These aren't your typical store greeters: Floating, just above the doorway, are three hooded ghouls. Following them is Jim Berg, the co-owner and co-founder of Twin Cities Magic & Costume. He isn't shrouded, though he is wearing a tie with pumpkin-headed ghosts haunting a graveyard.
"It's the spirit of the season!" he says.
That season, Halloween, is the store's busiest, and this year marks a change: After 26 years in downtown St. Paul, last September the store moved to a location with less property taxes, more room and more customer parking on S. Robert Street in West St. Paul. (The old location stayed open through the last holiday.)
A year later, the business is enjoying its new neighborhood, Berg said. New customers are coming in, and the long-term outlook is much better for suburban shopping than it is five miles up the road. People don't shop in downtown St. Paul like they used to, he said.
On the other hand, moving to a different town after a quarter century has not come without costs. Some old customers still don't know where the old downtown mainstay went.
"A day doesn't go by when a customer calls and says 'Where are you?' " Berg said. "After 26 years in the downtown area, this was a bit of a jump. … It takes time to reorient."
Fortunately, no matter the location, Berg's store is in a growth industry. According to the National Retail Federation, Halloween spending has increased by 55 percent in the past eight years. Berg says the trend is driven by the holiday's shift, in the past 20 years, from a children's-only event to one popular with adults.
Debbie Vogel, the store's wig and makeup specialist, explains the appeal: "Everybody loves being something else, at least for a night or day."
