Walk into 1001 S. Croatan Highway these days and you will notice something a little unusual before you notice the merchandise. One half of the room holds racks of secondhand denim, curated dresses, and the kind of accessories you find at a well-edited consignment shop. The other half holds refinished dressers, salvaged lighting, and small custom furniture pieces. Two businesses, one address, one register. This shared storefront offers one example of how local shops operate in Kill Devil Hills.
The Coastland Times reported that the tenants are Coastal Consignment Boutique and Fresh Design Co. That arrangement is the real story here.
Two Names, One Front Door
Coastal Consignment Boutique spent more than a year building a following through pop-ups and markets around the Outer Banks before its owners, longtime locals Karyl Rhodes and Mary Phelan Toohey, committed to a permanent space. When they finally opened their brick-and-mortar location on Croatan Highway this spring, they did not fill the whole footprint with clothing racks. They split it with Fresh Design Co., the home-décor line run by local stylist and interior designer Kallie Winter, who fills her side with refinished and upcycled furniture, lighting, and custom pieces.
Coastal Consignment and Fresh Design Co. had already been supporting local nonprofits together through donations and fundraising before they shared a lease. Now that partnership has a physical address, and the two brands plan to keep running joint events and pop-ups from inside it.
That detail matters more than it looks. A shared storefront puts two small, women-owned businesses in one commercial space along one of the northern Outer Banks' busiest commercial corridors. It is one practical arrangement among the storefronts on a stretch of highway that has both national chains and local retailers.
Retail Along the Bypass
That mix is easy to see. Drive north or south on Croatan Highway, which locals call the Bypass, and you pass a Target, a Publix, a Food Lion, a CVS, a Lowe's, an AutoZone, and North Carolina's first Wawa, which opened here in 2024 as the leading edge of a planned 80-store expansion across the eastern part of the state. The Bypass has major retailers alongside local businesses, including a shared storefront for consignment clothing and refinished furniture.
The Coastal Consignment and Fresh Design Co. arrangement offers one example of how local businesses use space on the Bypass. If this model works for Rhodes, Toohey, and Winter, it is a reasonable guess that it will show up again in the next storefront that opens along this same road.
The Blacksmith Behind the Gallery Door
The sharing instinct did not start with this store. It has been operating for years at the KDH Cooperative, an artist-run gallery tucked into a stretch of the Bypass that most people drive past without a second look. The Cooperative is not one shop. It is dozens of local artists working under a single roof and a single membership structure, which is its own version of the same math: no individual painter, potter, or jeweler could likely carry a standalone storefront on Croatan Highway rent, but a cooperative of them can.
One of the more specific tenants inside that gallery is the Manteo Blacksmith Shop, run by Randy Hodges, who works mostly in wrought iron. It is an odd and wonderful thing to find a working blacksmith operating out of a shared gallery space a few doors down from a Dollar Tree, but that juxtaposition is Kill Devil Hills in miniature. The Bypass includes national retailers as well as makers who share gallery space.
Tuesdays Had a Schedule This Summer
The same logic showed up on a different kind of calendar this year. The Town of Kill Devil Hills ran its First Flight Farmers Market every Tuesday morning from June 16 through August 4 at Aviation Park, with around 50 vendors setting up each week to sell produce, baked goods, woodworking, photography, paintings, jewelry, and candles. That market wrapped for the season a few weeks ago, but it is worth understanding as one more version of the same pattern already showing up in that consignment shop on the Bypass. A farmers market is, structurally, dozens of small sellers sharing one set of tables, one time slot, and one piece of town-owned land, because none of them individually could justify a standalone spot on a Tuesday morning. If you missed it this year, the town has run it on this same Tuesday rhythm before, and it is a safe bet Aviation Park sees the vendors back on a similar schedule next summer.
What This Adds Up To
These three examples show different ways local sellers in Kill Devil Hills share space: a consignment boutique and furniture designer in one storefront, artists and a blacksmith in a cooperative gallery, and vendors at a town-run farmers market. Together, they offer a look at how local businesses and sellers use shared spaces alongside the larger retailers on Croatan Highway.
If you already shop local here, that is useful to know the next time you see a new storefront go up on the Bypass with two names on the sign instead of one. It is not a branding gimmick. It is one example of how businesses can share a storefront. And if you are the kind of person who likes knowing why your town works the way it does, this offers a concrete example of local sellers sharing space about a mile from the beach.
Next time you are on the Bypass, stop into 1001 S. Croatan Highway and see the arrangement for yourself. Then swing by the KDH Cooperative and see if Randy Hodges is at his forge. Both stops offer examples of local sellers sharing space, each in its own way.
I live and work in this stretch of the Outer Banks, and I notice these details because they matter for more than curiosity. How a town's small businesses operate says something real about its long-term character, and that is worth knowing whether you are shopping here this weekend or thinking ahead to owning property here someday. If you ever want to talk through what is happening in Kill Devil Hills, on the Bypass or off it, Cameron Griggs would love to hear from you. Let's Connect.
