This week saw the arrival of Fiends Collective to downtown Dartmouth, at 104 Portland St. The witches studio originally opened on Agricola Street in Halifax in 2019.
Co-owners Amanda Baiocco and Forest Greenwell describe the shop as “a place to discover what ignites you, dabble in practices that support you and build your coven around you.”
Customers can uncover a path with a tarot reading, dive into personal patterns with astrology circles and find all their ritual goods, including crystals, books, candles, pre-loved clothing and cannabis accessories.
“The majority of our events are accessible through a ‘pay what you can’ event structure, and tickets can be found through our website,” said Baiocco.
For one-to-one sessions, Forest offers tarot readings and Baiocco offers sound therapy plus energy work.
Events like the Circles, designed to build a like-minded community, and Astro Awakening, which explores the astrological season ahead, are recurring.
They also offer their services for private events offsite or at their studio. Their space is also available for private bookings and events.
Of the move to Dartmouth, Baiocco said Fiends had been in a much smaller space on Agricola Street.
“We’ve expanded from 225 square feet to 750 square feet, and in many ways it felt like we could either expand into a larger space or contract into an online business.
“Forest and I felt that coming together in this partnership would allow for the expansion that both of us wanted for ourselves and for our community. Downtown Dartmouth is a vibrant community, and we feel very fortunate to be able to share our vision and energy in this area of the city.”
I asked what lessons have been learned since they first set up shop.
“I think fundamentally what we’ve learned and been able to see and be a part of is how important and integral our community is to us and to Fiends,” said Baiocco.
“We can’t survive without one another, and that’s been made abundantly clear over the past year within our small community at Fiends. Second, as a business, we’ve learned how important it is to be comfortable with change. It can be terrifying to step out of something you know into the unknown, but we’ve learned how important trusting and being flexible can truly be.”
Here are more retail happenings:
- Oxalis Restaurant, coming to 22 Wentworth St. in downtown Dartmouth this summer, will offer “an elevated European farm-to-table experience.” Of note, the address used to be the Happy Face Museum.
- Sushi Jet Asian Cuisine is opening another location in the Curve on South Park Street this fall.
- The folks from the Brown Hound are bringing a British-style pub to Quinpool Road called Quinn’s Arms. It will be replacing the recently closed Phil’s Seafood in a few months.
- Flynn’s Dairy Bar and Convenience has opened a second location, at 5552 Kaye St. in Halifax, across from the Hydrostone Market.
- Peace by Chocolate opened a new store on Friday at Queen's Marque on Lower Water Street, beside the Halifax ferry terminal.
- The Samsonite Retail Outlet in Dartmouth Crossing is starting to clear out stock and will close at the end of April.
- Despite closing four Halifax peninsula locations last month, a Starbucks is being built on the corner of Sackville Drive and the Beaver Bank Connector.
- Furniture Spot and Mattress Outlet on Young Street by the Superstore is closing this month.
- Vivacious Vixen is closing the Portland Street boutique in Dartmouth this month (currently open by appointment only) but plans to stay online, have appointments at a private location and do pop-ups.
- John’s Furniture Plus has opened at 117 Woodlawn Rd. in Dartmouth. It seems to be mostly used office furniture.
- Freak Lunchbox, which had a pop-up at Halifax Shopping Centre over the holidays, has permanently reopened a shop by the Apple Store.
- Sugar Daisy, which seems to offer casual cowboy chic, including its in-house denim line Indigo Summar, has opened in Sunnyside Mall in Bedford.
Arthur Gaudreau is a retail enthusiast and publisher of a blog on retail comings and goings.
