For Vicki Moore, owner of Lucky Strike Vintage Boutique, opening up her newest store on Hillsborough Street was nothing short of striking gold.
Lucky Strike Vintage is Moore’s second installment of her boutique. Her first store, located in Winston Salem, has been open since June 9, 2011, and Moore felt it was time to branch out.
“I’ve been trying to build enough to where I felt like I could move on and open a second store,” Moore said. “I was able to make it all happen within a year and a half which is really great.”
Lucky Strike Vintage held its grand opening Feb. 9, but has been open since December.
“Numbers mean a lot to me,” Moore said. “That’s why we opened on Dec. 12, 2012. I feel like we should think more about making that positive connection with the astrological gods. That has a lot of power.”
According to Moore, deciding on the Hillsborough Street location was a no-brainer.
“I feel like the area need this,” Moore said. “There’s only one vintage store in Raleigh, Father and Son, which is downtown. I think there’s enough room in Raleigh for another vintage store … we complement each other.”
Moore expressed the eclectic style on her racks, a collection of different eras that convey no specific timeframe.
“I’ve always really felt like that was a part of my artistic side and didn’t really want to follow the in crowd,” Moore said. “I wore hand-me-downs from my cousins when I was growing up, and I developed my own style in high school. I had the streaks before they were popular and I would wear striped socks up to my knees with weird coverall pants and Dr. Scholl’s shoes … it was crazy.”
Moore hasn’t always been in the vintage business though. Originally a nightclub owner, Moore stressed how tiring the nightlife business can be.
“I went from nightclub ownership into this, something that’s a little saner,” Moore said. “Switching to this has been stable from day to day, with maybe a day off during the week. In the nightclub business there’s never any downtime and I had been in that business for a decade plus.”
Suggestion from others helped guide Moore into the vintage business.
“I’ve always had a good eye,” Moore said. “People have always told me I can really find great and special one-of-a-kind things. They said it was something I should consider doing after I got out of the nightclub business.”
Moore hopes her artistic talents will bring a better sense of camaraderie to her Hillsborough neighbors.
“I would like to try and gather camaraderie with the other businesses and maybe do a first Friday or a second Saturday on this end of Hillsborough Street,” Moore said. “I would love to get all the businesses to come together and possibly once a month stay open a little later.”
The connection between N.C. State and Lucky Strike Vintage, Moore stressed, is the benefits they can offer one another.
“I want the students at N.C. State to think of us as an alternative to a thrift store,” Moore said. “Our prices are really reasonable … I mean some things are free. I’m hoping that students would come see if they could find what they’re looking for here before they go somewhere else.”
Future plans are in the works for Lucky Strike Vintage. According to Moore, the boutique will soon accept items for store credit or cash. With new pieces coming in daily, Moore hopes the two forms of filling the store will keep with the vintage trend.
“It’s about finding that little special piece of whatever,” Moore said. “That something you weren’t expecting to find … like Christmas day.”
The items in Moore’s boutique aren’t the only special pieces found in Lucky Strike Vintage. According to Moore the name of the boutique itself is golden.
“I really thought about the name of what I was going to give birth to,” Moore said. “I wanted it to be about finding that special gem when you walk in the place. The coined term comes from when people headed out west in search of gold. I wanted the effect of someone walking in saying, ‘Wow, look at this!’ That’s my version of a lucky strike.”
