Grasshopper Goods
Karen Tardrew (right) and Jenn Zutter stock wares from Oxford Pennant, The Midwest Girl and Knitted What-Knot.
After several years of bouncing from spot to spot, Grasshopper Goods has landed, at least for the next few months, on Main Street, in Stoughton. Since the beginning of November, the local maker emporium/general store has been operating a brick-and-mortar shop at 171W. Main St.
You may recognize the name Grasshopper Goods from its mobile boutique, the brainchild of Karen Tardrew, who has run the original store out of a leafy green-and-white van since 2017.
The Stoughton store carries a similar inventory to the shop’s mobile boutique, a variety of jewelry, home goods, clothing and accessories from independent artists and makers. The new storefront provides a home base.
Grasshopper’s creative director, Jenn Zutter, met Tardrew when they both worked at now-closed A Stone’s Throw on Monroe Street. Zutter says the boutique’s mission is simple. “We want to make shopping fun again. Internet shopping can be necessary, but it’s solitary,” Zutter says. “We want to spark conversations.”
The storefront is also an opportunity to expand inventory. “We can have more things like pottery that we can’t have in the truck,” Zutter says, because of the probability of breakage. There are also vending rules that mean the truck can’t sell food items. The Stoughton shop sells bags of Mike and Jen’s Cocoa Mix, based in Duluth, Minnesota.
Also look for cute sweatshirts from Midwest Girl, letterpress planners from Ruff House Art and handknit Wisconsin and Green Bay Packers hats from Knitted What Knot. “We can’t keep those in stock,” Zutter says.
Tardrew founded Grasshopper Goods after a family trip to the Caribbean. “It was all these weird magical grasshoppers,” Tardrew says. “We took a van ride across the island and when I sat next to the driver, a grasshopper landed on the window. ‘This never happens,’ the driver said. ‘It’s a good omen — it means leaps of faith.’”
Taking it as a sign to open her own business, Tardrew drew up a business plan that centered on a mobile shop in Madison, enlisting the help of her brother, John Foersterling. While Foersterling, a specialist in vehicle restoration and repair, worked on rebuilding a 1977 Chevy Step Van, Tardrew and Zutter started doing pop-ups and “schlepping bins,” Tardrew says.
However, city of Madison street vending rules prohibit this type of street vending and Grasshopper is still unable to vend on city streets.
As a result, Grasshopper Goods became even more mobile than Tardrew originally anticipated. “We started going all over the state and northern Illinois,” Tardrew says. “We put 6,000 miles on the truck that first year.”
While Grasshopper Goods will continue to be mobile — look for the van near the Capitol Square on Nov. 16 for the Winter Night Market — Tardrew is excited to have the storefront in Stoughton for the holiday season, and maybe beyond. (She will reevaluate in January.) The shop comes with its advantages, including heat. “It feels like winter but we’re not in our boots and parkas,” Tardrew says.
Grasshopper Goods will celebrate its Stoughton grand opening on Nov. 15. Tardrew and Zutter look forward to seeing old friends and meeting new customers. “The kind of connections we make here are different,” Zutter says. “With the truck it’s swift moving and you only have a moment to talk with someone. Here you can talk with customers and hear their stories.”
Grasshopper Goods
171 W. Main St., Stoughton; 608-334-5069
grasshopper-goods.myshopify.com; 10 am-6 pm Wed.-Sat.
