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For 35 years, Stuff N’ Things has kept Humboldt stocked in bongs, pipes, bubblers, dab rigs and various other stoner essentials. In recent years, the family-owned shop has expanded its Sixth Street storefront and broadened its inventory to include psychedelic rugs and tapestries, jewelry, festie gear and other novelty items. Now, Stuff N’ Things is expanding its offerings once again to include a market and deli.

Lapple

The market expansion has been in the works for a few years now. Stuff N’ Things owner Elizabeth Lapple bought the storefront at 426 Sixth Street in 2020 and has spent much of that time retrofitting the former salon to include a commercial kitchen.

The market will stock your standard convenience store fare (pre-packaged snacks, candy, hot dogs, soda, beer, etc.) as well as locally-produced goods and a huge variety of homemade breakfast and lunch items. 

“We’ll have hot and cold foods for sale that are prepared in house,” Lapple told the Outpost during a recent tour of the new market. “We’ll have fresh pastries and biscuits and gravy in the morning for breakfast. We’ll have all of the different deli salads, [including] potato salad, macaroni salad, broccoli salad, carrot salad, pasta salad and coleslaw. We’ll also have different soups and sandwiches and wraps, and we’ll have vegan, gluten- and dairy-free options as well. We want to meet the community where we see the need, so we want to really pump up the healthy food options in the deli, along with the traditional favorites.”

Have you ever been to a bodega with a huge chandelier? Yeah, me neither.

The crown jewel of the establishment — not counting the huge drop chandelier, of course — may very well be the soft serve ice cream machine that, rumor has it, will have three flavors in rotation at any given time.

“Soft serve machines are crazy,” Lapple laughed. “Most of them are one flavor but we were able to find one that has three. The machine is on its way.”

Lapple is the fourth Elizabeth Lapple to operate Stuff N’ Things, which was first opened by her great-grandmother in the 1960s.

“It started back in Long Beach,” Lapple said. “It’s sold just about every type of retail you can imagine over probably 70 years. It’s been a furniture store, it’s been an outlet store, it’s been a fashion store, it’s been a head shop, it’s been a market, and I think at one time it was a bookstore? It’s changed a lot through the different owners.”

The Lapple family left Southern California in the early 1970s in search of a more serene environment and found themselves in Humboldt County. (The family actually bought the town of Bridgeville for $150,000 in 1973, but that’s another story.) The current owner and her mother, also Elizabeth Lapple, resurrected Stuff N’ Things in Eureka in 1991, setting up shop on E Street. There was a fire in the building in 2008, and the Lapples moved the business just around the corner to its present location on Sixth Street.

“We focused on rebuilding the business from 2008 to 2018, and then we decided to expand back into what the business was before, with all the clothing and knickknacks and novelty items,” she said, adding that she recently changed the layout of the store to separate the 21+ head shop from the clothing section of the store. “Now, we’re making another shift and opening a market and deli.”

“That’s kind of how the business has always been ran; we shift with supply and demand of what’s needed within the region that we reside or within the economy that we’re up against,” she added. “I will say, it’s been a lot of work going into the food business … but we’re very excited about it.”

Lapple is hoping to soft-launch the market on Saturday, Nov. 7 during Arts Alive, with plans to have a grand opening sometime in December. The market will be open Monday-Saturday from 6:30 a.m. to 10 p.m. and Sunday from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.

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