A recent expansion and remodel has led to significant growth for one Hartford, Connecticut, gift shop.
Rory Gale opened Hartford Prints! as a small stationery store in 2013 along Pratt Street in Hartford, Connecticut, serving as an expansion of an art studio and letterpress printing space she had been running for several years at that location. What started as a store featuring handmade letterpress products grew over the past decade into all kinds of Hartford souvenirs and gifts.
“We’ve become a destination where people will get a postcard or sticker to take away from their time in Hartford. We’re a place where everyone brings a family member or friend visiting from out of town,” says Gale.
She adds, “We’ve grown year after year, adding in more offerings, more products, more assortment. The growth wasn’t overnight but being very involved in the community and having customers who love the store and the brand so much, our store got too small for the demand. We would have lines out the door to get in sometimes.”
Since the storefront featured some office and warehouse space attached to it, Gale says she saw potential to expand the store into the entire Pratt Street space.
Through the help of a $150,000 Hart Lift grant from the Hartford Chamber of Commerce, Hartford Prints! debuted a larger storefront in late September, tripling in size and adding new product lines to its mix.
Gale notes that receiving the grant was a big help in encouraging her to move forward with expansion plans, as it covered about half of the construction and renovation costs. “If that type of funding wasn’t available, I probably would have just stayed a small gift shop,” she says. “The risk of investing in construction and renovation is high for a small business. To know that half of the costs would be covered from this city grant made it half as risky.”
But it was a risk she thought would be worth taking.
“I knew that the demand was there for this store — it was time to grow,” says Gale. “Everybody loved the old store layout, but it was pretty tight.”
The Hartford Prints! expansion project took six months. Gale says she was able to temporarily move the gift shop to a store front about one block away as renovations took place. Since renovating, Gale says the expanded store features much more breathing room for customers shopping for their Hartford souvenirs and gifts. She also was able to expand the store’s kids’ section and include a new pet section, as well as new gift items, such as candles, puzzles, games and seasonal items.
“We’ve been open just since late September, and we’ve already had our best day of all time the first weekend in October, proving that this was a good investment,” she shares.
Having grown up in Hartford, Gale adds that she’s excited to see her store grow and showcase merchandise that shares Hartford pride with locals and tourists alike. She says she would love for Hartford Prints! to add another storefront in the future, but for now she is hopeful that her store’s story can serve as an inspiration to other small business owners.
“If you invest in the city, it will give back to you — that’s what Hartford Prints! has proven,” she says. “We want more small businesses to thrive like we’ve been able to thrive.”
