Editing The Pen Addict 332/transcript (section)

== Store Aesthetic Shift ==


'''Myke Hurley:''' So what I didn't expect is that we were going to walk immediately into my personal aesthetic because that's what we did. Oh, yeah. My gosh. That store was like, it was like stepping into part of my own brain. It was very peculiar. It was everything I like all laid out in these beautiful ways. It was hipster paradise, I think is probably the nicest way to describe it. It was stunning. Like everything in that store was laid out so incredibly well. I loved it in there.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' From front to back. And this was a large space. Like for New York, I felt this was a large retail space. From front to back, they nailed everything. Like the good, sometimes, you know, retail stores will hide the, hide some products in the back that aren't like the best sellers. They like from the front door all the way to the back wall was like premier products throughout. Yep.

'''Ana Reinert:''' I think they had some Moleskine in the back.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Moleskine was in the back. But I'm not going to lie. I bought a Moleskine pen.

'''Ana Reinert:''' It was a cool Moleskine pen. It was a cool. I had never seen this. I will give you that.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. But Moleskine was in the back left corner. And like I was okay with that. Yeah. I didn't look at the paper, but I did see a pen that caught my eye.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. I mean, to be honest, they had like, there was stuff all over, right? Like, and, but it was all laid out in nice ways. It was laid out logically. You know, there was like, you kind of walked into greetings cards and random things, right? Like they had those, um, that's a selection of those note blocks that you could pull away and they would reveal something, right? They were like a topographic shape or. So they had a little trinkets and kind of gifty items like that. And then they had a bunch of pens on the wall with these beautiful cabinets that display.

'''Ana Reinert:''' They were like apothecary cabinets.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. That displayed a wonderful selection. Like again, like a very large selection of stuff. And then you kind of move through into paper and just books. And it was just, everything was really just, I was very impressed. I was very, very impressed. That, that place spoke to me. Uh, I loved it.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I didn't expect the number of brands that they carried.

'''Ana Reinert:''' And brands I'd never heard of.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. It was, someone did some good work there in stocking that store. The curation. Yeah.

'''Myke Hurley:''' It was, was on point. Oh, totally. Yeah. I haven't, it's one of those things where like I look at it and I can't even understand, I can't fathom how somebody was able to do that. Yeah. Uh, but it was, I was very, very impressed with that place. I liked it a lot. I really did. It was beautiful.

'''Ana Reinert:''' The crazy thing is I don't think any of us really bought a whole lot. I think we were all so blown away with just the level of curation. We were all just like, I, I don't even know where to start. Yeah. Like you guys have all just, you, you blew the bell curve. Right. We're just walking away.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I needed about four times more time. Yeah. We had to spend in that store to like fully get my head around what I was looking at. Like I know that that would be a place that if I lived in New York, I would just go to for no reason. Like we'd just be like, I'm just going to go see what's good for the study. So if you are in and around New York, I personally, I recommend CW and good for the study is like from our trip. They are the two that you should 100% make sure that you go to. If you're just looking to browse, you know, like I think that they were really great for that. I mean, all of the places that we mentioned are great for specific purchases, but those two were just nice environments to be in and really to just peruse and find something that maybe you hadn't considered before.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yep. It was, it was fantastic. That was a hidden gem, even though it's not really tiny. It was really sizable.

'''Myke Hurley:''' But again, both of those stores, they're out of the, they're off the beaten path a little bit. Yeah. You know, like Kinokunuya and Muji are in Bryant Park, which is a block away from Times Square, right? Like, you know, they're in and amongst it, whilst these others are more making it happen type places. So they are in newer retail environments, which are hidden somewhere, even amongst apartment buildings and stuff like that. So that was New York. And then we got on a plane and came over to Toronto, Canada, which we'll talk about after I thank our sponsor of this episode, which is Blue Apron. You can skip meal planning and get straight to cooking with Blue Apron. It doesn't matter if you're looking for quick and easy meals or for a full culinary cooking experience. You can choose from a range of recipes bursting with flavor and Blue Apron will deliver fresh, seasonally inspired ingredients with step-by-step recipes right to your door. You can get rid of your grocery list and let Blue Apron do the meal prep for you and cook and you'll be able to cook incredible meals in as little as 20 minutes. You can get out of your cooking rut and experience the joy of chef design recipes with restaurant quality meals like stir fried sweet chili chicken with broccoli and rice. Or what about seared beef dumplings and jasmine rice with sesame garlic bok choy salad? I've been traveling for two weeks, dying for a home cooked meal. Like I read stuff like this. It's like, I know what I remember why I like to cook because I can control the whole thing. And that is what is so wonderful about a service like Blue Apron is that you will get these incredible fresh ingredients sent to your home. You can prepare them, you can cook them and you can eat them. And there is nothing like a good home cooked meal. And food in all of these places that we've been to is wonderful. They are not a good home cooked meal. And so I will say I miss it. And this this ad is making me want to go home.

