Consignment shop, Nyla Jo's, coming to Cedar St.

Terri Petersen and Lacey Harrington admit their timing may not be the best to launch their new business, Nyla Jo’s. However, the mother and daughter are willing to wait out the coronavirus pandemic before opening the doors to their consignment store that will largely feature women’s, men’s and children’s clothing.

Nyla Jo’s will take over the space where Tally-Ho Art Gallery and DakotaKid Creations got its start in Brandon at 1324 E. Cedar St.

“I’ve been thinking of doing this for a long time,” Harrington said last week by phone. “I’ve always wanted to have something that’s my own, and it’s been a dream of mine to be an entrepreneur.”

Petersen, who deems herself as the “background person,” teamed up with her daughter “to support her dream.”

“And it sounded like fun to join in this venture together,” she adds.

The consignment business was spurred by the family’s large-scale rummage sales they’ve staged, and to fill a niche the community does not currently have.

“I have clothes, plus four daughters and a daughter-in-law, so right now, we could fill a store and still have back-up,” Petersen informs.

“With all of the boutiques in Brandon, we thought, wow, if people get sick of it, they now have some place to go with it,” adds Harrington.

The partnership is honoring their mother-grandmother by naming the store, “Nyla Jo’s,” in her memory.

“She was always very classy, but she was also very frugal,” Harrington explains. “It’s kind of the perfect name for the kind of woman she was. Our slogan is, ‘Beauty on a budget.’ You can still look good but you don’t have to spend a lot of money to do it.”

In the coming weeks, the mother and daughter partnership will be looking to add a variety of sizes to the racks, but currently are not accepting consignments. 

“We want to get through our stuff first and until we get in the store, we’re not taking anything so we don’t have to haul it twice,” Petersen said.

They are presently organizing and prepping merchandise in Petersen’s basement until taking occupancy of their retail space in April. They’re tentatively planning to open May 1, but the coronavirus pandemic will be the determining factor for the opening. “If they don’t let us open, we might try to do some online sales,” Harrington said, also hinting toward a May 15 opening.

Harrington will commute to Brandon from her home in Baltic, while Petersen lives in Sioux Falls.

So why did the women choose Brandon to set up shop?

Harrington and her family previously lived here.

“We always liked Brandon and felt it was a good small-business community,” she said, “and we knew there was not anything like this out here.”

For the time being, both women will continue with their other jobs. Harrington is a retail manager of three affordable housing properties in Sioux Falls and one in Sioux City, while Petersen teaches medical coding at Minnesota West during the school year. 

“If it becomes busy enough, we can both be here full-time,” Petersen said.

Harrington said Nyla Jo’s is being modeled after a consignment store in Adrian, Minn., Closet to Closet. 

“We got a lot of tips from Joni and everything is clean, prepped and in-season,” Petersen assured.

“This is not a thrift store. We’ll have clean clothes in good condition, lightly worn. We even have a lot with the tags on still,” Harrington said. “You’re not going to come to our store to buy junk to wear to a Halloween party.”

Consigners will receive 40 percent of their items sold; the store will keep the remaining 60 percent. Payout, they said, will be one a month.

“We’re looking forward to it. We get along good and we each have our own strengths,” said Petersen, who will manage the company books. “Believe me, I know nothing about the marketing or the computer.”

Nyla Jo’s will be open from 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Monday through Saturday, and one evening a week until 8 p.m.

Once they begin accepting consignments, Petersen said they will do so by appointment only.

“We’re not just going to let people drop stuff off. We want to make sure when somebody drops their stuff off, that we get through it that same day, that it gets steamed and tagged, so it’s not sitting there in a pile.”