Salt Lake City vintage shop Uncommon is opening a new store downtown, featuring new sellers as well as vendors from its monthly event, Sum Ol’ Market.
Sum Ol’ Store, which will be opening Aug. 26 in Uncommon’s original location — the “little pink building” behind Mrs. Backer’s Pastry Shop on South Temple — will be filled with vintage and secondhand clothing, knickknacks and jewelry. About 15 to 20 small businesses will have booths inside the building, which will operate as a consignment store, managed by Uncommon employees.
The idea for the store came from seeing their friends’ small businesses that didn’t have brick-and-mortar locations participate in Sum Ol’ Market, Uncommon co-owner Jacob McDaniel said. They’d have to “rely on having one day of every month that needs to go well for them to make ends meet,” he said.
So with McDaniel and Uncommon co-owners Jewelette Falls and Kanyon Fox still in the lease for the little pink building, they saw an opportunity where “we could just make something happens where maybe we could help them out,” McDaniel said.
(Sophia Harrison Photography) Shoppers browse at Sum Ol' Market at Publik Coffee.
Sum Ol’ Store goes “hand in hand” with one of the “flagship elements of our business, and that’s just been community,” McDaniel said. “We’ve always wanted to bring others up with us, we’ve always wanted to support our other fellow small businesses and vendors, all while being successful ourselves, of course. ... We want to bring everyone up with us.”
Each vendor will be supplied with a “mini store” consisting of a 5-foot steel rack, a shelf above, and a display showcasing their brand name and social media handles. Within that space, vendors are free to express their style and aesthetic.
McDaniel said that when vendors get ready for Sum Ol’ Market, they usually select pieces that they know will sell quickly, and at low prices. But Sum Ol’ Store “is going to bring out the best in every vendor, it’s going to give them a place where I feel like they can put more quality goods, more things that are going to be a little bit more desirable,” McDaniel said.
(Sophia Harrison Photography) Sebastian Trachimowicz, whose vintage clothing business is called Broken Tooth, will be a vendor at Sum Ol' Store.
Sebastian Trachimowicz, 24, whose business is called Broken Tooth (Instagram: @brokentoothgoods), said he expects Sum Ol’ Store to make it easier to sell his vintage clothing, which is from the 1990s and early 2000s.
“The store is going to work for me because I don’t have to be there personally to sell my stuff,” Trachimowicz said. Sum Ol’ Market can be “a long day of work.” But with Sum Ol’ Store, and paying the fee every month to have your booth there, “not only are you paying for the space, you’re also paying someone else to help you sell your stuff, which I think is great,” he said.
Trachimowicz added that Uncommon’s “good reputation” will help him sell as well.
“I feel like they have a lot of good customers that come to their regular retail store, and who have gone to their store previously when it was the original Uncommon store,” he continued, “so I think having that customer base being able to see my brand and my items will just help in general with social media traffic and stuff like that.”
Sum Ol’ Market will still be happening at Publik Coffee at 975 S. West Temple. The next one will be July 29, but Uncommon will take a break for August and September while they get Sum Ol’ Store ready. After that, the following markets will be on Oct. 28, Nov. 25 and Dec 22.
