👗 Audrey Rose Vintage brings retail flair to sleepy Snelling Ave

Snelling Avenue feels like a neighborhood unto itself, hidden in plain view, a liminal space between the busy diagonals of Minnehaha and Hiawatha. It's a gumbo of pleasant homes and spartan industrial buildings set against tree-lined streets and the gritty skyline of grain elevators and scrap yards. Walking through it gives a feeling almost similar to Nicollet Island, of having fallen through a portal into an ever-so-slightly parallel world. 

And unlike its neighboring Minnehaha, Snelling isn’t exactly what you’d call a vibrant retail corridor. While Minnehaha boasts funky secondhand shops like Turquoise Vintage, E’s Emporium, Paris Antiques, and Repair Lair among its many public-facing establishments, Snelling’s commercial offerings have names like "Leder Bros Metals," "Industrial Plastics of Minneapolis," and "KMS Air Duct Cleaning." 

All of which is a big part of the corridor's appeal for Jessie Witte, who recently moved her longstanding Audrey Rose Vintage store to a cavernous former HVAC warehouse at 35th and Snelling. The only retail business on the entire avenue, her shop feels like a secret hideout you have to either stumble upon or already know about, which lends well to the feelings of surprise and delight she hopes to evoke with her offerings.