When did your business open? It opened on Broad Street on July 1, 2002.
What is the primary service or product of your business? It is an antique mall covering 7,500 square feet. We deal with antiques, fine furniture, decorative accessories and collectibles.
What is the price range? This is a wide variety of prices.
How many employees do you have? We have three employees working for over 50 dealers within the mall.
Tell us about your business background: I have been
working with antiques in the Atlanta, Marietta and Chattanooga areas for about eight years. My interest began mainly as a customer shopping and admiring antiques. I began developing a knowledge of the different styles, periods and learning about the makers and manufacturers of antique items. JoAnne has retail experience with Massey’s Fine Jewelry and is a retired schoolteacher. The combination of my creative energy and JoAnne’s business experience has been an asset to the mall. Both of us have worked very hard to create a clean, inviting environment for customers to enjoy while shopping. Our mall is unique in that we have a lot of decorative items to compliment the fine furniture and antiques.
Is there an interesting history to how the business began? After introducing my friend and partner, JoAnne, to antiques (shopping and buying ends), JoAnne got excited and started out on a small scale “learning the ropes” of buying, caring for, cleaning and pricing. I told JoAnne when she first ex-pressed an interest in antiques that “you either like it or you don’t. It’s a lot of work and you spend a lot of time shopping for the right pieces that you hope the customers will like, too.”
An antique mall in Rome was an idea I was cultivating for after I retired from my State of Georgia job of 30 years. One day JoAnne called me up and said, “Well, are you ready to open up that antique mall?” and expressed her interest in a joint venture.
JoAnne still enjoys teaching evening classes at Coosa Val-ley Tech. Both of us have had other full time jobs while getting the antique mall started. We worked night and day painting the old building, cleaning, wallpapering, adding new carpet and getting the store looking nice.
We initially opened with about half the store filled with merchandise and quickly filled by August 2002. We have a waiting list for available spaces and are always looking for quality dealers. Our mall is clean, air-conditioned and customer friendly.
We have been very blessed to have our friend, Linda
Stephens, working for us several days during the week. Linda has worked with the public for many years in the medical field and is such a joy and blessing to us at Antiques On Broad. She is quite knowledgeable about antiques and collectibles and all of our customers and dealers love her. We just don’t know what we would do without her!
What are your plans for the immediate future? Our tea room will be opening again real soon and we are so excited about getting that going. We will carry homemade desserts and flavored teas. It will be open on weekends only. We invite everyone to stop by and check it out.
How about long-term goals? Just to keep our business a quality antique mall. We are always painting, decorating and refreshing our look to keep our customers interested. Merchandise changes all the time, so one thing we tell customers is: “If you see something you like, don’t wait to buy it ‘cause it probably won’t be here when you come back.”
We have had so many customers who come back to find that the item they wanted to purchase also caught someone else’s eye. We have also had customers following another around waiting for them to put something back so they could purchase it.
That’s the fun of our business — you may never see the same thing again. Antiques are one of a kind!
THE FACTS
Owners: Patsy Lake and JoAnne Massey
Location: 114 Broad St., Rome, Ga. 30161
Telephone: 295-0015
Hours: Monday - Saturday 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., Sunday from 1 to 5 p.m
Post a Comment