'The same vibe': Grady Goods Gift Shop moving to new location in Germantown

‘The same vibe’: Grady Goods Gift Shop moving to new location in Germantown

Posted by Admin January 16, 2025 Shopping

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Pictures lined the walls and crafts filled the shelves inside Grady Goods Gift Gallery in the Phoenix Hill neighborhood for more than a year and a half.

Now, they’re being taken down and ferried over to a new shop set to open soon.

Jae Grady, owner of Grady Goods, is moving the business out of its Baxter Avenue location into a new spot at 976 Barret Ave. in the Germantown neighborhood. Dec. 29 marked the store’s final day of business, and a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the new shop is slated for Jan. 18.

Grady Goods’ new location will occupy Sis Got Tea’s former space, which closed in November and announced plans to open a new café in spring 2024. The shotgun house-turned-gift shop sits along one of Louisville’s most eccentric strips of local stores, with neighboring businesses that include Derby City Market, Froggy’s Popcorn, Big Bad Breakfast and many others.

Grady said he’s eager to join the small business community in the neighborhood, where a few of his friend already own businesses. The neighborhood culture is one that treasures collaboration and community, he said, so he’s looking forward to taking part in community events.

“You just have gotten a critical mass of businesses that are cool and cool with each other,” Grady said. “Everybody kind of looks out for each other and does it as a neighborhood.”

Grady, 48, has been involved in Louisville’s art scene for decades and had previously mulled the idea of opening a consignment shop to sell goods by local artists, but the pandemic inspired him to act on the idea.

“A whole pandemic will make you think about what you’re doing and what you want to do,” Grady said. “I just realized that I didn’t want to sit on this idea anymore.”

Grady Goods opened at the Baxter Avenue location in April 2023 — just in time to draw in crowds for Derby Week. While the space has treated him well, it’s located amidst several “destination businesses,” Grady noted, meaning many people come to the area to patronize a specific business, like Louisville Fiber Supply or On Your Left Cycles.

Moving to Barret Avenue — a corridor teeming with foot traffic and businesses akin to his — will be a better fit, he said.

“The type of business we are, somebody can wander in here and just, sight unseen, spend a little time and find something that’s going to resonate with them,” Grady said. “It’s that kind of walk-by crowd that we don’t get as much over here as we could.”

He’s hoping the additional business will help him hire part-time help so he can spend more time with his wife and two children.

The new space is slightly larger than the previous, though it’s also more open, which creates more functional space for displaying work and eases the flow of the shopping experience.

Grady said the space’s openness will be convenient for hosting rotating art galleries, musical performances and other pop-up events. There’s also a back deck that overlooks the property’s backyard, which he plans to utilize for events in the warmer months.

Despite the change in address, Grady said the shop’s identity and goals remain the same.

“We try to have an honest reflection of what Louisville creativity looks like, and we’re just thrilled to do more of the same. We’re going to keep the same vibe,” Grady said.

Contact reporter Killian Baarlaer at kbaarlaer@gannett.com or @bkillian72 on X.