Unique and Unusual Stores Across America

The Shops at Emerson combine a broad cluster of specialty departments with a separate admission-based kaleidoscope show housed in a towering former silo.

The Troll Hole combines thousands of troll dolls and objects, themed museum rooms, a troll gift shop, coffee and waffles, events, and specialty tours.

The Wizard's Chest turns shopping into a fantasy-castle expedition, combining a professional magic shop, massive costume department, theatrical makeup counter, toy store, tabletop-game shop, science-and-skill-toy department, event venue, and escape-room experience.

Thornhill Racing Circuit combines radio-control culture, technical track design, and organized racing in Hutto, TX.

Tiger Dust treats a Seminole Heights storefront as a modern wunderkammer, moving through rooms of vintage lighting, natural-history specimens, minerals, jewelry, occult books, dead media, medical models, strange found objects, and working pinball machines.

Toys “R” Us at American Dream turns the modern toy store back into a destination, combining serious retail with play, a slide and café.

Trackside at Crash’n Bash Hobbies combines radio-control culture, technical track design, and organized racing in Cedar Rapids, IA.

Unclaimed Baggage turns the contents of unclaimed travel bags and cargo into a sprawling treasure hunt, filling departments with apparel, cameras, electronics, sporting goods, jewelry, books, luggage, household goods, and whatever else travelers happened to leave behind.

Uranus Fudge Factory & General Store turns a Richmond fudge-and-gift shop into a giant roadside entertainment stop filled with candy, novelty merchandise, dinosaurs, a hanging airplane, a Vortex Tunnel and other intentionally ridiculous attractions.

Vermont Teddy Bear’s Shelburne factory pairs plush retail and a make-your-own Design Studio with guided views of bear production.

Vision Comics & Oddities starts as an old-school comics and collectible shop and then wanders into taxidermy, specimens in jars, horror props, local art, dolls, masks, monsters, and bizarre oversized displays.

Von's Shops turns a long-running campus-area bookstore into a maze of records, rocks, beads, jewelry, fashion, comics, cards and novelty merchandise that keeps changing retail categories as you move through it.