Packed with faux rustic lamps and checkers games, the General Store of Minnetonka has an old-time ambiance that's no accident. Store co-owner Gail Bollis, 60, has spent many an hour at flea markets and estate sales to find just the right rusted bric-a-brac and antique novelties for the store's walls and rafters. The store's quaint details -- quarter-peck apple buckets for shopping baskets, employees in work aprons, horehound drops and Charleston chews in the candy bins -- were carefully calculated.
But as the General Store of Minnetonka rounds out 25 years of business this October, something surprising and organic has happened, something that couldn't have been pre-determined: The "old time country" store is now genuinely multi-generational and family-run -- much like the penny-candy-and-boot-leather commissaries it seeks to evoke.
At first it was just two people at the store: Gail and her husband, Chris, bought the building from Gail's brother in 1984, when his plant nursery and garden-supplies shop closed. But soon there were three, when Gail's youngest sister, Liz Mugford, started working at the store as a college student.
Then, over the years, all three of Gail and Chris' kids -- Jenny, 32, Christopher, 30, and Matt, 24 -- folded themselves into the operation, and they seem to have no intention of leaving. "This is the only job I've ever had," said Jenny (Bollis) Putnam, the store's jewelry and clothing manager, and a main buyer. Even Gail's mother, Gloria Wartman, has gotten into the "come-all" spirit. She emerges from retirement at Christmastime to greet shoppers at the door, and her pumpkin bars -- a mousse-like confection heaped with whipped cream -- are a year-round favorite at the General Store's café.
Part of what has attracted the younger Bollis generation to the business is their parents' willingness -- enthusiasm, even -- for softening the "country store" gimmick and bending the store in new directions. Jenny expressed an interest in clothes and jewelry, so the store went from offering a few earring racks at the cash register to a full-fledged jewelry counter with trendy lines such as Pandora, Patricia Locke, Jamie Livingston, Urban Sweet Pea, Lotus Designs, and Waxing Poetic. A year and a half ago, the store debuted a clothing boutique, with Jenny hitting up the Minneapolis and Chicago markets to sleuth out fashions from the likes of Nick & Mo, Tribal and Nomadic Traders.
The Bollises also launched a website and put Christopher in charge of displays and product labels, and connected him with Christmas ornament designer Christopher Radko so that Bollis could design a few Minnesota-themed ornaments that are sold in the shop. Matt, with a detail-oriented personality, has streamlined the store's corporate gift basket operation and manages shipping and receiving.
"Not many parents get to see their kids in their working lives, in their careers," said Gail. "It's been a real pleasure to see them bring their own talents and ingenuity to the business."
And there's a strong element of déjà vu these days: Just as when the store opened in 1984 when Matt was 1, there's a new baby on the premises. Jenny's baby, Spencer, has his own "office" at the store--an ExerSaucer that sits right between mom's, and grandma's, and great-aunt Liz's desks.
Alyssa Ford is a free-lance writer.
