Thirteen years after opening the Lexington vintage store Street Scene, Terri Wood and Kathryn Wiseman have decided to pass the baton. Wood, 60, and Wiseman, 52, passed along ownership of the store at the stroke of midnight on New Year’s Eve to employees Jillian Dunaway, 27, and Madison Wathen, 26. The two new owners have worked at the store for over five years – and were patrons at Street Scene even before that.
The business was founded on a solid friendship, with Wiseman and Wood having known each other for over 20 years when they opened the business together. Their friendship started with Wiseman being Wood’s hairdresser and evolved as they realized they shared many passions, including vintage items and design.
From left to right: Terri Wood, Madison Wathen, Jillian Dunaway and Kathryn Wiseman. After starting Street Scene 13 years ago, Wood and Wiseman passed ownership to Wathen and Dunaway – both longtime employees – at the beginning of this year. Photo by Bradley Quinn
“It was a natural progression of life, and we started doing yard sales together,” said Wood, who is also the longtime owner of the local coffee wholesale business Lexington Coffee & Tea and coffee and retail shop Coffee Times, next door to Street Scene. “That, to me, was kind of the beginning of us understanding our love of ‘stuff.’”
After co-hosting a handful of successful yard sales, the duo eventually set up a booth together at the local antique store Feather Your Nest, featuring vintage items they had found while going through yard sales or other antique stores, or older items they had inherited from family members. When the space adjacent to Coffee Times opened up, it also presented an opportunity to expand their burgeoning resale business.
Wiseman and Wood said the vintage theme of their store, selling items from the ’50s, ’60s, ’70s and a touch of the ’80s and ’90s, happened by accident. They had no intention of selling mid-century items but soon realized vintage was a constant in what they bought to sell.
“Those were just the things we loved,” Wood said. “I think we determined that when we were doing yard sales.”
Wiseman and Wood knew they’d need to find someone to give their store to someday but wanted to wait for a good fit for the unique business.
“I think in our hearts we have always hoped that someone would want to carry on the legacy when we were done,” Wiseman said.
Dunaway started working at the store in August 2014, and Wathen was hired for a summer position the following year. Both have been part of the Street Scene family ever since.
Wiseman and Wood said they wanted owners with a similar passion to the one they held for the store when they started it. After years of working with Wathen and Dunaway, Wiseman and Wood said they felt they had found a great match.
“Their interests were so strong – they were pretty much doing everything anyways – that it just kind of landed on them to decide if they had an interest in us or not,” Wiseman said. “We chose them, but it was really about whether they would choose us back.”
Dunaway said when she started her job at Street Scene, she didn’t have any idea she would someday be a new owner. She did, however, enter the job thinking about how and when she was going to break off to start her own business – something she said she was up front with Wiseman and Wood about during her initial interview. After spending years at the store, she realized she didn’t really want to go out on her own but wanted to stay at Street Scene.
“It’s not like I could open a competitive store,” Dunaway said.
Dunaway soon realized she loved that the store is “ever evolving” and that she could tell people with full honesty she truly loves the place she works.
“I just love when people come in and are excited and see things they’ve never seen or see things that remind them of their grandparents or their parents, or their childhood,” Dunaway said.
As for Wathen, she replaced a friend who had been working there but had moved to New York City for an internship. Initially a summer job, she started to realize how valued she felt at Street Scene and ended up staying longer.
“I felt really seen,” Wathen said. “And I think a lot of people who have [worked here] have felt that way.”
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The shop features a revolving door of inventory. Owners allow clients to bring items for potential consignment consideration on Mondays. Photo by Bradley Quinn
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The shop features a revolving door of inventory. Owners allow clients to bring items for potential consignment consideration on Mondays. Photo by Bradley Quinn
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The shop features a revolving door of inventory. Owners allow clients to bring items for potential consignment consideration on Mondays. Photo by Bradley Quinn
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The shop features a revolving door of inventory. Owners allow clients to bring items for potential consignment consideration on Mondays. Photo by Bradley Quinn
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The shop features a revolving door of inventory. Owners allow clients to bring items for potential consignment consideration on Mondays. Photo by Bradley Quinn
Wathen handles the photography for Street Scene’s social media, which has a large following – its Instagram currently has over 10,000 followers. She has a passion for photography, which Wiseman and Wood tapped into when she first started working at the shop.
“They have always utilized everyone’s talents and given them an opportunity,” Wathen said of her former bosses.
Wathen and Dunaway both agreed they love having the opportunity to interact with the community while working at Street Scene. The store buys items to sell on consignment on Mondays, a day that brings a lot of different people outside its regular customer base into the shop. Wathen said they buy from a lot of people who are downsizing or have family members who have passed.
“It gives us a unique opportunity to be there for people in those moments,” Wathen said.
Wathen said she loves giving people an outlet for the items they know they have to get rid of, even if they don’t necessarily want to.
“They know we care about [these items], and our customers will too,” she said.
The buying portion of the store was not an original intention but something that came about organically. Customers noticed the types of things that were being sold and started asking if Wiseman and Wood wanted to buy similar items from them. After a lot of these interactions, they decided it would be best to dedicate a day to buying.
“It gives things a new home, where they’ll be cherished,” Dunaway said.
The new owners said the only foreseeable change they plan to make to the shop is to paint the walls. Aside from that, they hope to keep things more or less the same but don’t intend to avoid natural change over the years.
“There’s a natural progression in this world to evolve and change,” Wood said. “That will just continue, in many ways, the same as it always did.”
Dunway and Wathen intend to stick with Street Scene, something Wood and Wiseman had hoped for the store’s new owners.
“For Street Scene specifically, I would just love to watch our younger customers grow and continue to come here and bring their kids here and to have people still enjoy it like they always have,” Dunaway said. “It’s home.”
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Street Scene’s new owners don’t plan to make sweeping changes to the shop right away, other than a fresh coat of paint. They say they’re open to allowing the store to evolve naturally, the way it always has. Photo by Bradley Quinn
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Street Scene’s new owners don’t plan to make sweeping changes to the shop right away, other than a fresh coat of paint. They say they’re open to allowing the store to evolve naturally, the way it always has. Photo by Bradley Quinn
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Street Scene’s new owners don’t plan to make sweeping changes to the shop right away, other than a fresh coat of paint. They say they’re open to allowing the store to evolve naturally, the way it always has. Photo by Bradley Quinn
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Street Scene’s new owners don’t plan to make sweeping changes to the shop right away, other than a fresh coat of paint. They say they’re open to allowing the store to evolve naturally, the way it always has. Photo by Bradley Quinn
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Street Scene’s new owners don’t plan to make sweeping changes to the shop right away, other than a fresh coat of paint. They say they’re open to allowing the store to evolve naturally, the way it always has. Photo by Bradley Quinn
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Street Scene’s new owners don’t plan to make sweeping changes to the shop right away, other than a fresh coat of paint. They say they’re open to allowing the store to evolve naturally, the way it always has. Photo by Bradley Quinn