“I wanted it to be only online, and not be overwhelmed with a retail store.”
Cat Roth tells me this earnestly as we sit in her newly opened store, Thistle and Poppy, on 15th Avenue in Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood.
At just over a month old, much is still in the works at the shop that Roth describes as a “family concept shop for kids and grown-ups alike”. Roth is planning a “community corner” by the window to house a toy library and crafting station, weekly drawing prompts for kids to hang on the walls, a much larger secondhand section, and a selection of adult vintage clothes.
But, walking into this bright, cheery business, you wouldn’t know from the store is anything less than complete.
Inside, rows of shelves cover what used to be the mirrored walls of Rudy’s Barbershop. They are lined with unique housewares, bags, candles, accessories, and toys. Baby and baby shower gifts fill one corner. There are racks of vintage kids’ clothes and on this December visit, the large display table in the middle of the shop is loaded with books, ornaments, stockings, and stuffers.
New items are only part of what’s available at Thistle and Poppy. Photo by Britt Thorson
From history to heirloom toys
How she got here is a tale as old as time. A Seattle-raised woman goes to school for history, gets very involved in local and public history projects like HistoryLink and the Seattle Civil Rights and Labor History Project, gets a Master’s in teaching, teaches for a couple of years, has kids, gets burnt out, and looks to what’s next.
Ok, so it’s not a super familiar tale.
Eight years ago, Roth had been teaching in Issaquah for several years and had just had her first child—a life change that led to lot of soul-searching. In many ways, teaching was a great fit for Roth. She’s passionate about history, critical thinking skills, and corroborating evidence—“Skills that we all really need right now,” she says.
But in the end, it was not the profession for her, and she knew it.
“I have so much respect for teachers [but], especially with the political climate, it’s a very fraught,” says Roth. She miss pieces of her teaching experience, but leaving the field, Roth says, opened up excitement around the question “What is this new path?”
She started thrifting a lot, “as one does,” she laughs.
Roth says when she was pregnant with her second child [now 5], she started thrifting for his clothes and finding an abundance of great items.
“I got a little bit obsessed,” Roth recalls. “and started selling on the side.”
Renewed anique and vintage toys at Thistle and Poppy. Photo by Britt Thorson
A new love
She got really into it. Searching for thrift finds was fun, flexible work. She made a bit of money, but more importantly, she enjoyed it.
Then, the pandemic hit. Home with two kids, Roth started selling her finds online. Later, to get out of the house and merge her passions, she worked at Chrysanthemum Kids, a popular kids clothing, shoes, toys and nooks new and resale store in Columbia City. She was already a big customer, Roth notes.
“I really loved being around the environment and connecting with parents,” she says. It was also her opportunity to learn the inner workings of a retail store.
The hunt for items
Wheels started turning, and Roth took the first of two big leaps. First, she left Chrysanthemum to officially start Thistle and Poppy (named after her two favorite flowers) as an online store. Roth hustled hard to stock the site, spending hours in thrift stores, estate sales, and, of course, the Goodwill Bins.
Goodwill Bins. Photo courtesy Goodwill Facebook
Visiting the latter, Roth says, is “a whole adventure.”
“It’s so fun, but wear gloves, wear a mask,” she adds. “Go with a friend.”
For those unfamiliar, the Bins are Goodwill’s outlets, where excess goods go. Picture huge blue plastic bins (store garbage container size) filled with the chaos of cast-off clothes, household items, and more.
“I recommend all parents go there just because it’s shocking how much waste there is. And how much gets sent there that doesn’t even make it to the Goodwill stores, such as Dearborn,” said Roth. “If you peek in the back of the bin area it’s just like — boxes and boxes and boxes of stuff being sent away. And there is no ‘away.’”
Roth says her approach to the Bins was to “go in looking for “fun.” It was as simple as that.
“It’s shocking the amazing things I’ve found there,” Roth says. “I’ve found Maileg Mice there, I’ve found Grimm’s Blocks, a lot of really cool books, amazing vintage housewares which at the regular Goodwills, are priced extremely high.”
Online Success
Thistle and Poppy blossomed online, so Roth started doing pop-ups around town. That in and of itself was a slog as she packed up her 150-square-foot of shared warehouse space, carted it to wherever the pop-up was, arranged it in a 10 by 10-foot tent, and then carted it back when the pop-up was over. Despite her earlier desire to avoid a brick-and-mortar shop, Roth started looking for a showroom space.
She had a very specific idea of what she was looking for.
“I thought back to my time in grad school. My coping mechanism was always to walk around and go to the shops that I loved. That made me happy,” she says. She gravitated toward a store called Merch in San Francisco’s Lower Haight, where she lived at the time. “I just remember one day walking in, and [the owner] was just sitting there on her laptop, chilling with nice music, and I was like ‘God, this is it. She figured it out.’”
Roth wanted that life. And when she came across the former Rudy’s Barbershop space on 15th Ave E. on Craigslist, she couldn’t believe her luck. She decided to take the leap and evolve Thistle and Poppy into a brick-and-mortar business.
The kid’s play corner at Thistle and Poppy. Photo by Britt Thorson
The perfect landing
“Being on 15th is my dream,” she said. “This is kind of ideal because they’re redeveloping the whole street. So this is kind of a nice trial for me to see how it feels, and get the word out a little bit about the shop. So far I’m so happy.”
She flipped the space in two weeks— her husband built shelves, they painted, and loaded just some of her items into the shop.
“The response has been so positive, people in the neighborhood are really excited […] popping in,” she said. As she tours me around the shop, I can feel her joy and reverence for each individual item — the New York-based fashion designer who uses all upcycled fabrics, the Dusen Dusen stockings they just got in (“We are the only people in Seattle to carry them right now!”), and the iconic Le Bon Shoppe socks.
I’ll borrow Roth’s words to sum up the shop: fun and vibrant.
“Because that’s what childhood is,” she said.
Proprietor’s picks
If you’re feeling overwhelmed when you walk in, here are a few of Roth’s favorite items right now:
- Le Bon Shoppe bandanas ($64) — “I really want one of these. They’re so soft, they’re cashmere.”
- Martina Thornhill to-go mug ($55) — “She’s based down in Portland and really really nice.”
- Gravel and Gold duster ($320) — “That’s what parents are looking for, something you can throw on, something that has giant pockets, something that you don’t have to wash all the time and that goes with everything.”
If you go
Thistle and Poppy is located at 428 15th Ave E. on Capitol Hill.
It’s open Wednesday through Sunday, from 10:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. (with a weekday school pick-up closure between 2:30 and 3:15). You can follow them on Instagram at @shopthistleandpoppy.
Thistle & Poppy hosts a free storytime hour on Sunday mornings at 10:30 a.m., during which a local preschool teacher reads books. It’s a little “toddler chaos,” but Roth says it’s exactly what she wants.
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