Urban Mining Vintage has a magnetic pull for flea market shoppers

Every First Friday weekend something pulls me from my home in Central Hyde Park, westward on 39th Street.

Usually it’s a pharmacy run. Sometimes I need groceries. Once in awhile the huge hardware store near my house just won’t do, so I have to go to the smaller one at the Old Westport Shopping Center.

But who am I kidding? It’s really an excuse to drive by Urban Mining Vintage at 3923 Main St. And every month I stop, shop and carry out armloads of stuff.

My house is full of it. There’s the rustic handmade bench behind our living room sofa; the vintage Hollywood regency vanity tray on the coffee table; the antique settee and richly upholstered slipper chair in the dining room; the round gold metal wall medallion, now painted black, in our master bedroom; the shabby chic footstool with chippy turquoise paint; the brass Sam Fink lipstick holder embellished with tiny silver cherubs; the red clay Asian cooking pot; the gleaming silver-plated water pitchers; the vintage beaded evening clutch — and on and on.

On June 26, House+Home will feature a comprehensive shopper’s guide to the West Bottoms flea markets, which can draw as many as 40,000 shoppers on First Friday weekends. It’ll include lists of the warehouse markets, maps, food options, parking lots and more. So look for that.

But this week we’re highlighting the place that gave birth to the First Friday flea market concept: Urban Mining Vintage, which is four miles south in midtown.

Mary Rouse opened Urban Mining in 2007 on the lower floor of the current location. Less than a year later, one of Rouse’s vendors left to open Good Juju, the first flea market in the West Bottoms.

In 2011, Rouse sold Urban Mining to Heather London, a vendor at Mission Road Antiques, and Susan Hartnett, a vendor on eBay, and the pair expanded the market to the upper floor of the building that now houses about 40 vendors.

While the flea markets in the West Bottoms open early on First Fridays, Urban Mining gets a jump-start by opening from 5 to 9 p.m. Thursdays, serving a cocktail and light snack. On Sundays, everything in the store is 10 percent off. Urban Mining’s merchandise spans decades and styles, is usually of high quality and artfully displayed.

“We are known for our midcentury modern, our art and as a place to find uncommon and unusual things at a good value,” London says. “We’re not necessarily the cheapest place in town, but you will get your money’s worth.”

Mary Peterson, 26, and Sam Kriegel, 28, live in a small apartment nearby and don’t have a lot of room for stuff, but that doesn’t stop them from visiting Urban Mining about every other month. They were perusing the upper floor one Thursday night.

“They have good prices here, and I just like to look,” Peterson says.

“I like some of the handmade furniture. We bought a bench, a cart, some pottery and knick-knacks,” Kriegel said.

When family comes to town on First Fridays, they’ll take them to the West Bottoms though it’s a tad overwhelming to do on a regular basis, what with the sheer number of warehouses and each full of dozens of vendors, Kriegel said. Urban Mining is much more manageable.

Mark Gonnerman, 38, of Kansas City rarely misses a month at Urban Mining.

He typically comes on Thursday night before the merchandise is picked over, particularly to check out the midcentury furniture on the upper floor.

“If you like midcentury, it’s pretty well curated,” he said. “You can go to the Bottoms, and it’s hit or miss (for midcentury). I have a tiny little studio apartment, and I pretty much furnished the whole thing here.”

Evelyn Acosta, 57, of Turney, Mo., was sipping a cup of margarita punch — the signature cocktail for the evening — as she perused merchandise.

She was looking for vintage jewelry, which she breaks apart and puts together in new designs, and vintage butter dishes, which she displays in her home and uses at Thanksgiving.

Acosta said she likes Urban Mining because it has unusual merchandise, is clean and the vendors and staff members are courteous.

According to London, Urban Mining is known for its vendors.

“We like our vendors to be referred by someone we know,” she said. “It’s important that (they) are good eggs and can get along with each other. We like when dealers work with each other rather than competing. …It also helps to have a great eye and be creative. That way we don’t have a lot of turnover so we don’t have to deal with that anymore.”

This story was originally published June 18, 2016 at 8:00 AM with the headline "Urban Mining Vintage has a magnetic pull for flea market shoppers."