Graced Gifts is a shop which sells vintage, nostalgia and pop culture, as the world becomes a place without physical books and pictures, a place where we can skip to the next song, swipe right and with the world moving so fast we like to slow it down.
This small business is not your average vintage or collectors shop; each object in Graced Gifts has history that started from collectables that owners Evelyn and Ty Menchaca owned in their home.
“We like to sell memories and pass on our collectables and saw it as a great opportunity to downsize and make room in our home and be able to share our collections with other people,” said Ty Menchaca, one of the owners of Graced Gifts.
In San Antonio Texas, a lot of small shops are scattered across the city under different classified business names, such as home goods and antique stores. While Graced Gifts is more than just that, since you will find an extensive collection of items. From prints to old black and white photographs, vintage cameras, toys that one doesn’t see in stores anymore, graphic novels, VHS movies and even items that were used before digital technology took over.
It’s a must see place that is family-owned and operated business located at 1716 Blanco Road of San Antonio. Not only do they sell their collectors at the shop, they vendor for big expo events such as: Comic Con, Monster Conand even participated in San Antonio’s first Rockula event this past fall.
Evelyn Menchaca, owner and wife of Ty Menchaca, keep their customer’s updated on new items on a daily basis through Instagram, and release information on upcoming vending events.
“We are planning to hopefully open up a much bigger store in time,” Evelyn said.
Evelyn and Ty are both hoping to always sell their memories for others to make new memories and give this new digital era a little bit of a taste of the old era.
“There is so much old stuff we have to offer so our shop is always selling a little bit of everything that fits in our customers needs for that day,” Ty Menchaca said.
“We plan to throw a block party to celebrate Friday the 13th this year in June and July and take over two blocks from Blanco and Fulton Rd. It will be called Shopping to Die For”, both Manchacas said.
This will be a great opportunity for the owners to share their special collections to the public, gain more vendors and create memories for all ages.
Greeted with lots of smiles and laughter, both Evelyn and Ty take pride in their nostalgia shop. Eventually they are hoping their shop celebrations later down the road will offer vans to sell other items and have street performers.
Uriel Diaz, a frequent customer of Graced Gifts, “I started off as a customer when they started off at Traders Village and became friends with them for three years now,” Diaz said.
Now Diaz runs a shop across the street from Evelyn and Ty, called Karolina’s Antiques LLC. His store sells a wide variety of items from jewelry, furniture, clothes, paintings and even buys used goods. Although both places have different selling atmospheres they are able to share their bond through selling goods.
Another goal Evelyn and Ty have for their shop is to offer layaways for customers to put an item on hold by placing a deposit on the item, which is a great idea considering sometimes we cannot always get what we want right away but to work towards something that is a meaningful treasure for the consumer is just golden.
Different customers come in every day whether they are looking for something that reminded them of their childhood or even look great in a medical school just like these items that are in the picture above.
In the digital age with analog in the rearview we wish to preserve the past and find the rightful home for our treasures. Nothing like being able to see something you’d never thought you see again right in the palm of your hands, bringing back childhood memories.
