Patina, the Twin Cities gift store chain known for its mix of home décor, jewelry and lifestyle goods, is about to open its largest store yet in Richfield. The new location at Southdale Square will become the company’s ninth in the metro.
The Richfield store is taking over a vacant storefront at Southdale Square previously occupied by Pier 1 Imports, according to Bring Me The News. Patina plans to soft open the Southdale Square store soon, with an official grand opening scheduled for October 17 featuring giveaways, activities, food and drinks, as first reported by Mpls.St.Paul Magazine. The new location, at 2900 West 66th Street, will have more square footage than any existing Patina store, with room for expanded women’s apparel featuring actual dressing rooms, along with toys, crafts, and the home décor, jewelry and gifts the brand is known for.
A South Metro Milestone for a Founder-Built Business
Patina traces its roots back to September 1993, when married co-founders Rick Haase and Christine Ward opened the first store near Lake Harriet in South Minneapolis, next door to Broder’s Cucina Italiana. They launched the business with $20,000 in personal savings, putting their home up as collateral, according to Twin Cities Business. That original shop operated in an era before cell phones, when restaurant staff next door would phone Patina’s landline to let waiting diners know their table was ready.
Over three decades, Patina grew into an eight-store fixture across Minneapolis, St. Paul and the surrounding suburbs, with locations in South Minneapolis, St. Paul’s Selby & Snelling and Highland Park neighborhoods, Roseville, Woodbury, Golden Valley, Eden Prairie and Maple Grove. The chain also designs and produces roughly 20% of its own merchandise in-house, including its proprietary Mac and Me clothing and jewelry line, per the same Twin Cities Business report.
New Ownership Structure Behind the Expansion
In April 2025, Haase and Ward sold the business to Teamshares, a national platform that acquires small businesses from retiring owners with the intention of converting them to employee ownership rather than reselling them to private equity. Under the deal’s terms, Patina employees received a set number of shares, with a structured path to reach 80% employee ownership within 20 years. Teamshares, founded in 2019, has acquired roughly 90 small and mid-sized businesses nationwide as part of an effort to preserve independent companies facing retirement succession, according to RollUpEurope, which notes an estimated 4.5 million American small business owners face retirement decisions over the coming decade…