I hear so many women come in here and say this is their therapy,” owner Stephanie Johnson said. “They can get away from everything. They feel better when they leave here.”
The store carries a wide variety of merchandise.
Seasonal flags, furniture, home decorations and even things the kids will like are all on hand.
“This is a fun, unique and different place,” she said.
Johnson opened the store in Summit in 2006 and it has flourished despite the recession.
“(The recession) didn’t affect us because I guess people tended to come to more places like this because you can get some good deals,” she said.
Opening the store was always a dream for Johnson, and when her father Ray and husband Allen offered to pitch in, the dream became a reality.
“I just decided one day that I would do it,” she said. “My dad built all these booths and everything.”
Johnson said the store started with 10 booths and grew until there was no space left.
Now the store has grown just about as much as it can in its present space.
“We kept adding and adding,” Johnson said. “We knocked out walls and everything. I don’t have any more space that I can go into.”
Johnson’s vendors sell everything from rain boots and flip flops, to monogrammed baby accessories.
“There is just a little bit of everything,” she said. “You come in today and you’ll see it one way and next week it might be totally different.”
Johnson said customers know to grab what they want when they see it because, chances are, it won’t be there the next day.
“It changes so much,” she said. “We sell so much that it is always changing.”
Southwest Vendors Mall is offering different specials throughout the holiday season, and Johnson said it’s up to the individual vendors to decide what items to put on sale.
Tonight, Southwest Vendors Mall is joining other Summit merchants in participating in a town-wide late-night shopping promotion until 8 p.m.
Johnson said some items will be 10 to 20 percent off tonight.
Normal store hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Friday and 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturday (10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturdays during the holidays).
