In 2023, Harrisonburg welcomed a new staple, the Liberty Street Mercantile right across the street from the beloved Magpie Diner. The mercantile houses a collection of small businesses.

• Parentheses Books
• Blakemore’s Flowers
• The Living Room Collective
• Asdelia Mae
• Chestnut Ridge Coffee Roasters
• Rhythm & Vinyl

In the summer of 2025, jCamp students wrote about the somewhat new, up-and-coming businesses housed inside. This year, campers returned, speaking to the small businesses about their growth and development over the past year within their business and across the mercantile.

Parentheses Books: Writing new chapters

Tucked into a corner when you first enter, the tables at Parentheses Books are stacked with a variety of reading options, some of which you may not find at a chain bookstore. Over the past year, there have been a multitude of transformations. From new familiar faces to popular local gatherings, owner Amanda Friss mentioned several areas of growth.

“When I first opened, it was hard to get going with events,” Friss said. “I’ve been doing more events and I have more regular customers.” 

With a book club, art fundraising, and poetry events, Parentheses Books has a little something for everyone. These things act as a way to not just draw in customers, but also create community. However, while there has been an abundance of successes, Friss believes there are still some things that can be improved upon. For example, the demographic of her customers.

“The only population that I’m missing out on would be college students,” Friss said. “The trick is getting them to know I’m here in general, and then to follow the social media.”

A spike in electronic  reading might be to blame for this trend, said Friss. Most books can now be found online or in audiobook form, which makes it easier for busy students and young adults to listen on their walk to class or ride to work. Yet, there’s still something special about holding a book in your hand, smelling the bound papers, and having your eyes follow across the page while relaxing in a comfortable spot.

“A lot of people listen to a book on audio, and they love it so much that they come in and buy the physical copy even though they’ve already read it,” Friss said.

Since the opening in late 2023, Parentheses Books continues to flourish and expand while quietly influencing each person who stops by. From helping get books in people’s hands to connecting community, Parentheses has sprouted within the last year.

Blakemore’s Flowers: Growing with the seasons

In 2023, Blakemore’s Flowers moved to the Liberty Street Mercantile where the owner, Abby Chick, designs and creates beautiful floral arrangements for a variety of events. Last year she was unavailable for an interview, but this year jCamp students had the pleasure of getting to meet her, hear her story, and witness her design process in person.

“I took a break from school and got a part-time job working at a florist [in Harrisonburg], which was my hometown, and I liked it,” Chick said. “It was fun enough and you get to work with beautiful stuff and play around with colors.”

While working, Chick discovered her talent for creating floral arrangements. Rather than strictly planning out her designs in advance, she lets the flowers themselves give her inspiration. The bend of the stems, the unique and individual look of each natural flower, instead, give her inspiration. 

“My inspiration for the designs I create really do come from the floral material,” Chick said. “I don’t really have an idea in my head right now of the shape or the end form that this is going to create. I kind of let the materials lead me in that direction.”

Her designs are carefully crafted and elaborate. The care that Chick takes with each design is part of what makes her business unique. She enjoys taking inspiration from online, but explained that she believes when you sit down to create you have to turn that off to ensure that you make something that is original, not just a copy of someone else’s.

“Twenty [orders] is average for just a normal day, whereas on Valentine’s Day we might be sending out 300 [orders],” Chick said. “It’s very much a business that fluctuates. You can have somebody spend $35, or you can have an order for $400 for one arrangement. So, how much business you do is all over the place.”

People order floral arrangements to celebrate birthdays, weddings, baby showers, and many other events. However, out of all of these, Chick said that funerals are her favorite event to design for, as it gives her a chance to share positivity when someone is having a hard time.  

“It’s the last chance for people to come together and celebrate your time here on Earth, and oftentimes people will choose flowers as a way to express those emotions,” Chick said. “It means a lot when someone tells me that the flower arrangement that I made for them was the one joy they felt that day.”

The Living Room Collective: Collecting new experience

One of the stores that remain is the Living Room Collective, a cozy home goods store located on the ground floor of the Liberty Street Mercantile. The Living Room Collective carries a large variety of products to appeal to anyone looking to decorate their homes, or living rooms, in little or big ways.

“It’s grown a lot,” employee and mother of the owner, Deborah Sutphin, said. “Our social media has really blown up a lot. We spend a lot of time trying to do social media. Whoever is working for the day has to do Instagrams post, any type of new products or anything that we get in, we put on.”

To promote new customer engagement and products, they reach out on socials, but to curate the inventory, the owner of the store searches for specific products she believes would sell best.

“If she [Laura Briner] doesn’t like it, she doesn’t buy it,” Sutphin said. “I mean, she’s like, ‘Would I put this in my own kitchen? Yes.’ So she buys that. And then when she buys cards, she’s like, ‘Does this card make me laugh? Yes.’ So she buys. That’s how she buys things.”

