So how does it work that you’re in business for two years and then you have a grand opening?

Deidre Norris, runs such a business, a shop selling funky quirky indoor/outdoor decor with Paige Williams. She’s also spearheading the Sanford & Son Middle Floor Merchants’ Grand Opening all day Saturday, July 14, and says, “It’s to let everyone know that we are there, and all the shops are full.”

Alan Gorsuch, owner of the tri-level space in downtown Tacoma with his wife, Cheryl, has even more grand plans than the grand opening, which include a co-op food market in the auction space at Sanford and Son, with rent offered at a ridiculously cheap price so long as the co-op marketers sub-head their name with “Pikers’ Place Market” and allow Gorsuch to toss cans of tuna in lieu of fresh salmon.

And in reality, the Middle Floor Merchants may be ahead of their Seattle counterparts in hip je ne sais quois.  Witness: the last Third Thursday Art Walk, as Deborah Page, who will perform Saturday, entranced the crowd.  Witness: the presence of the hipster art crowd du jour potentially drawn by the promise of secret handshake libations and artwork curated by fellow Middle Floor Merchant Gretchen Bailey (Zinnia) who has, for now, procured the artwork of Paul Uhl of eststudios.com, aka The Darkroom — whose painterly images can be seen alongside the delectable butt prints (she also snaps a mean shot of a horse’s head) of the divine Ms. Page.

And of course there are many more goodies at the Middle Floor Merchants that you didn’t’ even know you were missing, like the yummy granola-ness of Country Girl Gardens, the guitar love of Room 220 Guitars, the art and more at Black Crowe, soon to be Ramsay Crowe Galleries, and the North African and beyond fabulousness of Sorella. I don’t have the page space to list all the worthy merchants.

What you didn’t know you were missing — because, after all, goodies are only chump-change — was the reality TV drama of the Middle Floor.

Not, like, “hate you!” drama, but a drama that translates to “we are family” in the finest sense: come berry-red puke; flame-red, smoke grey fire; or (God Forbid) storm water, these disparate family members support one another, and then call in the reinforcements.

So at the Grand Opening, expect to see DJ Lulu Spice spinning at the auction level calling out the live performers at the middle floor, like Deborah Page, Deana Perez, and The Painkillers gone light (unplugged, suggests Norris.)

Fun? Hell yeah. 

Just do us all a favor: keep it a secret.



[Sanford & Son, Saturday, July 14, 10 a.m. to 8 p.m., 743 Broadway, Tacoma, 253.272.0334]