Hey, big dogs gotta stay warm, too.
That may as well be the mantra at Pet Pros, where not only little doggie sweaters and covers are flying off the counters, but jackets and sweaters for those big dogs are also popular.
Right now, Pet Pros at 3411 W. McGraw St. is selling the big ones, for $5 a pop. The little ones which are fleecy and newer are going for about $16.
"A lady came in and bought three of them and saved about $70," said Pet Pros staffer Anne Hewitt. She added that not only is dog food selling like crazy but, because of the rash of cold weather, dog beds are flying, too.
She said ever since the week before Thanksgiving, the store has been busy.
And though this story presents mere anecdotal evidence of emerging store profits in the neighborhoods, shopkeepers remain optimistic and are quick to identify what's hot.
Tea towels, ornaments, hand-crafted jewelry, soap and homemade Christmas cards were the hot items at nearby Bleu Papillon at 3315 W. McGraw St.. Staffer Cheryl Kuczek pointed to locally crafted soap by Roger & Gallet that have been moving well, as has the holiday cards by Seattleite Corinda Leclair. Her cards convey a certain Norman Rockwell innocence and style depicting children pulling puppies in sleds across snowy fields, girls caroling and families outside in a snowfield decorating trees. After 75 years, a lot of art becomes public domain, which Leclair has for the past seven years converted into opportunity. She just signed with a distributor in the Midwest. Despite the wintry themes, the pictures are hot at under $5 each.
"I'm loyal to Bleu Papillon," Leclair said. "One year they sold 1,000 Christmas cards."
The Kavu apparel company based at 1050 W. Ewing St., has opened its warehouse to a major three-day sale. Just about anything fleece was on sale at as much as 50 percent, according to production and delivery manager Carmen Skager.
"Lots of fleece jackets and fleece hoodies," she said standing at the make-shift cashier table next to the rollup warehouse door, herself wrapped in a thick wool jacket and woolen snow hat with earflaps and tie string. "Those are the hot sellers right now because it's so cold out."
The sales are also great marketing opportunities for Skager, who has been with the company now for three years. While she helps customers find what they want, she listens closely to their complaints or wishes, and then takes that back to the marketing team.
And the optimism continued up the hill at the corner of Crockett and Queen Anne Avenue North where Kurt Dammeier's Pasta & Co. holds court. Store manager Linda Laverty said she has seen an uptick in catering business this holiday season. She said that uptick was more noticeable in Queen Anne than at the University Village store. Laverty said the frozen four-cheese, beef lasagna was the No. 1 seller with the Beecher's brand three-grain Risotto a close second. Nearly all the items sold in the store are made on location or by the store's sister company Beecher's handmade cheese. Dammeier owns those entities, Bennett's Bistro and Maximus Minimus the upscale catering truck (which made notable visits to the Queen Anne Farmers' Market this past summer.
Across the street in the Safeway parking lot, Scott Monrad was busy setting up and brushing down Christmas trees at the Queen Anne Helpline's tree lot. Each year the Helpline hosts the lot and brings in about 1,600 trees. Last year they all sold, raising more than $70,000, two-thirds of which went to the Helpline, the rest to Boy Scout troops No. 70 and No. 72. The Scouts typically work the lot weekday evenings and all day weekends.
Based on previous year sales, Monrad forecast 204 trees sold by Dec. 6. The actual number was 183. Since then, the lot has sold 600 more. But that number is likely off as some of the trees go out the door without being logged properly. Nonetheless, Monrad, who regularly volunteers with the Helpline, and was grateful to Safeway for donating the space for the lot, is confident of sales this year.
"We will sell out," he said. Should there be any extras, he usually gives them away to Andy Smith at Magnolia Home & Garden. And if he sells out too quickly, he sells trees from other tree lots on a consignment basis. The last day of business at the tree lot is Dec. 20.
The Helpline also gets a helping hand from Homestreet Bank at 1835 Queen Anne Ave. N., where manager Hossein Soleymani has put up a giving tree for the fourth year in a row. Ornaments on the tree are actually gift requests from Helpline for things it needs for the families it serves: blankets, food, clothing, for example. Soleymani is also a boardmember at the Helpline. By last week, all of the 15 or so ornaments had were selected by bank customers and employees.
And amid the somewhat dour economic news, the ever optimistic Soleymani, who will hold out a tray of cookies and offer coffee to any visitor, showed how the bank was faring. Most notable was the bank's mortgages. From January through September of this year, the bank signed 8,908 loans at its 30 branches in Washington, Oregon and Hawaii.
"The one thing you don't ever want to lose," Soleymani said, "is hope."
And further up the street from the bank, Queen Anne Books is also faring well. The store's all-around, go-to personnel, Tegan Tigani and Lillian Welch, said the company had a busier than usual Holiday Magic.
The key was that the store held the sale for three days, not one, as it did last year. And books such as Greg Mortenson's "Three Cups of Tea" sequel, "Stones into Schools," Kathryn Stockett's "The Help" and Berkeley Breathed's "Flawed Dogs," are selling well. One customer was caught buying "Eclipse" another installment of Stephanie Meyer's "Twilight" series.
Breathed, who drew the "Opus" and "Bloom County" comics, apparently noticed Tigani's online review and recommendation of "Flawed Dogs" and wrote to her.
"He said he would try to come to Seattle to sign a few books," Tigani said.[[In-content Ad]]
