Join Us for Shop & Dine Fridays!

When you wind down Honolulu Avenue as the sun’s going down Friday night you are going to notice something different. In many cases what normally is dark is going to be light as many of our Mom & Pops join together to stay open until 7 p.m. on Friday nights.

A grassroots movement is underfoot to provide a night when folks who work can actually make it to Montrose to shop before the stores close. The message we are sending is Shop & Dine Fridays when we are hoping you will come out and shop until 7 p.m. and then visit one of our fine restaurants to dine.

This is a big step for us and I’ll tell you why. The Montrose Shopping Park is not like the mall, which is full of big chain stores with corporate backing and lots of payroll. When you have a store in the mall you have to follow all the mall owner’s rules which means you open morning ’til night, seven days a week.

The Montrose Shopping Park on the other hand has lots of building owners. Each tenant has the freedom to pick their own hours. There is no big company running herd over us and telling us what to do. In a Mom & Pop retail store there isn’t lots of money for payroll. Chances are when you shop there you’re going to be seeing Mom or Pop and if you’re lucky maybe both. Mom and Pop have lives, need a day off like everyone else, and can’t be in their stores morning ’til night. This is one of the charms and realities of trying to run a small, one of a kind, retail store in today’s economy in the state of California. We’ll never get rich, but we are blessed to still be able to live our dream and share our unique talents, tastes, and services with others.

So back to the grassroots movement.

We have been talking among ourselves and some of us are stepping out of our longtime routines to try something different. As of this writing, here are the retail stores you can expect to see open until at least 7 p.m. on Friday nights. It’s a great start and hopefully the list will keep growing. Are you ready? Here goes: Once Upon A Time, Bella Boutique, Billy’s Boardshop, Walk This Way, Critters, Faye’s, Executive Jewelers, The Clothing Market, Twigs & Things, Color Me Mine, Mountain Rose Gifts, LaPerla Design Gallery, Montrose Candy Co., It Takes A Village, Revelation Tops, Pattye’s Closet, and Grayson’s Tune Town. Isn’t that exciting!!!

So please come out and encourage us in this effort as we are doing it for you. Who knows – perhaps this Friday thing will start to take off and the Montrose Shopping Park will be the place you want to come to end your workweek and start your weekend. To make things even more exciting, our MSPA Events Committee has been busy planning a big décor surprise for the fall/Halloween season. More about that in my next article.

Thanks for reading and please tell your neighbors and your friends and help us get the word out about Shop & Dine Friday in the Montrose Shopping Park.