Jill Bryant has worked at Paper Moon for nearly three years. Recently, the store moved from a plum spot in Plumbgate Shopping Center to a new location at 1413 S. Virginia St. It’s a much larger location. The range of eclectic products hasn’t changed much. There’s just a lot more of it and more room to move around. For more information, call 827-9923.
What was the motivation to move Paper Moon from Plumbgate Shopping Center?
First and foremost was Midtown. We thought it would be a better fit for us. As much as we liked our old location—it was great for us, we liked the neighborhood—we thought Midtown was an artier place for us. We really needed to expand. We were a little “landlocked” on either side of us on that other building. We have a store that’s bigger by almost 50 percent.
Right. And it seems like you’d have more drive-by, passers-by traffic.
Yes and no. At certain times of the day. For example, at the old location we had a Starbucks, and we had a lot of morning shoppers. Midtown is more of an afternoon-evening area, so we get most of our traffic a little bit later now.
Have you changed hours? What are you doing to adjust?
We’re open a little bit later now. We used to be 9-6. We’re now open at 10 and we’re going to push it back to 7 or 8 to accommodate the later crowds. That’s not official yet.
Has the demographics kind of changed?
It has. It’s definitely a younger crowd, but we still get our tried-and-true customers from our previous location in that other neighborhood, but we now get a lot of the indie kids.
I also note that you’ve changed some of the stuff that’s available in here. Is that because of the younger people?
Yes. We’ve also changed what we’ve been carrying because we have so much more room. We can get a larger line of things, especially clothes. We have twice as many clothes as we used to have at our old store, and we’ve been able to pick up new companies with younger fashions, too.
Some of these things look more Burner-oriented.
Especially the fur coats behind me?
I’m looking at the feathered coats.
We’re bringing that in. One of my boss’ friends, her daughter was diagnosed with stage four cancer, and she makes Burner costumes, and we’re selling them here to help her. We’re also going to be doing a fundraiser. My bosses still need to pick a day for that. My bosses are Burners.
Oh, that’s right. You used to sell the kilts.
Yes, the Utilikilts. We also sell the EL [electroluminescent] Wire. We’re one of the biggest distributors in the area for EL Wire, and that’s always huge for Burning Man.