Not Just a Hippie Thing: The Champa Shop Takes on Destin
By Breanne Boland October 19, 2005 Issue

When someone walks into the Champa Shop, they’re greeted by a cheery refrain of, “Hey hey! How y’all doing?” from Carol and Danny Yates, the shop’s owners. Everyone responds enthusiastically to this welcome, and generally it begins a conversation. “We usually tell people, ‘Just let us know if we can help you!’” Carol says. “Then they don’t feel that pressure. We just keep working.” Work often means creating much of the jewelry hanging along the store’s counter. There are hanks of beads hanging, all intended for the jewelry that they create. The Yates, a long-haired, bespectacled couple who might qualify as the most laid-back people in Destin, work continuously on their necklaces and bracelets, sitting back in a practiced stance behind the counter, knotting and beading while their customers explore the place on their own.

The Champa Shop (it takes its name from the Nag Champa flower, which is from India and is used to make incense) was located on the main drag of Fort Walton Beach until this May. It sat across from the Indian mound, and stayed there happily for six years. They discussed changing locations for years, and this year, they decided to make the move. They chose their current location in Palmetto Plaza in Destin because, “It’s our neighborhood, and we love it here. The harbor area, it fits us.” Their longtime customers seem to have followed them, and moving has brought them new people too. “It’s really nice when someone’s walked in and finally found us, and they’re just like, ‘Thank God!’” Carol says, beaming.

Before moving to this area, the Yates had a shop (also called the Champa Shop—the name travels with them) in Myrtle Beach, S.C. for about seven years. However, their children began having children, and they lived in Alabama, so the Yates decided to move in the interest of being near their grandkids. “We wanted to be near the ocean,” Carol says, “and be closer to our grandbabies.”

“We have child labor in the summer time,” Danny says. “And they fight over who gets to work,” Carol adds. “The oldest is going to college, so that’s going to leave a space over who gets to work.” They now have six grandchildren, who range from four or five to older teenagers, ensuring a steady stream of child labor in the years to come.

The age range of their customers is even wider. Carol guesses it to be between 14 and 74. “It’s so varied,” she says. The variety is increased by their website, www.hippiethings.com, which Carol hopes will take them into semiretirement someday. She estimates 70 percent of the site’s customers are store customers as well.

The shop’s inventory mainly depends on what catches Carol and Danny’s attention when they’re doing the ordering. “We stay in the middle of things too,” she says. “We go listen to music, we’re involved in the music scene. That’s basically what this shop revolves around.” The dozens of sepia-toned photos of musicians from the last four decades that frame the shop walls attest to that. “If we’re not asleep, we’re playing music,” Carol says. “Or making it,” Danny adds, indicating the guitar in the corner as evidence. They were playing Dread Clampitt and Jack Johnson that afternoon.

The Champa Shop does hold plenty of things that were, at the least, probably hard to find in this area before. One likely would’ve been hard pressed to find a tie-dyed union suit (complete with butt flap) before the arrival of the Champa Shop, but fortunately, that void in the Gulf Coast has been filled. There are also batik scarves, a wall of buttons and stickers expressing all manner of opinions, a rainbow of skirts and dresses, vintage posters, patchwork bags made from recycled cloth, and, of course, all manner of tie dye—not just the union suits, but also shirts and skirts and tapestries.

The Yates are constantly on the lookout for something different. “It’s hard!” Carol exclaims. “Hard to find something unique!” They try just as hard, though, and consequently they have items from the Himalayas (“We’re drawn to merchandise from that area of the world,” Carol says), from the U.S., from Peru, and many other places. Even the more traditional hippie fare is done carefully. “All the tie dyes are dipped by real tie dyers, not in a factory,” Danny explains.

The soap they sell, called Zum bars, is made by hand, and the company that sells them is so careful in their creation that if the workers are in a bad mood, they aren’t allowed to touch the soap. “You can sweep the floor, but you can’t touch the soap,” Carol says. The Yates cut the pieces of soap by hand from the giant blocks they get, so you can get just as much soap as you want, all guaranteed to be full of happy things.

“There aren’t a lot of mom and pop shops around here anymore,” Danny says. “That’s why people come here.”

“A lot of times people work at a shop and they don’t care,” Carol elaborates. “When they run the shop, they do care.” “One of the New Orleans evacuees said we were like a breath of fresh air,” Danny remarks. “I think we’ve brought friendliness.” He pauses and looks around the shop. “And good stuff.”

The Champa Shop is located in Palmetto Plaza at 127 Harbor Blvd. in Destin, 654-3161.

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