The smell of griddled smashburgers mingled with fresh-baked pastries wafts down the main thoroughfare in Des Moines’ Highland Park neighborhood. Parents push baby strollers while shopping bags dangle from their arms. Friends drift in and out of stores. A neighborhood that once had only a few businesses now buzzes with life.
A combined business district with neighboring Oak Park, Highland Park sits at the intersection of Euclid and 6th Avenues in Des Moines. Programs like the Greater Des Moines Habitat for Humanity and a local initiative called Improving Our Neighborhoods have helped homeowners rehabilitate historic homes, many over a century old. Invest DSM has also played a significant role in revitalizing the business district. The neighborhood’s village-like charm and growing popularity are attracting a number of new businesses, many of them owned by women—and that’s no surprise: Des Moines was recently ranked the third-best medium-sized city for women-owned businesses. One of those businesses is the ever-popular Des Moines Mercantile.
Opened by Mallory Richardson in 2020, Des Moines Mercantile is a modern take on the classic general store, offering a one-stop shop for local finds. When you push open its worn wooden door, you’re greeted by a warm and inviting scent. It’s something—not even the owner—can really put a finger on. It could be one of the candle collabs Richardson did with Wander Women, the sweet honey or handmade brooms from Honey Hollow Apiary, or maybe the lavender goat milk soap from Locust Grove. It’s a perfectly curated combination of makers, 80 percent of whom are women in Iowa.
Richardson loves that this neighborhood has such a heavy women-owned focus when traditionally that wasn’t the case. Many of the owners collaborate on events like Northside Market, an annual maker’s market featuring over 100 vendors, and Heads Up, a biannual shop-hop where visitors collect stamps in a passport at neighborhood businesses for a chance to win prizes…