Chattanooga Mercantile vendors prepare their booths — which together resemble a miniature city full of storefronts ranging in style from traditional to rustic and everything in between — for the business’s Aug. 1 opening.The former East Ridge Flea Market building has new tenants – about 300 of them, actually. New owners Luke Stewart and Steve Watts are moving the vendors from their two stores in the East Ridge antique district, Greenbriar and Redbriar, and adding 100 more to the former flea market space, which is being remodeled and will reopen Aug. 1 as Chattanooga Mercantile.
Vendors were hard at work preparing their booths on a recent afternoon, one installing a screen door to complement a cabin-like facade, another slapping a final coat of yellow paint onto the siding that composes the exterior of their storefront. It looks as if an entire city is being constructed at once, with shop facades ranging from brick to log to a birdcage replica complete with newsprint-print floors and a menacing cat painted just outside the “cage.”
While the soon-to-close Greenbriar and Redbriar focused on antique furniture and accessories, Stewart and Watts chose to leave “antique” out of the name of their new store because it’s “so much more than antiques,” Stewart said. Chattanooga Mercantile will feature everything from boutique-clothing vendors to an in-house fresh florist to a bakery, coffee shop and full-service tea room.
“The public is being offered over 300 different points of view,” he said of the curated selection of vendors, including some of the area’s best designers.
Perusing the different booths provides great home décor inspiration even if you don’t purchase a thing, he said, but if you do, every purchase supports no less than two local small businesses.