TULSA, Ok — For the biggest shopping week of the year, four new pop-up shops are now open in downtown Tulsa.
I found out how these shops are connecting entrepreneurs with open retail space and inviting more customers to visit the downtown area.
It’s a little bit of history, a little bit of pop culture and a walk down memory lane.
That’s what you will find inside the Vintage Barbie Museum located in the Arts District.
“I started collecting about 30 years ago when I was 6 years old. It all started with a magazine that my mom brought home from work and it had a centerfold pullout of Barbie through the years 1959 up to the present,” said owner, JD Houchens.
He said that pullout sparked his interest, so he began yard sales, garage sales, flea markets, and antique stores.
As his love for Barbie continued to grow, he decided to share it with others, so he submitted his application for a pop-up shop and was one of 28 applicants.
“This was a collection that I already had and parts of it were sitting in cases in an apartment and parts of it were in a storage room, and I just thought that it would be really cool and interesting to bring it out and show it to people of Tulsa and hopefully, spark some new collectors,” said Houchens.
Over in the historic Philtower, you will find another pop-up shop called the Painted Moth.
This store features 28 local vendors, 9 of whom are artists.
Owner Katy Casillas-Gray said this pop-up shop is the perfect space for not only her products, but for others as well.
“We were looking for a store front and I applied to the program because we started out in vendor malls and we weren’t able to get in front of customers and really converse with them, and we were wanting to build some type of community and we have art classes as well,” said Casillas-Gray.
The program has been so successful so far that four past downtown graduates are still operating their businesses from their original pop-up locations.
According to organizers, since Pop-Up Downtown launched in 2022, it has activated 15 businesses earning nearly $50,000 in sales during the program.
The goal is to champion local business owners to continue to operate their business in the downtown area.
The pop up shops will run through January 31st.
For more information, visit www.DowntownDaysofWonder.com or www.DowntownTulsa.com.
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