For nearly 20 years, Kari Blish, of Margaretville, has offered shoppers unique gift options from her shop at 75 Bridge St., the Happy Giraffe.
Blish, who launched the Happy Giraffe in 2017, said gift shop ownership came as a pleasant follow-up to her earlier restaurateur career.
“I owned The Flower Patch, which was a restaurant right next door, actually, from where I am now, for 16 years,” she said. “I was getting tired of the business, and there was a store here before us, called the Village Homemaker, and that was owned by a daughter and a mother that had had that business in the area for over 30 years. They were ready to retire, and I was ready to get out of the restaurant business, so I sold the restaurant and bought this. I’ve been in this building for 25 years.”
Blish said she has maintained the tradition of mother-daughter store operations, as her mother, Sandy O’Connor, is the Happy Giraffe’s only other employee and has been since the store’s opening.
The shop, Blish said, features a variety of giftable items, many of which are holiday-themed.
“We offer a lot of gifts — socks, pajamas, mugs, things like that — but our main thing, especially in the summer, is Catskill Mountain and Margaretville souvenirs: T-shirts, magnets, things like that for tourism,” she said. “We do have a lot of Christmas stuff — the pajamas are always a popular thing — and we have candles and dish towels that are Christmas, and lots of ornaments. And we have a lot of kids’ toys and stuffed animals.”
Blish said her shop has “a good range of customer base.”
“In the summer, it’s a lot of city and downstate (shoppers), and we have a lot of second homeowners in the area, and a lot of locals,” she said. “Since I am a local, that helps a little, and my price point is for locals, not anybody else.”
The effect, Blish said, is to feel welcomed and supported.
“I think I’ve had good feedback, and I do know a lot of people from my restaurant days, so there’s kind of an overlapping thing, and everyone was very supportive of me leaving that and doing this,” she said. “The village itself is good. We’ve got a lot of nice, little, small businesses, and we just had the Holiday on Main on Saturday, and that was very busy. People seem to like Margaretville and that there’s lots of things to offer here, so there’s that support of the community, and that’s all positive stuff.”
And, Blish said, the Happy Giraffe has proven as fulfilling personally as she’d hoped.
“The good thing about this business is that it’s always different,” she said. “Where the restaurant was the same egg sandwiches every day and that got tedious, this is constantly buying new things and seeing what works and people like to come in and see what’s new, so it’s always changing. That makes it a fun business to have.”
The Happy Giraffe is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Tuesday through Saturday; 10 to 3, Sunday; and closed Mondays.
For more information, follow @thehappygiraffeshop on Instagram, find “The Happy Giraffe” on Facebook or visit thehappygiraffe.square.site. Online shopping and shipping, Blish said, are available, as is online shopping with in-person pickup.