Petunia & Loomis: New store downtown features eclectic mix of knickknacks, antiques

Petunia & Loomis is a new oddities shop at 421 W. Riverside Ave. in downtown Spokane that specializes in the macabre and the bizarre.

Some people aren’t quite sure what that means, so shop owner Samantha Fetters has come up with a quick way to explain everything found inside. “It’s basically stuff that could furnish the Addams Family house,” she said. “It’s just bizarre stuff.”

Not everything is bizarre. There’s a mix of antique furniture, old suitcases, vintage wine glasses and other hard to find items. But there are also plenty of more unusual items, like animal skulls, horror movies and taxidermy animals. She also carries wet specimens, which are small animals that died naturally and were preserved in jars of alcohol. A skeleton sits in the front display window.

The shop had a soft opening two weeks ago and is open today from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. before closing until the grand opening set for Feb. 14. The wait is partly due to Fetters having her third child any day.

Setting up her shop while pregnant has been a challenge for Fetters, who prefers to be hands-on. She’s been forced to simply supervise her fiancé, Jesse McCauley. “I’ve been sitting and pointing and he hangs things up,” she said.

Fetters has been a hair stylist at Elite Salon and Spa on South Cheney Road for 12 years but has long been interested in the macabre. “I’ve always collected this stuff,” she said. “I got the weird love of the macabre from my mom.”

She’s always wanted to have an oddities shop. “I wanted to be surrounded by the stuff that I love and make money doing it,” she said.

Just about everything in the shop is from her personal collection, which has been filling her house and garage for years. Even though the shop is full, there’s plenty more. “Every room in our house still has something in it,” she said.

Despite spending years building her collection, Fetters said she’s fine with selling all but a few prized pieces. “I’ve been looking at this stuff for years,” she said. “I want to buy new stuff.”

She’s been collecting and saving money for years and was able to open the shop without a business loan or investors, she said. And she loves her location in downtown Spokane, which generates customers as people walk by and become curious about the shop.

“It was just the right time and place,” she said.

Fetters said it made sense to have a soft opening. “We had so much in here, we figured why not open for a little bit,” she said. “It’s been doing very well.”

Still, Fetters said she’s surprised at the things that have sold so far. “In the first 10 minutes of us opening, all of our taxidermy bats were gone,” she said. “We had a two-headed chicken that’s gone. Furniture has been a really big thing for us.”

Several things that Fetters made herself, including a doll with an alligator head, have quickly sold. “She’s very crafty and artistic,” McCauley said.

As things sell, Fetters will bring in more from her collection. Anything purchased for the store, such as Madame Talbot posters, will be ordered one at a time and be changed frequently. The goal is to have what’s in the store be unique and constantly changing, she said.

The store’s grand opening will be on Feb. 14, beginning at 11 a.m.

“A lot of people have been saying this is the store Spokane needed,” McCauley said. “There’s nothing else like it.”

This story has been updated to change the time of the the grand opening.