Shake up the Saturday schedule and enjoy a shopping experience from local merchants who offer out-of-the-ordinary variety under one roof, including items from local artists, artisans, crafters and collectors. Bring out-of-town guests because Bux Kajun Korner, Flock of Five Gift and Art Emporium and Miller’s Super Saver have plenty to browse — and something to buy that visitors to Southwest Louisiana won’t be able to find in their neck of the woods.

Store owners will likely be there, working. Running a small business means wearing many hats, and these days it also means dealing with a challenging economy. So, introduce yourself. Your opinion matters to them and they’re counting on your business.

Downtown Lake Charles

Bux Kajun Korner, 729 Ryan St., operates in one of Lake Charles’ oldest buildings, which lends a certain je ne sais quoi to the store’s atmosphere.

“We’re really striving to be a complete corner market like you would find in New Orleans,” said owner Melissa Buxton, as she restocked a cooler. “So, you can buy gifts, a six-pack of cold beer and a roll of toilet tissue or a light bulb. We have a wine room, basic groceries we are about to expand on, and we carry a variety of medicines. People who work downtown pop in throughout the day to shop or grab a snack.”

Bux also serves food that tastes like mama made it. The chicken and dumplings and beef tips are her best seller, but she’s mum when it comes to sharing the recipe.

Browsing the hand-crafted arts is the best part of the visit. Buxton opened in 2022 and has expanded on the concept of offering Louisiana and Lake Charles-themed gifts, some of which are from local talent. Pottery, costume jewelry art, essential oil products,“Cajun” candied pecans, pralines, candy, cookbooks, spices and children’s books with corresponding stuffed animals based on the character are just a few of the items available.

Julie Dallas is a local potter and Bux employee.    

“This is a mutually beneficial relationship between artists and store owners,” Dallas said. She doesn’t have to pay for anything up front and we don’t have to worry about taxes or anything because if someone buys a piece, it goes through her system then we get our money.”

Bux has two pieces by the popular local artist Candace Alexander, and Alexander has her own store less than two blocks away at 900 Ryan St. In it, shoppers will find nature and Lake Charles-inspired paintings, prints, engravings, jewelry and more, much of it inspired by her surroundings.

Sulphur

Lisa Reed’s love of art and being around creative people led her to open Flock of Five Gift and Art Emporium, 217 E. Thomas St., in 2016.

“I’ve been painting and writing poetry since I was knee-high to a grasshopper,” Reed said. “My mom and dad both painted, made stuff and carved and all of that. I wanted a place where you could come in and have a fun time.

Her 7,000 square-foot, 52-vendor space was the site of the old Sulphur US Post Office, and the name was inspired by five pelican characters from “Gondra, The Driftwood Dragon of Cameron Parish.” Gondra, and the other ‘characters’ in the book were actually created by Reed from driftwood and trash picked up along the beach, then photographed for the book. Gondra becomes environmentally aware as she embarks on a journey over land and sea meeting a cast of fantastical creatures. Among them is a pelican family of five, but Reed and friends had more creative fun around the word flock, she said.

“I look at this as an art gumbo,” she said about Flock of Five. “It’s a mix of everybody’s creative minds altogether, pottery to wood to metal to painting to repurposed art.”

Westlake

Miller’s Super Saver, 1514 Sampson St. does not offer the hand-crafted/artsy shopping satisfaction of time spent in Flock of Five. However, it is a neighborhood store that seeks to meet the needs of its immediate neighborhood, like Bux Kajun Korner.

Owner Chad Miller is pulling out all the creative stops he can think of as a small business owner to continue serving the community.

“I’ve cleared out a space in the middle of the store for flea market vendors,” he said.

One of the vendors is local artist Angelle Boyette. Boyette uses a lot of beads in her pieces and is currently working on a beaded barrel that will be auctioned during Smoke and Barrel, an upcoming festival to raise money for United Way.

Angelle has also made a name for herself by adding artwork to strawhats, from garden variety to stingy brim Trilbys.

Vendors offer reconditioned magnalite, vintage corning ware and other dishes, LSU tees, birdhouses and squirrel feeders.

Prices at MIller’s are as good as and sometimes better than local dollar discount stores, and the range of merchandise is astounding. He has apple juice to zip ties, poultry wire, chicken feed, young chicks, chicken salad using Cormie’s chicken salad recipe and pickled quail eggs. He has toilet tissue, toiletries and toilets.

Look one way, and see a bag of wildlife feed and wire bristle brush. Look another and find a feminine shoulder wrap and dainty necklace.

“We have pretty much all you’d need for a basic home repair here,” Miller said. “A lot of people just don’t know what we have.”

Buy storage buildings, furniture and fresh flowers at Millers, baseballs, softballs, footballs and badminton birdies, fishing supplies, live bait and offshore bait, soft drinks and hard candy, beer and wine.

One hand-crafted treasure in the store is not for sale. It is the wooden Kaw-Liga Indian carved by Miller’s grandfather from a log that floated up on his property at Big Lake,     

“Once someone offered me $60,000 for him,” Miller said. “It was tempting, but I didn’t take it.”