BANGOR, Maine (WABI) – Kaddie Sharpe and Nick Iammatteo opened the doors to their horror shop The Emporium Spooky Goods and More, in October.
“I have been a horror fan since I was five years old when I saw the original Nightmare on Elm Street when I was way too young to be watching it, it scared me to death as a kid, but I’ve been kind of been hooked on it ever since,” said co-owner Nick Iammatteo.
“We love going to haunted houses. We love horror movies. We love watching cartoons about ghosts, Scooby Doo and stuff like that. And we’ve gone to horror conventions over the years, and we end up buying these things, and have discovered there are a lot of other people that like this stuff just like we do. So why don’t we put all this stuff together and have a one-stop shop for people to buy these things,” added Co-Owner Kaddie Sharpe.
At the Emporium, they have collectible items like these signed movie posters, and they have t-shirts of your favorite horror films.
“You’ll see whether you want a pocketbook or a magnet, or if you want a pair of socks or a candle, there’s a spooky version of what you love,” explained Iammatteo.
They also offer items that are not focused on the horror genre.
“We have some Dolly Parton stuff here, even though there’s just nothing to do with horror. But how can you not love her, and she puts a smile on your face? So we obviously want to include some stuff like that too,” said Iammatteo.
Bangor is known for its rich history and connections to horror, being the home of Stephen King and iconic locations like Mount Hope Cemetery that inspired King’s Pet Sematary, there’s a variety of places for horror fans to enjoy.
“There’s so many ghost stories here, and there’s so much rich history just in Maine and just the spooky vibes, right? We have undeveloped area, the woods, the sea, everything like that, that we have all these tales and ghostly entities that still haunt, you know, historical areas even like Bangor,” said Sharpe.
“We’re really hoping to contribute to that and be a part of that and really just to give horror fans, and anyone who loves anything spooky another place where they can go and find stuff that they love and also host our own events, to give them the opportunity to do things that they love to do,” explained Iammatteo.
When starting a small business, it can be hard to know where to begin. Nick and Kaddie were no exception to this.
“We’ve been working on this for the entire year of 2024. We had the idea. We spoke to some folks, especially people who have worked downtown, and said, ‘Hey, listen, we are thinking about doing something like this. Do you think it would survive down here, or how well do you think it’d go over,’ and we had some really good, you know, feedback from that, and just going from there to, ‘Okay, so we don’t have any money to just pull out of our pocket and put into this, so we need to get a business loan to do that.’ You need to have a business plan,” said Sharpe.
They say they didn’t have a ton of business knowledge going into this. They both studied theater and communications in college, but they found a lot of support in the community around them.
“So trying to put together a business plan and trying to do projections of like, how much do you think you‘re going to sell in the next year, in the next month? We have no idea. So’ we were fortunate enough to get a little bit of help from local organizations that kind of help with starting small businesses, to really step by step. say, ‘Okay, this is what you need to do. This is kind of what you’re looking at,” Sharpe explained.
The horror genre is always changing and evolving with pop culture. So is their business, too.
“I think that’s really any business. We have to always be keeping our eyes open on the world around them. You can’t live in a bubble. It’s just really, it really, we just want to make sure we’re always keeping up with, you know, what’s, what’s going on the outside world? What does the city the Bangor want? What do the folks in Bangor want? We just always want to keep our ears and eyes and hearts open,” said Iammatteo.
They encourage those that want to start their own small business to keep their minds open no matter how challenging it can be.
“I’ve made jewelry for years, and I’ve done markets, and I’ve done little events, and I sell a few things, and then I don’t sell anything for a while, and I get super discouraged. After a while of just like, dead air, I’m like, oh, maybe I’m not meant to do this.” Sharpe goes on to say “but if there’s anybody that has an idea out there, even as far fetched as doing something funky like this, just do it. Just do it. Don’t let anybody get in your way. Don’t let anything get in your way. You will find resources. You will find other people that are interested in this and other people that have resources, right, that know a person or that know a guy or that can connect you with somebody. Keep driving and keep going with that.”
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