Dandelion District

There is a chair that sits near the play area in the back of Dandelion District that holds a lot of significance. 

“It was always part of the plan,” says Corey Johnson, who opened Dandelion District, an upscale children’s consignment shop in Haddonfield, eight months ago. “I was adamant that there was going to be a chair. The chair is for any parent, any customer, anyone at all who needs a safe space. I don’t care if you don’t want to shop, I don’t care if you don’t buy anything, you can come on in, there is cozy music, there is someone friendly there, and there is a chair. I know what it feels like to be in the throes of postpartum, living somewhere where you don’t have family or help. People need a safe space. Anyone who wants to sit in that chair can sit in that chair.”

For Corey, opening a small business has been a lifelong dream. She describes photographs of her as a baby on her grandmother’s hip in Zayre department store in Florida. Her grandmother was the first female general manager of the store. “She ran that store, and she ran a tight ship.” Her grandfather’s skills as a school bus salesman also greatly impacted her.

When Corey was seven, she built her own store out of cardboard. “I did all the artwork on the front, and it said, ‘Corey’s Store.’” She describes spending the summer selling items from it, like kitchen utensils, her brother’s 1990s batman toys, and the double doll stroller she had gotten for Christmas. (She got in trouble for that last one.) “From early on, I just loved it. It’s always been my dream.”

Corey says she knew from the start that if she were to open her own store, it would be a children’s store. Her idea for a consignment shop came later. “When I went back to school to get my design degree, our program was heavy into architecture. I went down the path of specializing in sustainable building.” She shares that one professor in particular really opened her eyes to the demand that we put on our energy sources, especially in the United States.

At the same time, Corey had two young children at home. She enjoyed dressing them in nice things, but nice things are expensive. She started exploring Facebook groups selling different brands of children’s clothes. She recalls on the Baby Gap page, everyone was looking for two specific outfits. “They were from years before, and they were hard to find and highly sought after. I thought, ‘I can find these.’ So I went out thrifting, and I found one of the outfits. I paid $9 for it, and I sold it for $175. I was immediately hooked.” She says that she got really deep into the community of BST (Buy, Sell, Trade), which taught her a lot about the world of high end children’s clothing. “I started learning about how wonderfully these clothes are made. Many of these items are heirloom pieces and can be passed down because such care is put into their production.”

Corey says that she started selling high end children’s consignment online, hoping that her dream of owning a brick-and-mortar shop would eventually come to fruition after decades of working in design. “I thought maybe in my 50s I would finish up with design and open up my storefront and then work there until I couldn’t anymore.” Unfortunately, in July of 2019, while still in Florida, Corey was in a serious car accident that led to emergency cervical surgery and a traumatic brain injury. She was told she would likely never work again. “Even simple math was hard.”

Soon after, COVID hit, and her kids came home from school and never went back. “The world shut down. I was already in a very deep place of despair, because my whole life had been flipped upside down.” One way she escaped this feeling was scrolling Zillow, envisioning a move north. “As soon as I started researching Haddonfield, I thought, ‘We are moving here, this is it.’ I learned everything I could about this town. There are no towns like it in Florida.” Around Christmastime of 2020, her family was able to fly up to visit and “see if it’s all it’s cracked up to be.” She said that in the 72 hours they visited, they found a realtor, toured one of the only houses on the market at the time, and put in an offer at the airport before heading back home.

After moving to Haddonfield, Corey quickly realized King’s Highway was the ideal place to open her store. In May of 2022, Corey started going door-to-door to meet the owners of all of the local businesses and share her idea for a children’s consignment shop. She hoped that, if one of their spaces was ever going to open up, they would let her know first.

Corey says that the first store she walked into was 105 Kings Highway East, which at that time was home to The Lavish Loft. “Lisa Netz was the owner. I told her what I wanted to do, and her response was, ‘You will be a smashing success.’ Those were the words that she used.” Corey says that having someone believe in her while she was stepping out of her comfort zone meant everything. This was especially true because it was coming from a woman who was also in the business of consignment. “That one sentence impacted my journey so much. That was the first door I walked in, and now it’s my store. To fill that space is so humbling. It’s beautiful.” 

Signing the lease was scary. “When you sign a commercial lease, you don’t see the monthly number; the number you see on the contract is the number for all of the months you are signing for, and commercial leases are for multiple years. It’s a giant number. And so, it was very scary, especially coming out of a brain injury. How could I do this? My life changed after my brain injury; I functioned differently.” 

Nevertheless, Corey began putting together the space as she had envisioned it. Her vision was very specific: “I wanted it to feel like home.” The furniture she uses around the store is furniture you would find in a home (including what used to be her own dining room table). “I want you to feel like you are welcomed in as family. That is very important to me.” She said she wanted the experience to be positive for people who may have never shopped consignment before and change the minds of those who have thought, “Oh, that’s not really for me.” She also wanted the space to feel happy. She says the cheerful floral wallpaper was the first thing she bought for the store.

Now, eight months in, Corey says she has a newfound respect for anyone who owns a business, especially a brick-and-mortar. “It is hard. It becomes your home. I don’t have a business partner. It’s me, my husband, and my kids. There is a lot of evolving and growing and stretching and humbling yourself and learning how to do things better every single day.” However, Corey says that about four or five months in, she had a realization. “I turned to my husband and said, ‘I think Dandelion District is healing me.’” She said she had a lot to prove, especially to herself. It has not only shown her that she can do things that she didn’t think were possible, but it has given her kids the chance to believe in her in a different way after the accident. And the connections she has made through the store are irreplaceable. She feels that all of it is something to celebrate.

“Out of the thousands of people who have walked in here, a lot of tears have been shed just because I was kind to someone when they needed that space. In retail, you can have beautiful connections with people. When you’re searching for that connection and you find a place where it is welcome… people are so responsive to that. Eight months in, the store has given me a gift through every single person who has walked in here. We came here without knowing a soul, and we’ve gained a community.”