Maryland’s Eastern Shore has a rich, storied history among duck and goose hunters, so much so that it’s become a dream destination for hunters nationwide. But in this legendary locale, you’ll find another dream destination for waterfowlers: a unique retail outlet called Molly’s Place. Featuring a restaurant, a convenience store and a fully-stocked sporting goods store with a unique, hospitality-based approach to retail, Molly’s Place is worth the trip by itself.
Legends aren’t born — they’re made, and the making of Molly’s Place is a tale that embodies the spirit of the American Dream. It started in 2002, when brothers Nick and Chikki left their home country of India and settled in Maryland. They struggled for years, working long hours at low-paying jobs, until Nick was offered a job at a new hardware store owned by a friend named Scott Mason. When he noticed that Scott took a lot of time off in the fall, Nick asked what was going on and discovered that Scott was going hunting. “That was my first introduction to hunting as a thing that people did,” Nick admitted.
At the same time, after noticing that hardware sales dipped in the fall, Nick and Chikki started doing some research into hunting, firearms and all the associated merchandise, eventually suggesting to Scott that the hardware store start stocking hunting gear to fill in the sales gaps over the fall and winter. They opened a store-within-a-store, stocking premium hunting brands at Scott’s insistence. “It was all about quality and premier brands,” Nick said. “Scott believed in selling the best gear, because at the end of the day, we have to back up everything we sell.”
The hunting gear sold so well that in 2010, Scott bought a long-established sporting goods store called Vonnie’s in Kennedyville, Maryland, and changed the name to Molly’s Place, in honor of his beloved black Lab. Going from 900 square feet inside the hardware store to 5,000+ square feet at Molly’s Place allowed them to bring in different brands, and the store’s reputation grew. Nick and Chikki eventually purchased Molly’s Place from Scott in 2015.
The Molly’s Place brand is built on hospitality. “Our philosophy is very simple but so hard to put into play,” Nick said. “We tell our associates every day: Our consumers can buy this product anywhere. They’re coming here to deal with our associates because they know the guy behind the counter, and we back up everything we sell. They know they’re going to get a great product and excellent service. We’re in the hospitality business. Our customer is taken care of from the time they walk in the door to the time they leave.”That philosophy has been so successful that Molly’s Place has become a destination unto itself. Customers flock here from all over to shop, eat and enjoy the atmosphere of a mom-and-pop retailer that offers premium brands and premium service. It’s been so successful, in fact, that Molly’s Place is expanding, with a new location opening in Easton, Maryland, in August.
“We’re trying to go and serve a more populated area, a whole group of people that we’re not currently serving,” Chikki said. “Easton has a popular waterfowl festival that Molly’s has been setting up a booth at for years. The community has been great to us, and every time we go there, we’re asked, ‘Hey, when are you guys going to open a store here?’ We have to go into deeper water and take a chance in a bigger market.”
While the new location won’t have a restaurant or convenience store, it does have plenty of space, and Nick and Chikki are positioning it as a premium, elevated retail experience. The shop will have numerous pop-up stores from premium brands like Beretta, Federal Ammunition, and KUIU. “Our goal for this store was to create a cool concept shopping experience,” Chikki explained. “We’ve visited a lot of stores and gotten great data. We wanted to create an experience where you have these high-end brands and create a cool shopping experience with them. Molly’s associates are trained by the brands on their products.”
“This store is all about the experience,” Nick said. “You can go to any store and they have product on the shelf. We’re going to provide a service and experience here that’s elevated. We invest in training for our associates. Every brand that’s part of this has been chosen to be here, and they have space to tell their stories to the consumer. Our staff has been trained to make sure they can relay that message.
“When a customer buys something from Molly’s, they buy us. They buy our service and our ability to stand by that product. We wanted to partner with brands that have that same philosophy. We want to make sure our associates are so well-versed in the brands that they can educate the customers.”
The KUIU partnership is a clear example of this. KUIU is a direct-to-consumer brand that’s never been sold in retail stores before. On top of that, they’re a high-end Western brand that has recently started making waterfowl gear, and they’re slowly making inroads into the East Coast. Their store-within-a-store at Molly’s Place’s new location will certainly help introduce KUIU to Eastern hunters.
“KUIU’s mission is to provide the ‘sheep standard’ where someone is out in the middle of nowhere and they can depend on their KUIU,” Nick said. “They’ve been a direct-to-consumer brand and we’ve always been fans. When we met with them, our synergies just aligned so well. We believe in the same things at the core — provide the best quality and stand behind it. We want to work with people like that.”
Melissa Woolf, CEO of KUIU Ultralight Hunting, agrees. “Like KUIU, Molly’s Place puts the customer experience, unparalleled products and amazing service at the forefront of everything they do,” she said. “We could not be more excited to be announcing this strategic partnership with Molly’s Place and the unique experience it will bring to hunters on the Eastern Shore.”
Along with KUIU’s Waterfowl collection, Molly’s Place Easton will also feature the Upland, Whitetail, Everyday Wear, and Logowear lines, and the store will carry a selection of KUIU’s most sought-after products, such as the Super Down Haven Jacket and Bib for Whitetail, the Pro HD Flex Zip Wader and Delta Storm 2200 Submersible Backpack for Waterfowl, the Pro Brush Pant and Upland Field Vest for Upland, the PRO G3 Bino Harness from the Core Hunt collection, and more.
