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Rebirth of Cool

Carrie Drda, Owner of Phoenix Rising

I think Carrie Drda is trying to protest my assertion that she is cool, but I am too distracted by her supercool glasses to listen. Everyone who’s wandered the Loop knows that Phoenix Rising, the gift shop that sells rubber chickens, diamond and silver jewelry and scented candles (to name a scant few items), is the ultimate in one-stop shopping. After all, where else in St. Louis can you find a present to please your pearls-and-pantsuit–wearing mom, your socially inappropriate grandpa and your eco-freak sister? It should come as no surprise, then, that co-owner Carrie Drda is pretty fantastic herself.

Carrie and her sister Molly, who now runs City Sprouts across the street, started working at Phoenix Rising soon after its 1992 opening, when their mother, its original owner, became sick with leukemia. After she passed, the sisters soldiered on, gradually weaning their customers off crystals and pentacles. Today the shelves are filled with a decidedly different fare, though the store may never escape its original iteration. “Every once in a while someone will come in and act surprised, like, ‘Oh, but I loved this place,’” Drda mock-whines, “and I’m thinking, ‘Well, you obviously didn’t love it that much—you haven’t been here in 10 years.’”

All snark aside, Drda can’t help but grin as she talks about her job. “Nine times out of 10, people thank me as they’re leaving, just because they had a really good time—and it’s nice to spend your day interacting with people who are having a good time.”

Of course, when she feels she needs a shopping reprieve, she’s ideally situated. As a bona fide cinephile, she haunts the Tivoli with frequency; when she comes up for air, she likes to take her dogs for a Forest Park frolic. She said some other stuff, too, but I was too busy wondering if I could pull off cute side-swept bangs like hers to notice.