Briner bases her product purchases on her own tastes, as well as the curated preferences of the customers depending on what kind of items they sell the best. One of their best selling collections, for example, is kitchen accessories, so Briner keeps this in mind when expanding the stock.

“We have people that buy things all the time, and we keep those things in stock,” Sutphin said. “As far as our uniqueness, we do little vignettes, and we rotate, and if you see it, you better buy it, because it may not be here. Our mugs, the jellies, and towels, and things like that for the kitchen. We always keep that in stock.”

One year ago, the business said they were barely breaking even. This year, Sutphin tells a different story. While not making excessive profit, they are doing better.

 “Well, one of our goals was to, of course, make money,” Sutphin said. “We didn’t make any money, but we broke even. We paid all of our bills and we were able to do a little expanding. We’re smarter with how we’re using our money.”

The Living Room Collective continues to be one of the integral parts of the Liberty Street Mercantile. Customers who come to pick up their bridal bouquet may stop by to pick up a small gift for themselves, some may come by to pick up a new kitchen accessory that they’ve had their eye on, or maybe some just happen to stumble across the street from a nice brunch at Magpie and leave with a couple things.

Asdelia Mae: “It’s part of growing up!”

Tucked into the corner of Liberty Street Mercantile is a children’s clothing boutique that specializes in timeless clothes built to last, Asdelia Mae. The owner, Jenna Cauchi prioritizes family, community, and play.

“We like to think of ourselves as more than a store, more of a place in the community,” Cauchi said. “So we do a lot of community outreach, a lot of community events. That’s really important.”

One of the ways Cauchi stays involved in the community is through the events she hosts at Asdelia Mae. These events bring the children, and parents, of Harrisonburg together, as well as boosting engagement with the business and building customers.

“We do story time every Tuesday, and we do something called Camp Asdelia Mae,” Cauchi said. “It’s little different events that we host to just bring the community in. Our next one is a sleepover. It’s for [the kids] to drop off their favorite stuffy or doll.”

Cauchi also has an interesting perspective as she is a former elementary school teacher and a stay home mom. Spending a lot of her career and home time around little ones gave her knowledge on effective clothing that’s not only comfortable but durable. Asdelia Mae gives her an outlet to be the change she wants to see in the community. 

“As a parent I would like to see those things in my community. It makes our community a better place,” Cauchi said. “Being a mom and being a teacher really helped us be, or is helping us be, what we want to be.”

Cauchi also heavily prioritizes family and the name of the boutique, Asdelia Mae, reflects that. The name comes from the name of both her grandmothers, Asdelia on her mother’s side and Mae on her father’s side.

“They are two really great women representing motherhood,” Cauchi said. “I combined them to represent who we are.”

Cauchi has many goals for the boutique moving forward, and hopes to further solidify Asdelia Mae as a part of the community, not just grow in profits. Asdelia Mae might just seem like a children’s store, but it is much more than that, both to Cauchi and the Harrisonburg community.

“The goal is to continue being a staple here in Harrisonburg,” Cauchi said. “I want us to be a place where when you mention Harrisonburg, they go, ‘Oh yeah! There’s a really good children’s boutique there!’”

Chestnut Ridge Coffee Roasters: More than just a coffee bean

Last year, jCamp students weren’t able to interview the coffee shop located in the basement level of the Liberty Street Mercantile. Chestnut Ridge Coffee Roasters offers a variety of drinks, including lattes, cold brews, and more. Within the past year, as well as since opening, the business has grown significantly.

“As far as I know, the locations stayed the same, but I think that the distribution is different, like, local business around the area has increased,” Chestnut Ridge employee Charlie Loving said. “Beyond the roasting and cafe aspect, the online orders and stuff have gotten a lot bigger in terms of who we distribute to.”

In the spring of 2019, the coffee shop was opened. Since then, the shop has expanded in multiple forms. From online orders, to connections with the customers, the coffee shop has made substantial progress with their business.

“I’ll see the same people over and over again, and it’ll be really nice to kind of build that relationship with those people,” Loving said. “You almost always know what they’re going to get. I think that’s a unique aspect, which is kind of lost in bigger locations.”

The connections with the customers isn’t the only thing different from a corporate coffee shop. They don’t mass produce their beans, which is a common thing in chains like Starbucks and Dunkin’. Instead they order the beans from farms in Latin America, and roast in the store.

“The owners are in contact with a distributor who collects beans from the various locations we collect from places like El Salvador, Ethiopia, and Brazil,” Loving said. “We have a few more, Guatemala, Papua New Guinea, and Mexico.”

Business is about standing out, and as far as coffee, Chestnut Ridge does a great job at that. Their small town atmosphere mixed with the in-house roasting and packaging that isn’t offered by multiple shops creates an experience you won’t find anywhere else and draws in business from everywhere in Harrisonburg.

Visit the Liberty Street Mercantile!