Don’t call it a pawn shop.
At least not in front of Paradise Trading Post’s owner, Mike Alexander, 57, who will quickly remind the offender what the store really is.
“We’re not a thrift shop either. I like to refer to us as kind of an antique store for men,” he said in early April, before chuckling. “For that reason, I always call us a ‘mantique’ store; we deal in records, collectibles, antiquities.”
It’s been a little more than four years since Alexander opened the trading post at the Oak Knoll Shopping Center in Orcutt, and while Paradise has bounced around empty spaces in the complex during that time, its mission has remained essentially the same.
“We originally started as a history-based type store,” Alexander explained while gesturing to a glass case filled with ancient coins, artifacts, and even chunks of meteorites.
When A&E Networks began airing Storage Wars in 2010, Alexander and his son, Michael, 28, became instant fans. Inspired by the show, they eventually made a trip to Las Vegas to take part in storage facility auctions.
“I got hooked,” Alexander said.
It wasn’t long before Alexander had a veritable museum of knickknacks, rarities, and collectibles. Just for that first Vegas trip alone, he and Michael had to rent two 26-foot U-Haul trucks to get the items back to Santa Maria.
“That was the beginning of this,” Alexander said, before Michael added, “This all just used be in our garage.”
Fast forward four years and Paradise isn’t just getting by, business is booming.
“We stay open seven days a week because that’s how our customers want it,” Alexander said, adding that some of his patrons rely on the store to buy items for supplemental income.
Paradise offers cash for items it thinks it can sell and tends to offer a little bit more if customers opt to sell their goods for store credit.
And the “mantique store” seems to have a never-ending amount of wares to satisfy curious collectors and deal seekers.
“It gets a little overwhelming,” Michael says, adding that he and his dad have a 3,000-foot storage unit practically bursting at the seams with collectables. “We have so much.”
One thing Paradise seem to have an endless supply of is vinyl, with row upon row of records dominating the store’s floor.
Master of records Justin Stoskopf, 29, told the Sun the store tries to maintain an eclectic collection of blues, soul, funk, jazz, and punk rock.
“We are 95 percent used,” he said. “We like that about our store because people come in here and they can’t get some of this stuff unless you go online and that takes a while—some of them just want to be able to touch it and feel it before they buy it.”
Stoskopf said one of his favorite parts of the job was finding records he would have never heard of if customers hadn’t brought them in to be sold.
“You never know what it’s going to be,” he added.
Back on the floor with Alexander, Paradise’s owner rotated his gaze around the store and laughed again.
“Every day I see people come in here and they smile,” he said. “It’s the memory lane kind of stuff.”
Staff Writer Spencer Cole wrote this week’s Biz Spotlight. Information should be sent to the Sun via fax, mail, or email at [email protected].
