The Natural Flow of Retail*

*or, Why a Room Measuring 8 x 14 Needs 3 Doors

When Keith founded Taproot out of his home in southeast Portland in 2002, he focused mainly on custom work, and his clients found him through word of mouth. 2004 found him manning his first booth at the Northwest Flower and Garden Show, where he sold his trellises, tools and other garden accessories. New clients interested in custom work found him there as well, and each of the subsequent three years Keith booked a booth to sell his “hard goods”…and met enough clients each time to help book himself out until the next Northwest Flower and Garden Show came along.

About a year ago Keith considered renting a commercial shop space to expand Taproot's capabilities, but retail wasn't on his mind. He had already invited me to come aboard to help expand the business, and as we hunted for a workshop, Keith gravitated toward those tucked away in some of the tri-county area's more industrial corners. Along the way we encountered some oddball landlords. Upon calling the number posted on a fixer-upper in Oregon City, we were told to "just climb in through the broken kitchen window and look around, then call back if interested". A space on North Columbia Boulevard boasted several hundred more square feet than reported by the tape measure we took to carrying with us on these excursions, and it seemed as the search continued that no landlord we met knew or would divulge the actual size of the proffered property. 

A few weeks into this I was working my weekly volunteer shift at Seastar Community Acupuncture. I'd spent part of the afternoon bending Catherine's ear about it, and that evening as I sank into one of the clinic's overstuffed easy chairs, she promised a calming treatment to help me find just the right space. Keith came in for acupuncture that night as well; afterward, we floated out of the clinic, into our truck, and down Glisan Street. Earlier in the day I had seen a space for rent across from Pambiche, and I wanted Keith to take a look.

"Did you see that?" Keith asked. He'd only driven about a block and a half, and I wasn't paying attention. He made a series of left turns and pulled into a parking spot on the corner of 70th and NE Glisan. What appeared to be the first bay in an auto repair shop had a For Rent sign taped to the window. 

"Don't you want to see it?" Keith urged. I was so relaxed from my treatment that I didn't really care. He got out and looked around briefly before returning to the truck. 

"You've got to see this," he said. I opened my door, rolled out, looked in, and reached for my phone. Through the windows we could see a large area for Keith's metal shop, a bathroom, and a smaller room at the front corner of the building with its own entrance: A retail store! I wanted to leave a message for the landlord.

With the perfect space just happened to come the perfect landlord. Simon Kim, owner of K & S Auto (the business occupying the building's other three bays since 1976), answered his phone at 8:30 on a Tuesday night and offered to show us the space on the spot.

"I don't want to trouble you," I insisted, imagining him driving across town to meet us. He said he'd be right there - and there he was, in his Bermuda shorts with a large pair of pruning shears in one hand and a big smile on his face. It turns out he lives behind the building, and had just been out shaping the hedge. The three of us agreed easily on a rental fee. The next day we reconvened to sign the lease, and the next generation of Taproot was off and running. Only when we needed to supply our business insurance agent with the square footage did we brandish the tape...to find the space in fact measured larger than Simon's quote.

Keith and I put a lot of what our friend Johanna referred to as "sweat equity" into readying the store. As the paint dried on the walls, we realized the scuffed blue vinyl floor wasn't going to cut it. Naomi's Organic Farm Supply had free pallets at the time, so with their blessing we toted a couple of truckloads back to the shop. Keith cut apart and sanded the boards and carried them by the armful into the store where I was busily assembling the largest jigsaw puzzle of my life. 113 square feet might not seem like much (the room is about 8 by 14), but piecing together reclaimed pallet wood is a tedious art at best.

If our friends wanted to suggest that 113 square feet would be too small for a retail store, they didn’t. Personally, it never occurred to me that anyone would find it cramped. My mid-90’s retail background includes several months at Seattle’s tiniest fine stationery store, located downtown in a room that some might find comparable to an ample closet. Keith had another perspective. The carport he had used for metal fabrication during Taproot's first five years was about the size of our new store. There was enough room for a desk and our standard product line, so neither of us gave it a second thought.

Reopening Taproot in this way has been an unexpected opportunity to learn about how people move through space. We quickly noticed that the natural flow seemed to be in through the large folding doors on 70th (around the corner from the store's door on Glisan). Keith greeted customers and invited them to visit the store by way of the sidewalk. Some did, and some declined. Many of those who did take time to explore the store commented, “I’ll just go out the back door here." A colleague recently referred to the store as my “cage”. From it I have often observed people peeking in through the windows, palpably curious about our offerings but reluctant to enter - even one acquaintance the first time she came to see the shop.

As our inventory has grown, we've begun merchandising more and more in the area behind the "original" store, and since the weather warmed we've kept those 70th Street doors open during business hours. With the majority of customers continuing to use that entrance, some of whom still shy away from venturing into the "cage", Keith and I decided to expand. The first step: Cut a hole in the rear wall of the existing store (as evidenced by Keith's head in the photo above) and install a door. As of this writing, Keith is just completing this task. The door, a casualty of Keith's brother and sister-in-law's remodel late last year, is the store's third (the second allows passage into the metal shop). Tomorrow we will begin to sheet-rock in the additional 150 square feet or so that lie between the new door and our single-occupancy restroom. This will, we hope, provide our beloved supporters with the breathing room they need to shop comfortably, as we define what seems to be the shop's inherent natural flow.