Kansas City shop is officially closing after half a century. Everything for sale

This weekend, the doors to Temple Slug will open for one last hurrah of incense shopping and futon browsing.

Pence Estate Sales is hosting the liquidation of the long-dormant Westport shop at 4303 Jefferson St. on Saturday, Aug. 2, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., and Sunday, Aug. 3, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.

The sale is cash-only — checks accepted if they know you, no cards — and all items will be sold as is. Among the goods: Buddha statues, dreamcatchers, handmade soap, a vintage wooden cash register, futons and other furniture.

“It’s all the inventory that’s been sitting in there, everything Temple Slug always carried,” said Rick Pence of Pence Estate Sales.

The shop has been shuttered since the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. Speculation about its future swirled after founder Bob Gamer, 86, died this spring. His stepson and successor, Keith Buchanan, died two days later. Friends of the family told The Star in May that the building and its contents were being managed by a trust company.

Pence confirmed this week that Midwest Trust initiated this weekend’s liquidation. It’s a precursor to the sale of the building, which is expected to hit the market later this year.

“They wanted to get everything cleared out before they put it up for sale,” Pence said.

Opened in 1970, Temple Slug was as much a scene as it was a store. It was a hub for Westport’s hippie counterculture and later one of the country’s first waterbed purveyors.

“It was a center for artists and liberal thought,” said Michael Felix, who worked there in the ’90s.

The building sits at the edge of the historic Steptoe neighborhood, a historically Black enclave now being encroached upon by St. Luke’s hospital expansions and new apartment builds.

Gamer owned not just the Temple Slug building but also several houses to the east on 43rd Street. Those houses are not yet on the market, either.