Unique and Unusual Stores Across America

Old Wethersfield Country Store takes the classic neighborhood general-store idea seriously, mixing sweets and local foods with kitchen supplies, home goods, self-care products, books, games, toys, drinks, and work from local makers.

Owl Drug Store combines a current independent pharmacy, gift boutique and century-old soda-fountain tradition under one downtown Coleman roof.

Paint Bank General Store layers practical country retail with a Christmas shop, wildlife displays, the Swinging Bridge restaurant and a real walkable bridge indoors.

Paranormal Books & Curiosities combines a specialized working bookstore with a guided museum and historical-tour operation devoted to the supernatural stories people tell about objects and places.

Paxton Gate combines the living and the preserved, filling its Valencia Street shop with plants and garden goods alongside taxidermy, entomology, fossils, minerals, bones, jewelry, home décor, art, and other objects drawn from the natural world.

Pendleton Mill Store connects substantial wool-goods retail directly to the active historic mill behind it.

Perry's Nut House keeps the old American roadside-attraction formula alive by combining a working candy, fudge, nut and gift business with a restored assortment of strange displays and visual gags.

Pink Elephant Antique Mall turns a Route 66 antiques stop into a full roadside compound of giant fiberglass figures, dozens of dealers, homemade fudge and candy, an ice-cream-cone diner and increasingly strange seasonal events.

Pops turns an everyday fuel stop into a specialty soda store, full restaurant and oversized Route 66 roadside landmark.

Possum Emporium combines an indoor vendor market of antiques, vintage goods, handmade crafts, décor, collectibles, instruments, and curiosities with an outdoor produce and pop-up-vendor setup in a converted church outside Mentone.

Presidential Pawn blurs the line between museum case and sales case by combining an active pawn shop, specialty clock operation and free curiosity museum.

Prometheus Esoterica combines a natural-history oddities shop with antiques, gothic apparel, books, art, gifts, crystals, preserved specimens, and a theatrical environment designed as much for lingering and looking as buying.