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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Vinegar Flats sees growth with launch of flea market-style shop

There’s something about the Vinegar Flats neighborhood just south of downtown that makes it feel like it’s a small town, and that’s one reason Celeste Shaw fell in love with the area.

Shaw, who owns the restaurant and bakery Chaps on Cheney-Spokane Road, recently purchased a 1939 service station at 1930 S. Inland Empire Way and turned it into Lucky Detour, a flea market-style shop.

“I’m from Montana. I love small towns and that’s what this feels like to me,” Shaw said. She opened the shop Sept. 4 with business partner Holly Baublitz, and she’s had to work hard to keep it stocked.

Shaw and Baublitz “shop and junk” together all over the country and Lucky Detour has given them an outlet for the stuff they’ve collected and stored in barns and garages.

“We just have a love for vintage,” Baublitz said. “We are drawn to it and we want to inspire other people.”

Lucky Detour features restored furniture, light fixtures and old signs, as well as Dandles Candles, jewelry and paintings.

Customers shouldn’t be surprised to see a deer trophy adorned with Mardi Gras beads, or a vintage turnstile with a future as garden art.

Shaw and Baublitz get a kick out of using vintage items in unusual ways, like the small hand truck that’s now a shelf unit hung high on a wall.

“You can copy us,” said Shaw, “we are not territorial like that.”

And Lucky Detour isn’t the only new development in Vinegar Flats. Down the street, the Lowell School building is undergoing a major restoration after sitting empty for many years. The owners could not be reached for comment on the future use of the building.

Vinegar Flats got its name because a vinegar plant was located there in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The area is still closely connected to agriculture by the nurseries located there.

One of them, Blue Moon Garden and Nursery, is owned by Terese Palaia. She said she’s excited about the new businesses coming into the neighborhood. Palaia said Blue Moon’s location has been a nursery under one name or another since the 1920s – she’s worked in that spot for 15 years.

“I love the trains. I never feel alone because the trains are always coming and going,” Palaia said.

In the winter she said Vinegar Flats looks like a model railroad town, and even though she closes the nursery for the season on Oct. 31, winter is her favorite season there.

“There’s a lot of buzz right now and it’s not the first time I’ve felt it,” Palaia said. “Sometimes it just dissipates but maybe it will stay this time around.”

She said she doesn’t wish for Vinegar Flats to turn into the South Perry neighborhood, but that she loves the new energy Shaw has brought into the neighborhood.

“It feels pretty cosmopolitan in an agricultural kind of way,” she said. “This neighborhood really has its roots in the soil here.”

Across Inland Empire Way, right up against Latah Creek, Jim Shrock takes advantage of that soil working his 38-acre Urban Eden Farm.

Urban Eden produce is sold at the Thursday Market on Perry Street and at the Spokane Farmers Market on Saturdays as well as local shops and restaurants.

Shrock has been in Vinegar Flats for about 12 years.

“I say it’s like the Hillyard of the South Hill. Everyone knows each other here,” Shrock said. “I’ve had friends here forever – it’s a great neighborhood.” Shrock added that he’s only five minutes from the Davenport Hotel – though it feels like much farther away.

Shaw said she plans to host a small farmers market behind Lucky Detour next year.

She also recently has purchased the former Zenner’s Goodyear Service Station located on Inland Empire Way, but closer to town. She’s not quite sure what she’ll do in that building.

“Come spring, I’d love to add pie and coffee to Lucky Detour,” she said. “That would be a great addition to the neighborhood.”