Mexican Shop

Tucked away on a quiet corner in Evanston is a long-lived retail institution. The Mexican Shop has been serving up inexpensive apparel, accessories and jewelry in this suburban town for forty years.   

Rick Bower opened the store in 1967 and stocked it with items he picked up during driving trips around Mexico. “Pretty quickly after that we started carrying things from India and other parts of Asia, and there’s nothing here from Mexico anymore,” said Bower’s wife and business partner, Sheila Montgomery Bower. “But we would never change the name; our customers wouldn’t have it.”   

Today, the Mexican Shop stocks an array of inexpressive apparel from flirty summer dresses to batik print tees and tanks, Asian print handbags, sari-like skirts, and chunky sweaters. There’s always a vast assortment of sunglasses in trendy styles and hair accessories galore, including silver clips of Tibetan silver and polished horn.   

The jewelry selection really shines, literally as well as figuratively. The room is ringed with display cases topped with earring trees bursting with semiprecious stones. The shop’s extensive collection is divvied up and arranged by color, stone and style, making browsing decidedly manageable. Delicate dangling earnings made from surgical steel are a real steal at $12. And on more than one occasion, The Mexican Shop’s finds have appeared on the pages of publications like In Style and Lucky, usually with a celebrity angle and much higher price tag.   

Real treasures for the home abound, including brightly lacquered trays and bowls, bamboo vases, and stackable wooden boxes. Exotic beetles captured in Plexiglas make interesting display pieces.   

The Mexican Shop has new merchandise arriving each week, and closes from mid-January to early April while the owners travel and restock the store. Which makes for the shop’s unusual hours: open Tuesday through Saturday from 10 am until 6pm; closed Sunday, Monday, and that long winter hiatus.  

 

The Mexican Shop 

801 Dempster St.
Evanston, IL 60201
847.475.8665

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SeeMore Shopping Contributing Writer – L. Heller.
 
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Editorial content is independent of paid advertisers. SeeMoreShopping incurs all expenses associated with reviews. Publ.  09/07.