Longtime friends Dallas Patterson, Cody Potter and Adam Ynfante instantly bonded when they discovered a shared interest in vintage items, rare finds and throwbacks.
Each weekend, as they searched for hidden gems among the sea of streetwear, sports memorabilia and cassette tapes, it wouldn’t be unusual for them to bump into each other.
“We’d go pick and thrift on our own, so in a sense, we were competitors first,” Patterson said. “Every time we’d go out, we would always end up bumping into each other. We would enjoy looking at each other’s stuff, and that’s when we started meeting up. It was destiny that we would all become best friends.”
From that moment forward, they spent the next three years traveling to events such as Thrift Con in Atlanta, getting involved with groups such as the Pensacola Vintage Collective and hosting pop-up vintage clothing events locally.
“We also started vending together,” Ynfante said. “After a while, we began to talk about opening our own shop. We talked about it a lot before COVID, and then COVID shut down everything.”
The stillness of the pandemic gave them clarity and allowed them to begin the planning process.
“It set the wheels in motion,” Patterson said. “We took a big risk and the risk worked out. We’ve been open since the 25th (of September) and we’ve seen so much support.”
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Garden Street Vintage at 100 S. Jefferson St. in Pensacola offers an eclectic display of vintage streetwear, baseball hats, band T-shirts, sneakers and other blasts from the past.
“We want to change the way people think of vintage,” Patterson said. “When people think of the word ‘vintage,’ they automatically think about women’s clothing, things from the 1950s and ’60s. They don’t think about streetwear, ’90s grunge or ’90s hip-hop culture. That’s vintage to us.”
But that doesn’t mean that the selection at Garden Street Vintage would remain the same. The store’s inventory is ever changing, with new items arriving every day. According to Ynfante, the variety also speaks to their own individual interests.
“We each have our own specialty,” Ynfante said. “Cody is our Nike expert. Dallas knows a lot about streetwear and mine is music and band T-shirts.”
In addition to the new brick and mortar location, Garden Street Vintage has also spent time increasing its visibility online, participating in vintage baseball hat auctions live on Instagram.
“People from Panama City are driving just to shop with us,” Patterson said. “That is very humbling. That’s a long drive. That means they had to wake up and say, ‘I’m dedicating this day to travel and shop at Garden Street Vintage.’ You can go to Instagram and gawk online, view multiple stores in Tampa, LA, Miami … but I’m proud that we’re the first vintage streetwear store in Pensacola.”
Garden Street Vintage offers eclectic mix of vintage streetwear | New Business
