Burn ban in effect across south La.
July 1, 2009
Brenda Guidry Dantin
July 6, 2009
In how many places can you purchase a French armoire and a VHS tape of “Amadeus?” A 19th century school desk and 21st century school clothes? Westmoreland glassware and a glass hospital urinal?
Welcome to the unpredictable world of flea market shopping.
South Louisiana flea markets are more than just bazaars of secondhand goods. They have evolved into a combination of antique boutique, discount furniture store and pawn shop.
The mix of high-end and inexpensive merchandise provides consumers a unique alternative shopping experience.
“Especially in a recession, there are so many beautiful little luxuries for under $25,” said Cindy Ouber, owner of Bayou Chic Uniques and Antiques in Patterson. “There are beautiful antique jewelry, tea cups and saucers. People can buy gifts that the recipient is not going to find at the big-box stores. You can get something unique to the person’s taste.”
“It still amazes me today some of the stuff we sell in here,” said Elton Nelton, co-owner of Uptown Antiques and Downtown Flea Market in East Houma. “People just like different things, the old and the new. What’s one man’s junk is another man’s treasure.”
Discovering items thought to have been lost to history is another reason people like to frequent flea markets.
“You find things here that you look at it and say, ‘My grandmother had that,'” said Becky Lirette, co-owner of Sugarland Flea Market in Raceland. “It just brings back memories for some people.”
Because owners take a “something for everybody” approach, whole families have been known to plan their weekends around trips to local flea markets.
“There are people that come in with momma, daddy, grandma, grandpa, the kids, aunts and uncles,” Ouber said. “They’re making the rounds on the weekend.”
Part of the fun is discovering the off-the-wall stuff that you know nobody else has.
The oddest item Nelton has sold is a left-handed hammer. Currently, he has a 19th century school desk he bought at a Houston antique auction.
“I’ve had it for about three months, and it is in awesome condition,” he said. “Somebody re-stained it, but it’s an original.”
Lirette sold the glass hospital urinal. Ouber has a coffee table made out of a giant fireplace bellow and a pirate ship’s masthead.
“I pride myself on buying a lot of weird stuff,” she said.
Flea market owners mainly get their inventory through antique auctions and estate sales. They also rent booths within their building to individuals who can sell their own items or have the owners sell them in exchange for a small percentage.
The cost for renting a booth depends on its size.
Price guides determine the value of the merchandise, but that doesn’t always mean that is what the customer pays.
“We negotiate 99 percent of the stuff that’s in here,” Lirette said. “I do accept credit cards and checks. Some flea markets don’t, but I do because in today’s world you have to deal with credit and debit cards.”
Unlike a typical retail store, flea market owners can never count on any particular type of item to sell well, except religious items.
“I sell a lot of old and new Jesus pictures. Anything to do with religion is a hot seller,” Lirette said.
A love of older items and the ability to meet new people got the flea market owners into the business.
Nelton’s wife, Ava, opened Uptown Antiques and Downtown Flea Market seven years ago on West Main Street. The couple launched a second store on East Tunnel Boulevard on April 8, 2008.
They closed the first location on Nov. 8 because there was too much running back and forth between the two, Nelton said.
Lirette and Ouber used to rent booths in other flea markets before going into business for themselves.
Ouber bought Bayou Chic Uniques and Antiques from the previous owner in 2005. Lirette left her five booths at Imperial Flea Market in Houma to open Sugarland last year with her husband Billy.
“I started off with a garage sale at my house and it poured down raining,” she said. “I knew someone who had a booth in a flea market, and he talked me into renting a booth to try it, and I loved it. I went from one booth to this.”
The flea market business has been very good until the recent national recession finally began to touch south Louisiana this year, the owners said. Each has felt it in varying degrees.
Nelton said business started to dwindle in mid-May, but it is back up again. The past two to three months have seen a slow down for Lirette, but not to a point where it is hurting her, she said.
Ouber was most troubled about her plight.
“I could not complain until recently. It’s slow right now,” she said. “It hurts me because I’m seven miles from the Morgan City bridge. If they come over the bridge into Berwick or Bayou Vista, they stop at Wal-Mart.
“People get so much more for their money when they shop in a store like this and they’ll get things that will last their lifetime,” she said. “Look at it like this. If it’s already weathered 75, 80, 100 years in this climate, it can certainly weather another 100 in your air-conditioned home.”
Despite the uncertain economic outlook, Nelton and Lirette have plans for their flea markets.
Nelton wants to rent adjacent space to expand his 7,000-square-foot showroom and 3,000-square foot-warehouse.
Lirette wants to open a second Sugarland Flea Market in Houma in the near future.
What started as a hobby has turned into a seriously pleasurable profession. For the Tri-parish flea market owners, every day brings a new antique or oddball item waiting to be discovered, and they can’t get enough of it.
“If you don’t like digging in junk, don’t try and open a flea market because that’s all it is. It’s junk with money,” Nelton said.
“It’s a fun business,” Lirette said. “I’ll probably die doing this.”
Pete Ronqulle (left) and Marie Hunt (middle) purchase a ceramic rooster from Uptown Antiques & Downtown Flea Market owner Elton Nelton for their Bayou Towers apartment.
