Mark Zimmerman wanted to own an antique shop for years.
“I’ve always been a treasure hunter,” he said.
His interest began as a child. He accompanied his mother, who had the same bug, to antique stores.
Zimmerman has also been in the antique business for years, selling at various places as a vendor. But that wasn’t his living.
His living was the hospitality business. He has worked in restaurants, and also for the Ritz Carlton hotel chain as a chef and event supervisor. Most recently he was the food and beverage manager at the Bedford Country Club.
Zimmerman also spent a year in the Philippines. His wife, Robin, works for Genworth and she was sent there to do corporate training. She was able to take Mark with her, so he spent a year as a house pet while his wife did training.
When they came back to the U. S., and Bedford, the opportunity to buy Needful Things came up. The owners were retiring, so Zimmerman bought the business. He closed on the purchase in October, 2020 and they handed him the keys.
“I was like a deer in the headlights,” he said. “It’s a lot different from doing it for fun.”
Fortunately, buying a healthy business is not like starting a business from the ground up. He had existing vendors and, with contacts from being involved in antiques for years, he was able to attract more. He now has more than 30 vendors and they fill all three floors of the 130 year old building. They are on the main floor, they are upstairs, they are downstairs.
The name “a little bit of everything.” comes from the fact that the offerings are not strictly antiques. There are modern things and there are a whole host of consumables.
One of the most unique consumables, for an antique store, is that he has an ABC license. His is the only antique store in Virginia that has one. He is so unique that the Virginia ABC did not have a category for antique stores.
“So, we are under souvenir shop,” he said, noting that he may be the first antique store to apply for an ABC license.
Mark describes himself as the big picture man. His wife, Robin, figures out how to make his ideas work. So, she handled the ABC license, eventually came back to him with a stack of forms as thick as a telephone book.
“You are going to owe me big time,” she told him.
He already knew he had one customer. His landlord, Jim Messier, likes Belgian beer. Mark stocks beer brewed by Trappist monks in a monastery in Rochefort, Belgium. If you try this beer, have respect for it. It has an alcohol level that puts an IPA to shame. The monastery it comes from dates back to the 12th century and its current brewery has been in operation since 1899.
With his past business experience, he knows a number of distributors and knows how to contact others. What he does is seeks to have beers that you won’t find in the grocery stores. He also has items like mead, a drink made from fermented honey. He has it from Scotland and Virginia. Some of his beer comes from Virginia. He really likes Apocalypse Ale’s products, but most he can’t get because most of their brews are sold directly from their taproom. His license requires him to buy from a distributor.
He stocks a variety of wine, again focusing on what the grocery stores don’t carry. This includes port wine from Oporto, Portugal.
Next on his list is saki from Japan. Mark expects to have it soon.
Mark said he likes to respond to customer requests and try to get what the ask for.
He stocks rocks, minerals and fossils. He has teeth from mosasaurs, giant marine reptiles of the Mesozoic. He has ammonites, coiled fossils of the shells of an extinct cephalopod. He has orthoceras fossils. These were another species of extinct cephalopod. They were kind of like squid, but had a shell.
He sells a wide variety of minerals and some large geodes. He has pyrite, rose quartz, fluorite and amethyst. The rocks and minerals come from Brazil and Morocco. Fossils are mostly from Morocco, although the orthoceras fossils are Swedish.
And, he has a megalodon tooth that he isn’t ready to sell yet. A megalodon was a massive shark. This tooth is as big as a man’s hand and Mark said it is not a big tooth by megalodon standards.
Aren’t you glad they are extinct?
Zimerman's A Little Bit of Everything has a web site at
www.loc8nearme.com/virginia/bedford/needful-things-antiques-mall/5692131/
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Zimmerman's A Little Bit of Everything has a web site at www.loc8nearme.com/virginia/bedford/needful-things-antiques-mall/5692131/