'''Myke Hurley:''' You can check out this week's menu and get three meals for free at blueapron.com slash pen addict. That is blueapron.com slash pen addict to get your first three meals for free. Blue Apron, a better way to cook. So we arrived in Toronto on Friday and we decided that we would visit one store here before our second in-store event, which happened on Saturday before the Toronto Pen Show. And that is Lay Wines. Brad, can you enlighten me to why specifically Lay Wines? Like what is what is the store all about?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So over the years, you know, you get to see all your friends traveling to different places and hitting up pen shops. And I've always heard, you know, the name Lay Wines, you know, it stands out as a name you that's kind of sticks in your head. It's not very generic name or anything like that. And in Toronto, it was and has been always the place like in the downtown area, you know, where you would imagine kind of like a fountain pen hospital would have that, you know, level of respect and name recognition in the area. Well, Lay Wines is that store for Toronto, even though it's much more newer and much more modern. So I had no idea what to expect when we went there. And we strolled up and I got outside of the store and, you know, just the pinch picture I painted in my head was I thought it would be bigger. Like it's big. It's plenty big. But I, you know, looking at pictures and hearing all people talk about it. But once we got in and got to browse around and got to talk to the employees there, once again, it like exceeded any like picture I had painted in my head. It was a fantastic, fantastic shop that I see why it's got that name recognition in town and, you know, starting to spread around the world even more. I thought it was just wonderful.

'''Ana Reinert:''' I had a friend who lives out in California who, when I told her that I was coming to Toronto, said, oh, you have to go to Lay Wines. She's like, would you like me to call them and provide you an introduction? I said, no, no, no, no, no, it's okay. I said, we're just going to sneak in.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. Yeah. I really like the store. It was stuffier than some of the other places that we went to.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' If you were going to write a book representation of what a pen store would look like, you know.

'''Myke Hurley:''' You will write Lay Wines. Yeah. Everyone was super nice, but everything was really quiet. It was formal. Yeah, formal is a really good way to describe it, but it was just that made it very different to all of the other places we've been to. Because Fountain Pen Hospital, you felt like you were walking into a family business, you know. Everyone was loud and like super welcoming and like they want you, you know, come on in, you know. And then the other places that we went to were like cool or they were parts of a bigger business. And you kind of felt like you were walking into a corporate monolith. And Lay Wines was just like, shh, kind of when you walk in, you know, like it was very calm and quiet and very well lit. And there was a lot, it was very, everything was really nicely arranged. And all the staff were very nicely dressed. They were all incredibly polite. It was like the most like, hello, sir, kind of pen store I could have imagined. And this is not a criticism. It's just that's the style that they were going for.

'''Ana Reinert:''' The flip side was that when someone else came in, they immediately were like, hello, David. Yeah. And so like they know their customers. Oh, absolutely.

'''Myke Hurley:''' There were multiple people that came in. Well, we were not there for very long. And it was like everyone knew who they needed to see, both the customer and the people in the store. They all were like immediately going to each other. It was like, oh, you've come for your order that you've come to collect. Or like, oh, welcome back. You know, that kind of thing. It was very.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So we may have that relationship is fitting of the style of store that they've created. Right.

'''Ana Reinert:''' So we may have caught them off guard because we came in and they did not know who we were. And we immediately started looking around and we seem to know something about fountain pens. So they were like, wait, these are fountain pen shoppers, but they we've never seen them before. And so I think we maybe confused them or like, wait, they they've never shopped in our store before.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' People in the store started saying our names.

'''Ana Reinert:''' Yes.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I think it was a little bit strange. But they were as well, though, the most knowledgeable sales representatives. Oh, absolutely. Of any store that I maybe have ever been to. They all really knew their stuff. Yeah. You know, like I was throwing some stuff out there and they like they knew everything.

'''Ana Reinert:''' Yeah. And what was funny was once they heard somebody in the shop call out your name. Because as soon as we walked in, Jacqueline was in the store and she was like, Brad Doughty. And then I think the shop staff was like, who is this person? Um, so then, um, I think they all immediately like somebody in the shop must have started Googling. Because after we were in there for about 10 or 15 minutes, I was standing talking to one of the shop staff. And they sort of, I think it dawned on them that there might have been, they might maybe have, who are these people? And I, and they finally, it was like, hmm. And I finally said, did you figure out who he was? And they're like, yes, we know who he is now. So someone Googled who Brad was. That's too funny.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So it's like, you know, and you know, to them, I'm, they shouldn't know who I am. Like they are like, they are the perfect big city store that has a customer book. Yep. Right. They know their market. Their market knows them. And it's a fine tuned, well oiled machine. Right. It was like a perfect shop for their location and their clientele.

'''Myke Hurley:''' And they had the store selection of brands that backed that up. Right. Right. Like having that level of service that they provide to people means that they can carry effectively anything. Right. Because they have people that they know that will, will buy it. And I think kind of, you know, I've mentioned all these places having great selections of stuff. I think for a breadth of selection in just purely pens, Laywines had the best selection that I've seen over this trip. There are other places that had altogether more stuff, wider variations in certain things. But Laywines had the biggest selection, the broadest selection of fountain pens of anywhere that I've seen on this trip. It was, it really was kind of breathtaking what they had. Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. Right. Yeah. I'll take fountain pen hospital in that argument. Yeah. Yeah. I felt they had a little bit more, but Laywines took that and refined it a little bit.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I think that might be what I'm going for. Like it was maybe in the specialized category, Laywines have more. Cause fountain pen hospital have more brands. Yeah. But they were going for, I think a more general feel. Sure. Where Laywines was kind of going across some spectrums.

'''Ana Reinert:''' Sort of curated. Yeah.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Curated is a better way to put it. So it made it feel to me like, oh, they have everything. Yes. Yeah. But they had less stuff, but maybe more brands, different kind of price points and stuff like that. But it was a, that was a great store.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It was fantastic. Bought things there too.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Of course you did. Yeah. Did you buy something in every store? Yeah, you did. Didn't you? Yes. Yeah. I didn't. Yeah. Maybe just a couple. Aren't I? There's one place where I didn't.

'''Ana Reinert:''' Every store?