Experiential Retailer Neighborhood Goods Expands With a Third Store

Neighborhood Goods will bring its fresh, experience-focused take on the department store to Austin on March 13 with a third storefront.

While traditional brick-and-mortar retailers are scaling back, Neighborhood Goods is moving forward into a new market with a 10,600 square-foot store in the Music Lane development on South Congress Avenue.

The new store will carry clothing, accessories, food, housewares, and more, all geared to Austin tastes that can’t be found in traditional retail locations. Neighborhood Goods expects to announce the full lineup of brands in the coming weeks.

In addition to shopping, the Austin location will include the brand’s Prim and Proper restaurant concept, which is also part of the Plano store. The restaurant will serve locally sourced specials to encourage patrons to linger and relax while they shop. As part of the experiential focus of Neighborhood Goods, the new store also will host regular events to enhance the Austin community.

Neighborhood Goods offers popular direct-to-consumer brands the opportunity for extended “pop up shops” with display space, sales staff, and additional marketing. Brands sign agreements to sell in the store for a certain number of months, which allows Neighborhood Goods to stay on the forefront of retail trends.

Matt Alexander has previously said he made the restaurant and events a store staple to give people a personalized, loyalty based reason to want to visit. He knows his idea is risky and unorthodox, but it’s managed to capture the imagination of fantastic people, investors, partners, and brands.

“Your purpose has to extend much further beyond just selling product—it has to be serving a purpose of telling stories,” he said. “We’ve tried to step in to create something much more communal, something much more perennial, something much more traditional in many respects. We fundamentally believe that the most important thing we can all do is trade the currency of relevance more than anything else.

And it’s this first-of-its-kind approach that’s helped the Dallas-based retailer grow fast. The flagship store opened in Plano’s Legacy West in November 2018 and a New York City spot followed this past December.

Also this week, Alexander received the Rising Star Award in Retail from The Fashion Group International of Dallas, Inc. And, he was one of the finalists in our inaugural Innovation Awards we hosted with D CEO.

Updated at 7:24 p.m.