Editor’s note – The Fantastic Escape location in Lisbon is the one referenced as closing in this article. The other locations of The Fantastic Escape in Cedar Rapids remain open and operating.
Where one business closes, another opens.
Nina Scott closed The Fantastic Escape, the escape room on Main Street in Lisbon, earlier this year. With the closure, she owned an empty building. As someone who is passionate about art and helping out the community, Nina Scott had an idea. She wanted to create a shop where people could trade in their partially used arts and crafts tools for cash or store credit and a place where people could buy the partially used tools at a discounted price.
Enter stART.
Other spaces in the shop will also be reutilized. One section in the back is a fix-it cafe and another is a community area that will act as an area for classes and kids to come in to work and learn about art.
“I want to have it be a place that is open in the evenings for a community draw for people to actually come in and do things, rather than just the art material shop,” Nina said.
The shop opened for the first time on Aug. 1. The hours are Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. As well as, Saturdays from 10 a.m. to noon and by appointment. As the business gets its feet under their legs, Nina hopes to get to the point where she can be open for longer on Saturdays and further into the evenings on weekdays. Nina wants it to be a place where kids can go after school.
Nina plans on creating grab bags that people can buy instead of each individual material or tool. She wants to create the bags to make the vast amount of materials seem less overwhelming to some customers.
Nina’s husband, Gary Scott, will be running the fix-it cafe part of the shop. People are encouraged to bring in broken electrical items, like toasters, fans and toys. Gary will help them fix the item, with the goal being teaching the customers how to repair the items.
“They can come in, take it apart and see how it works,” Gary said. “Then we can see what we can do to repair it. Then they can go home and feel like they accomplished something.”
Gary has lots of experience fixing items drawing on his years as an electrical and mechanical engineer. He has always liked to understand how and why things work and how to fix them when they break. He wants to pass that on to other people in the community.
The goal of the shop is to be an outlet for the community to create art and fix items. Nina said, “Service in the community is really the number one goal in life.”
The final portion of the shop is not quite open yet, as the couple has some remodeling of the front room to complete. The goal when it does open will be to bring Little Scratch Coffee and baked goods from White Tree to help support other local businesses. Nina said, “It’s more of a draw to make people feel comfortable when they come in.”