LYNN — One of downtown’s most unique businesses celebrated its three-year anniversary this month by adding a new, one-of-a-kind space.
Ravenstone has a unique and diverse collection of goods in its retail location on Exchange Street, where customers can browse through an expansive collection of trinkets and oddities, including everything from crystals and plants to books and bracelets.
“We’ve been really, really lucky here,” General Manager and co-owner Eric Gendron said. “This place attracts great people from all over. We really do have the best customers and people who walk through our door.”
Ravenstone now has a new addition of a cozy reading room and event space, which Gendron said had been used for retail since last year.
However, according to Gendron, the reading room isn’t the kind where you curl up with a novel, but is for oracle, astrology, and tarot-card readings.
Gendron explained that being an independent business allowed Ravenstone to quickly use the space in a new way.
“We made the decision pretty quickly and just sort of acted on it,” Gendron said. “We always wanted to do that, we just didn’t have the space to do it.”
Gendron said the room has flexibility and will also be used for events like book talks, pop-up vendors, and workshops, including an upcoming broom-making event.
“At some point, we do have something going on in here nearly every day,” he said.
Gendron credited the success of Ravenstone to its atmosphere and devotion to the customer’s experience.
“It’s progressed,” he said. “We definitely work super hard. We’re open seven days a week, we don’t close.”
He noted that many of the products the business sells are items Ravenstone’s seven-person team all use, including Gendron and co-owner Kathleen Gendron, his wife.
“It’s just nice to be able to offer that to people in an authentic way,” Eric Gendron said. “People come in and think we’re a chain… It’s really a mom-and-pop shop.”
The store has won multiple Northshore Magazine Best of North Shore readers’ choice awards for best bookstore, best fashion jewelry, and best handcrafted gifts.
A list of upcoming events at the store can be found on its website.
