For mainland resident Denise Giardina, managing her own gift shop on Long Beach Island “is the life.” That’s also the translation of the store’s name, Sea LaVie, which is a play on the popular French saying, c’est la vie.
 |
| Photo by Jack Reynolds Sea LaVie offers a plethora of adorable items that are perfect for the home. |
“When this opportunity came up, I said yes out of nowhere. Who knows what I was thinking at that point?” Giardina said, while wrapping a customer purchase in tissue paper. “I always wanted to own my own store, but I never thought I could. I love it.”
The incentive for the shop, which opened just two doors away from The Chicken or the Egg on North Bay Avenue in Beach Haven right before Memorial Day, stemmed from Giardina’s desire to display and sell the photography of her husband Frank, who has owned Oceanview Electric for 26 years.
“That was my inspiration, all the local photographs that he’s taken of the Shack and the local birds and the boats down Dock Road in Manahawkin and Viking Village,” she said. “I wanted to market his photos that he has thousands and thousands of.”
An array of artwork from other local artists is also featured in the shop, including photos by SandPaper photographer Jack Reynolds as well as handmade glass, painted beads, mosaics and wine glasses by Reynold’s wife, Cheryl Syminink.
“I can’t keep them in the store. They fly out,” Giardina said, picking up a new box of hand-painted wine glasses from Syminink.
Oils and acrylics by Amy Kunze, watercolors by Dorothy Smith, Sharon Twomey’s handmade pottery and Ruth Hawthorne’s up-cycled furniture from local destinations, such as a table made out of beach fencing from 19th Street in Beach Haven, are also for sale in the shop.
“There’s just a little bit of everything,” said Giardina. “It’s not a totally beach store because people that come here week by week, yes, they want a memento of the beach, but not everybody goes home and decorates beach.”
 |
| Photo by Jack Reynolds Owner Denise Giardina makes sure she doesn't carry anything other local stores have. |
The shop also offers unique accessories and giftware from limited-edition Shwood sunglasses made from Atlantic Records’ vinyls to handmade snow-ladies fashioned from vintage clothing.
“I like a lot of American-made things, so I have a lot of people from all over the country that make things for me. That’s what keeps me different,” said Giardina. “When everybody comes in here to see what companies I buy from, I go into their store to make sure I never buy what they’re selling.
“Frank says everything I touch turns to gold,” she added, noting that she receives new items every day.
Giardina is not a newcomer to the Island. She has worked in the local area for over 25 years, she said.
“We moved down here in ’85. We came down for Labor Day weekend and never went home,” she emphasized.
During the early 1990s, Giardina managed Cornucopia, a former gift shop on Route 9 in Manahawkin. She also worked as a bookkeeper at Diane Turton Realtors for 12 years as well as the front-end manager at Defiglio’s supermarket in Ship Bottom. Because customers used to keep open charges or running tabs or checks, she used to know everyone on the Island by their last name, she noted. Now at Sea LaVie, she is running into customers both new and old.
“I actually meet a lot of the people that I’ve known in the past, a lot of whom I recognize by their voice, or their name, or their mannerism,” she said. “It’s so funny. I look totally different than when I did back then, and so do they. It’s like a trip down memory lane, so to speak.”
For a chance to meet Giardina and check out her inventory, Sea LaVie is open seven days a week, from 8:30 a.m. to 10 p.m. After Chowderfest, the store will be open five days a week until the holidays, when it will close for the season.
“I had an incredible summer,” Giardina said. “I had no idea what to expect, how much to order, or how busy I would be. I heard from other store owners that it’s been slow this summer, and if this is slow, I can’t wait for next year. I literally cannot keep up.”
— Kelley Anne Essinger
This article was published in The SandPaper.
No comments:
Post a Comment