1st Friday, Sidewalk Sale a Hit

Haddonfield First Fridays are always awash with local color, from live music to handmade art. When the event intersects with the town-wide sidewalk sale and good weather blesses their union, regular visitors and first-timers alike find enchantment in the evening.

“I always come out on First Friday,” said Anita Brown of Tavistock.

Brown cited the lively, open-air ambiance of the evening as the reason she marks her calendar every month—but confessed to having been parked at the counter at Pure Couture on Mechanic Street for the better part of the evening.

“The very first time I met Denise [Jonas, the owner of Pure Couture], I said ‘I love this store,’” Brown said. “She makes you want to come in.”

Jonas said that First Friday is great for business because of the extended hours, and that operating a consignment gallery in a down economy has also boosted her inventory.

“I get a lot of stuff from [retail clothing] stores,” she said.

Farther down on Kings Highway, Annalisa Salamone and her husband Antonio sat in front of CVS with a table full of her original art work. Despite the brisk foot traffic, many of her pieces sat unsold. Yet the young couple was undaunted.

“It takes longer to sell a painting,” said Antonio Salamone. “It is not a bracelet or a scarf.”

The Salamones recently immigrated to the United States for Antonio’s work, settling on Haddonfield because of its proximity to other metropolitan areas. Here, Annalisa, who worked as a business analyst for Nike overseas, teaches Italian and gets to paint full-time.

“Our house has plenty of paint on the walls,” she laughed.

At the next stall over, Nina Gerhold of Green Cow Studio was selling homemade hand-crafted soap. The business has been so well-received that Gerhold recently quit her full-time job to focus entirely on it.

“It’s great meeting customers one-on-one [at First Friday],” Gerhold said. “I get a lot of positive feedback.”

The Happy Hippo toy store was a flurry of activity all day, according to Maryellen DeMille, who was starting to feel the effects of that pace by closing time, as the store whirled to The Roots of Chicha: Psychedelic Cumbias from Peru.

“Busy. People. All good,” DeMille said. “No rain.”

As William Bracken of The Happy Hippo enjoyed the fact that First Friday meant he “finally [had] some music” for his sidewalk shift—live performances streaming across the street from The Candy Buffet—Steve Nemerofsky and Liz Rosemiller of Laurel Springs appreciated that it was kept at a friendly volume.

“It was nice that the music wasn’t so loud it was competing with the conversation,” said Nemerofsky.

Dave and Holly Williams of Cherry Hill stumbled onto the evening’s festivities quite by accident.

“We were looking for a nice place to eat and heard the music,” said Holly Williams as the couple dined al fresco at The Little Tuna. “We didn’t even know it was going on. We have to get here earlier.”

The best deal of the night might have gone to Jennifer and Eric Dubin of Barrington. They came to eat at Cross Culture, and left Z’s Treasures with quite a find.

“She got a $350 dress for $30!” said Eric Dubin. “How do you beat that?”