ENID, OK - Bottle Caps Mercantile has been decades in the making but the owners, Curtis D. Tucker and Todd Wheeler, didn't even know it. The local duo opened the doors on Enid's newest gift and t-shirt shop on Monday, December 10, 2018. Stop by and you'll get the feeling of something vintage mixed with something new.
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Tucker, owner of Enid Buzz, spends a week in Granbury, Texas each summer. Two summers in a row, his family was stopped on the same dock at a local hangout because of the Enid Pom shirts his daughters were wearing. That's when Tucker realized local adults needed more t-shirt choices brandishing fun Enid designs.
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Wheeler, owner of Wheeler Construction, had been looking for a second source of income that would keep him indoors with less stress on his back. He teamed up with Tucker to start the 70's Buzz Podcast in June of 2017. They also created BuzzHead Radio, an online independent radio station.
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Tucker and Wheeler had first met at Waller Junior High in the mid 70's and have been friends ever since. In recent years the two formed BuzzHead Media LLC to develop their new projects. They began looking for a downtown building to open a studio and office to conduct their new ventures. Johnny Peart, owner of the Broadway Tower, helped them open an office on the ground floor of the iconic building.
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Within a few months the duo moved their studio to the 8th floor of the Triangle Business Center overlooking the town square. They built an online store and started selling Enid t-shirts under their BuzzHead Brand. Soon they began talking about needing more space and wanting to produce their own t-shirts.
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John Berg, President of Triangle Insurance, caught wind of the duo's idea to possibly open a storefront and went to work creating a space for the t-shirt shop. A glass front office on the ground floor was made ready and a year after moving to the Triangle Business Center, the company moved offices to the ground floor across the hall from Callahan's Pub.
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Tucker and Wheeler also put a business plan together and entered a local entrepreneurship grant contest. They presented their idea to create, print and sell multiple lines of t-shirts to all residents of Enid including those that have moved away. Although they were unsuccessful in the grant contest to buy their own equipment, the two began touring print shops and gathering costs to have their t-shirt line printed.
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After becoming frustrated with costs, minimums and inventory concerns Tucker and Wheeler tossed around the idea of silk screening their own t-shirts. Tucker had printed shirts in his basement in 1990's but had to sell his equipment due to a move. Wheeler wondered if the equipment might still be around and messaged the family that had purchased the screen printer.
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To their amazement, the screen press had been sitting in storage for all of those years and had never been used. Tucker and Wheeler bought the equipment back and purchased the supplies and shirts needed to get the company started. They also bought store fixtures from the local Hallmark going out of business and then purchased inventory from the local Candyopolis also going out of business.
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The store began to come together when Tucker filled it with pedal cars he had been collecting over the years and the theme quickly became retro vintage. They also added the front end of a '61 Chevy Impala that had been collecting rust in Wheeler's back yard. Tucker had spotted the car at an antique sale and told Wheeler to buy it if he thought they might use it one day. It became another piece of the puzzle that was forming the new business.
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Tucker had also been collecting Summerfest posters and other vintage Enid history which has been added to the decor of the store. Wheeler built the counter out of wood he had laying around his house. Natalie Beurlot, who the two contracted to work with them, suggested covering the countertop with bottle caps.
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Tucker set out to collect bottle caps from multiple sources. Mike Fleming, co-owner of Callahan's Pub, donated his five year collection of beer bottle caps to the cause. The other half of the caps were from pop bottles and were purchased on Etsy. After a few thousand bottle caps were collected, the countertop was done.
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Tucker, a logo designer, had always toyed with the idea of naming a business after a vintage item and it dawned on him that Bottle Caps would make the perfect name for the business. Since the store was going to be retro vintage with a wide variety of items they decided to call it a mercantile. Hence, Bottle Caps Mercantile was born.
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Tucker had been a silk screen printer in the eighties so it didn't take he and Wheeler long before they were printing their own t-shirts. Wheeler had owned and run Philly's Cheesesteak Sandwich Shoppe back in the nineties so he had a background in running a brick-and-mortar business while Tucker had been the Advertising Director for Evans Drug for over 10 years and knew retail marketing.
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Many things you find in the mercantile have come directly from Tucker and Wheeler. They created the designs on the shirts and actually hand pulled each tee. Tucker restarted his former Chuckleberry's Paper Card Company and they had their own line of greeting cards. Wheeler's wife, Christi, handmade all of the car fragrances. The two plan on adding many more handmade items in the store.
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The mercantile has teamed up with Enid Brewing Company and sells t-shirts, hats and glasses. They also carry Enid and Oklahoma photographic coffee table books created by local photographer, Mike Klemme. Other merchandise includes the JWL cookbook Stir Ups and OKcollective Candles with more locally sourced products on the way.
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Bottle Caps Mercantile opened two weeks before Christmas with holiday hours. They are open from 12:00pm to 6:00pm, Monday through Saturday until Christmas Eve. Regular store hours are to be determined.
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The gift shop can be a bit hard to find if you don't know where it is. The best bit of advice is to park in the parking lot west of the Triangle Business Center and enter the doors on the west side that lead to Callahan's. The glass front shop is just beyond the pub entry. The address is 205 W. Maple, Suite 108.
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Different t-shirt designs and other goods can be purchased online as well. Products online will be fulfilled by BC Merc partners and shipped directly to the customer. The website can be found at bcmerc.com or bottlecapsmercantile.com. Most items online cannot be purchased in the brick-and-mortar store.
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Curtis Tucker, John Berg and Todd Wheeler in Bottle Caps Mercantile.
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