About - Oddporium
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How often are we truly surprised in life—when our expectations are subverted and we’re introduced to something unexpected that genuinely delights us? I know that, for myself, I’m always searching for that ethereal shop around the corner: a place with an atmosphere that embraces visitors with a welcoming feeling, something so elusive in our increasingly corporate world. Well, one very lucky day, I stumbled upon such a place. The building itself was a feast for a hungry artistic eye, weary of plazas, banks, and sterile facades. I was immediately struck by how outrageously out of time it felt—a vision from an Edward Hopper painting mixed with a David Lynch aesthetic. The quintessential vintage rooftop sign promised hamburgers the way they were made in the 1930s, yet this place hinted at something more. Stepping inside, hearing a perfect creak sing out from the door itself, I was greeted by a soft light show of purples and blues glowing from the recesses and corners of a shop filled with discoveries—each one whispering a story behind it. The room was a celebration of the odd and the overlooked, with a love of the macabre as well. An authentic skeleton stood in one corner, but there was much more going on here. It soon became evident that I was standing in a kind of shrine to imagination and science—a place that champions the weird and the strange that keep our lives unpredictable. Mystery and wonder were alive here, in what was part shop, part miniature museum, and part theater of the absurd. A plasma ball, a theremin to try, and various scientific curiosities stirred childlike fascination, while quieter nods to our mortality presented death not as something fatalistic, but as a journey. Lucy the skeleton, for example, seemed to smile as if to say, “I’m still here.” There were Ouija boards, intriguing jewelry, magic trick items, tarot cards, glass objects from bygone eras, historic photographs—too much, really, to catalog here. And best of all were the owners, who engaged you as though they’d known you for twenty years. We watch television to immerse ourselves in fictional places like this—where people know you by name—but here, at this intersection of science and the strange, you find it for real. I can’t say enough about them. The place itself draws creative people from all walks of life who come back to chat and shop, or simply to linger for a while and escape the grind. Chemists, musicians, artists, craftspeople, writers, magicians—they roost here. I’m happy to say I’ve gotten to know many of them, which may be the best gift I’ve received from this wonderful place. We all love it, and I’ll keep coming back. To find the Oddporium is to be reminded of Carl Sagan’s words: “Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.” That’s the message here—in the objects, the history, and the people. Thank you, Ken and Beth.
Couldn’t enjoy it the way I wanted to due to the shop owner non stop talking to us and showing lame demonstrations of basic chemistry. Not everyone wants to be engaged with. We couldn’t get out of there quick enough, which is a shame because I really wanted to just quietly look around
We had a lot of fun exploring this little antique store. Lots of odd, interesting items to look and find. The staff are great, a joy to talk to.