BERLIN– After a summer of surging business, several new shops will open their doors this fall.
Inca Ruins on Pitts Street, Fireplace Supply on Old Ocean City Boulevard, Una Bella Salute on Broad Street and an as-yet unnamed coffee shop are joining the thriving Berlin marketplace.
Handmade items, mostly imported from Peru, make up the bulk of the merchandise at Inca Ruins.
“I’ve been doing it for nine years online and in flea markets and things like that,” said owner Kenneth Briggs. “Our main store is going to be in Rehoboth next year, but we saw this space (in Berlin) and said, ‘why not?’ There’s a lot of growth in this area right now.”
An Ocean Pines resident, Briggs said he frequents Berlin often.
“We’re always down here,” he said. “We thought this would be an unusual shop for the area because it’s not very antiquey. The bulk of it is Fair Trade, so it helps other people, and our prices are really low to this area.”
Briggs hopes to be open by Labor Day Weekend.
Una Bella Salute, moving into the space next to the Globe, expects to be open by mid-September.
“We are going to sell infused olive oil and balsamic vinegars,” said owner Deborah Nichol. “I had visited a store when I was on vacation and I just fell in love with (the concept). I thought Berlin would be the perfect place for it.”
Nichol, who will source her supplies from a Californian distributer, said the shop includes a large tasting room.
“We’ll have seasonal flavors and things that are favorites for everybody,” she said.
Fireplace Supply is currently open in the shopping center next to Save A Lot, and the coffee shop, if everything goes well, will lease a space inside Maryland Wine Bar.
Berlin Mayor Gee Williams said – while business is clearly booming downtown – he expects to see more stores opening in the surrounding area.
“Anything downtown that becomes available is immediately scarfed up,” said Williams. “Now I think the secondary effect of that is that we will begin attracting businesses to what I call our business quarters beyond the downtown area.”
Williams cited Old Ocean City Boulevard and parts of U.S. 113 and U.S. 50 in Berlin as locations primed for development.
“We’ve got plenty of places for people to go,” he said. “We want to make sure we maintain downtown Berlin as our historic treasure and that it has its own unique sense of place, and then additional businesses who want to relocate here or startup here, there will be places for them as well that will overtime compliment what’s going on downtown, but not replicate it.”
Inca Ruins on Pitts Street, Fireplace Supply on Old Ocean City Boulevard, Una Bella Salute on Broad Street and an as-yet unnamed coffee shop are joining the thriving Berlin marketplace.
Handmade items, mostly imported from Peru, make up the bulk of the merchandise at Inca Ruins.
“I’ve been doing it for nine years online and in flea markets and things like that,” said owner Kenneth Briggs. “Our main store is going to be in Rehoboth next year, but we saw this space (in Berlin) and said, ‘why not?’ There’s a lot of growth in this area right now.”
An Ocean Pines resident, Briggs said he frequents Berlin often.
“We’re always down here,” he said. “We thought this would be an unusual shop for the area because it’s not very antiquey. The bulk of it is Fair Trade, so it helps other people, and our prices are really low to this area.”
Briggs hopes to be open by Labor Day Weekend.
Una Bella Salute, moving into the space next to the Globe, expects to be open by mid-September.
“We are going to sell infused olive oil and balsamic vinegars,” said owner Deborah Nichol. “I had visited a store when I was on vacation and I just fell in love with (the concept). I thought Berlin would be the perfect place for it.”
Nichol, who will source her supplies from a Californian distributer, said the shop includes a large tasting room.
“We’ll have seasonal flavors and things that are favorites for everybody,” she said.
Fireplace Supply is currently open in the shopping center next to Save A Lot, and the coffee shop, if everything goes well, will lease a space inside Maryland Wine Bar.
Berlin Mayor Gee Williams said – while business is clearly booming downtown – he expects to see more stores opening in the surrounding area.
“Anything downtown that becomes available is immediately scarfed up,” said Williams. “Now I think the secondary effect of that is that we will begin attracting businesses to what I call our business quarters beyond the downtown area.”
Williams cited Old Ocean City Boulevard and parts of U.S. 113 and U.S. 50 in Berlin as locations primed for development.
“We’ve got plenty of places for people to go,” he said. “We want to make sure we maintain downtown Berlin as our historic treasure and that it has its own unique sense of place, and then additional businesses who want to relocate here or startup here, there will be places for them as well that will overtime compliment what’s going on downtown, but not replicate it.”