Aladdin’s Cave grants
your
infinite shopping wishes
YOU’RE having a dream. In it, you have a shopping list as long as your leg.
You’ve mowed the lawn within an inch of its life, and it needs watered – but you’ve no garden hose. The barbeque needs cleaned and you have nothing in the cupboard that’s up to the task. Important things are broken and you’re out of superglue. For months, you’ve needed a new laundry basket. You want new lampshades, and you’ll need a lighter duvet if you’re going to get any sleep in this heat. Your son’s swimming goggles have broken - again. Then you remember that six of your daughter’s friends have birthdays in July, and the party invitations are sure to come when you least expect them – while you have no idea what gifts will be given.
The dream is quickly turning into a nightmare, as you envisage spending your Saturday on a lengthy, disappointment-filled treasure hunt with no treasure.
Then, out of the blue, you find a shop which has all of the things you’re looking for. You get all of the little everyday things on the list, and then realise there’s another floor! There, you find a huge stuffed Shrek, a Batman duvet, dressing table mirrors in different colours, a bright pink chandelier, a Bang on the Door radio… all of the kids’ birthday gifts you need, and a few more just in case you’ve forgotten one. You head back downstairs, meaning to pay and spend the rest of the day in the garden… but then you see the huge standing citronella candles at £2.50 a pop and think, wouldn’t it be nice to shield ourselves from the midges at the next barbeque? And you’ll just pick up a few of those picture frames… and there’s some stationery you’ve been needing…. And a package of cute party favours for that hen night you’ve been invited to….
All this isn’t a dream, of course. It’s the reality of Aladdin’s Cave, the aptly-named treasure trove where all of your shopping list wishes are granted.
The shop has followed a formula which has proven to be so successful for Stornoway that its owners, Michael Pokorniecki and Eilidh Thompson, are completely and utterly overwhelmed with its success.
You see, when they opened the shop Michael and Eilidh made a non-negotiable promise to their customers. If you want it, they said, we’ll get it.
After being inundated with requests for all kinds of things which they’d never expected, the couple has risen to the challenge. Michael is away to Glasgow every week for more stock, and he sometimes gets carried away.
“If I see something I just buy it,” he admits. “I like finding new things, and making sure they are good quality – I wouldn’t really like to turn the buying over to someone else.”
This lack of restraint isn’t causing much of a problem though; quite often, items are hardly on the shelves before they’ve gone again. The only problem for Michael and Eilidh is that they’re far too busy to enjoy their success.
“There’s no time for romance amongst the shelves!” laughs Eilidh. “Sometimes we’re so busy and it seems like it’s work, work, work all the time. But I have to remind myself, this is what we wanted, this was the dream, and we’re doing it! It’s working.”
One of the reasons for this inundation of custom is of course the recent closure of Woolworths – an event which has left Stornoway, and many other towns, feeling a palpable sense of loss.
It’s something that neither Michael nor Eilidh would have wished for. While the customers often think they must be thrilled with the extra trade, Eilidh says nothing could be further from the truth.
“It was busy before Woolies shut; and then when that happened, everything just snowballed. We just weren’t prepared for that,” she says, shaking her head. The shop which was just supposed to offer ‘a bit of this, a bit of that’ suddenly had to have certain items in stock all the time.
“We have people coming in and saying ‘I bet you’re glad Woolies has shut,’ but it’s not the case,” Eilidh confides. “We grew up with Woolies too. Seeing the gaping hole where it was is really hard! We had never planned to become like Woolies, we just wanted to open up a shop where we would benefit and the community would benefit too. We just want to make a living, and for everyone else to get a bargain.”
That part certainly still holds true - so much so that Michael and Eilidh simply can’t run the place without a bit of help. Divine intervention has sent them former Woolworths employee Saul Robinson, who came in to ask for a job before the couple had even realised he was what they needed.
“It was just getting bigger and bigger, busier and busier,” said Michael.
“And we just thought we’d have to work harder and harder!” added Eilidh. “But we were lucky, Saul’s been excellent.” So excellent, in fact, that the couple admits it may be time to take on another worker, and that they may be easily convinced if someone keen walks through the door at the right time.
The non-stop whirligig of custom isn’t going to be putting Michael and Eilidh off living the dream they had intended, and keeping Aladdin’s Cave about making sure everyone wins. The pair is currently working on an idea they have to help island charities: the plan is to allow a charity to help out in the shop one Saturday every month, and then let them have a cut of the profits. All interested charities are welcome to approach Michael, Eilidh or Saul anytime at the shop.
Location
2 Inaclete Road (Behind Tesco)
Open Monday-Saturday 9am-5.30pm
