A fresh and exciting addition has come to Chatfield, Minn., in the form of the new Bick n Berry Boutique, which is receiving rave reviews from customers.
Angie Bicknese and Brayonna Berry have teamed their creativity and seemingly endless energy to create a shopping experience that is as unique and fun as they are.
The idea for a boutique came about “kind of on a whim,” says Berry. “I actually had a pop-up in my house way back in March and Brayonna came over,” explains Bicknese, and after her in-house boutique went so well, it got Berry thinking.
A week later Berry called Bicknese and said, “What do you think about us opening a boutique in Chatfield?” To which Bicknese replied, “I think that’s a great idea!”
“From there, we started hunting around for buildings downtown,” says Bicknese and then, “it almost kind of snowballed,” adds Berry. “It has just been ideas after ideas,” states Bicknese.
The two women are fortunate to have supportive husbands who love their “why not?” attitudes. When the women approached Brayonna’s husband, Mitch, and Angie’s husband, Brian, with the idea of opening a boutique “they were like, sure, let’s do it,” says Berry.
In June 2016, they bought the building at 221 Main St. S. in Chatfield and began restoring the building to capture its novel charm. “We brought back the original brick and the original hardwood floors,” explains Berry.
And if you cannot imagine how much work the floor was, ask them to see the huge container of screws the two personally removed from the floor before they could get down to the original wood floors!
“We almost gave up on the floors because of the work involved,” states Bicknese, but both are so glad that they didn’t, as the floors add another point of distinction and history to the building.
The exterior of the building, which was last used by Todd Hadoff for his realty office and prior to that was Kelly’s place, had wood shakes above the windows. Berry and Bicknese hired a company to remove the wood shakes and sandblast the front of the building, which made a remarkable difference and added a new element to Chatfield’s Main Street.
The look of the building both inside and out has changed drastically as the large original windows seem to bring the outside in. “It was all hidden,” states Berry.
While the renovation was taking place, both women continued working their employment at Mayo Clinic; Bicknese as a nurse in palliative care and Berry as a nurse in OB on a supplemental basis.
The two families worked on the building whenever they could, and as the renovation starting drawing to an end, the imaginations and creativity continued flowing. “A lot of our ideas were from Pinterest or our husbands came up with a lot of them,” states Berry, then adds, “most of them were from the husbands,” giving credit where credit is due.
Barn wood used in the changing rooms came from Bicknese’s father-in-law’s barn, with natural and colored boards in no particular pattern. Feed bunks, fence posts and wood pallets were used to build one of the large clothing display areas on the wall.
An old drag harrow is hung on the wall, which displays necklaces and other accessories and looks cool with the original brick wall behind it.
An original staircase to the building with deep grooves worn in each step from the decades of heavy traffic makes a one-of-a-kind display for footwear. After seeing the steps, one almost feels compelled to rub their hand across the grooves and relish the history behind them.
A “slider board” which was used years ago when Sisson’s grocery store occupied the building now proudly hangs on the wall to hold items of interest. The reason behind the name is due to the fact that while unloading shipments from delivery trucks, the canned goods and other items were slid down the board in lieu of carrying the items by hand.
These and many other interesting facts, re-purposed objects, and so much more can be found at Bick n Berry Boutique.
And, as Berry explains their business as “family-oriented,” there is an area in the back of the building for the youngest family members. “We did a kids area because they have been up here from day one,” adding, “they helped us” when the family was there working.
Bicknese has three children: Trevin, 13, Cora, 7, and Daxtyn, 4. Berry has two daughters, Paisley, 5, and Sadie, 2.
Opening on November 12, 2016, Berry and Bicknese could only hope for the best; what they got was better.
“That day everything was full and by the end of the day everything in here was on one rack – that’s how much sold out,” states Berry. “The line to check out was to the front door,” says Berry, but people were happy to wait and support their new business plus take some fantastic pieces of clothing, shoes, or accessories home with them.
“We actually ran out of bags the day we opened,” says Bicknese, due to so many sales. “We actually couldn’t even open up that following weekend when we thought we would because we had sold out of so much that first weekend,” states Bicknese. Their first weekend open was “way beyond our expectations,” notes Berry.
Bicknese and Berry enjoy seeing local residents who come in and marvel at the improvement in the building. They have “the younger generation coming in and excited about the clothes and that it’s in Chatfield, but we also have the older generation coming in and just appreciating that the building has been restored,” says Bicknese.
In many cases, just walking in the door brings back memories to many people and they in turn share those memories with the owners. Also, “the historical society has just been awesome sending us little tidbits here and there,” comments Bicknese.
Bick n Berry Boutique offers stylish clothing for women of all ages with sizes ranging from XS to 3X, with inventory rotating continuously. Jewelry, footwear, bags, and accessories to complete your outfit can be found throughout the store. Sugar scrubs, lotion bars, soaps and lip balms by Ballerina Botanicals out of Rochester, Minn., are on the shelves and make great gifts for that hard to buy for woman.
Bicknese and Berry are so grateful for everyone’s support in making their dream into a reality; foremost being their families, but also “our community, the surrounding communities, even people coming from Rochester, Kasson, Byron – they have all been so supportive,” says Bicknese.
“It truly shows how much pride small towns have when they are so supportive – even if it’s not in their own hometown,” states Berry.
One last big thank you goes out to Dave Dudek, their business neighbor at Dave’s Barber Shop, who allows all of their packages to be delivered to his shop, as he knows Bicknese and Berry cannot always be there to accept packages but yet depend on their delivery to re-stock inventory.
Business hours at Bick n Berry Boutique are Thursday, 1-6 p.m.; Friday, 5-8 p.m. and Saturday, 10 a.m.-2 p.m. through the holidays, at which time the owners will re-evaluate business hours.
The business website, bicknberry.com will be up and running soon and will offer online sales. For more information visit facebook.com/bicknberry.
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