Best of Orlando 2025: Shopping + Retail
Earlier this year, Audubon Park saw the opening of Happy-Go-Lucky, a sister shop nestled inside Hellcats USA. Even with such compact real estate, Happy-Go-Lucky has room for seemingly endless one-of-a-kind pieces from local vendors and vintage goodies that are Sunshine State-centric. If you're looking for a fun knick-knack or bauble to spice up your life with a touch of Old Florida charm, look no further!
2826 Corrine Drive, instagram.com/shop.happy.go.lucky
How best to describe H Mart to a non-believer? Like a Korean SuperTarget crossed with the best mall food court that ever existed, maybe. Look, if you aren't already part of the cult, step aside — that'll leave one more parking space for the rest of us. H Mart has been playing with our hearts since early 2024, promising to open "soon" (HA!), but last month they started hiring, so we are still wiggling on that hook. PLEASE JUST OPEN ALREADY.
Westland Terrace Plaza, 7501 W. Colonial Drive, hmart.com
We all know that our city is theme park central, but we bet you didn't know that there's a niche pop-up market that specifically caters to amusement park devotees. The Happiest Market is a once-a-month market specializing in unique theme park-inspired products sourced from local small businesses. There's no place like The Happiest Market to score magical must-haves that are based on the worlds of Disney World, Universal and Epic Universe. And there's also no better place to beat theme park prices.
All of a sudden, our little Milk District has, weirdly, two places practically next door to each other, that opened within weeks of each other, supporting the art of analog film photography. At Not Another Film Lab — located in a tiny (though not Fotomat drive-thru-sized) building in the center of the block, behind Iron Cow, you can even get a hand-crafted cup of espresso while you drop off your film to be developed. While you're there, take a brief skip around the corner to Bellows Film Lab, which fronts on Robinson Street and proffers all manner of film, cameras and lenses. They plan to host more art parties like the exhibition opening that marked their first week, and they'll develop your prized rolls as well.
2436 E. Robinson St., notanotherfilmlaborl.com; 2426 E. Robinson St., bellowsfilmlaborl.com
Tucked away in Dezerland Park is the grapple-tastic Shop Suplex, a clearinghouse for all things pro-wrestling: shirts, DVDs, magazines, repro belts and ... oh yes, action figures. So many action figures, in fact, that they cover a wall of the store from floor to ceiling in a surreal display of miniaturized muscles and spandex suspended in the air. It's become an essential rite of passage for fans and shoppers to snap a pic in front of this one-of-a-kind backdrop.
5250 International Drive, instagram.com/shopsuplex
Occasional and painfully misguided goofball protesters (eternal outrage is even more important than eternal salvation for some people these days!) aside, surely we can all cheer esoteric bookshop Spiral Circle hitting the half-century mark. This New Age mainstay, a longtime purveyor of books, crystals, tinctures and host of all manner of spirit-centering events, holds the distinction of being Orlando's oldest independent bookstore. The shop has weathered both the supposed death of print and a pandemic — it's as if their success was written in the stars.
750 N. Thornton Ave., spiralcircle.com
Goblin Market, the discount art market with a (pointy-eared) difference, is drawing bigger and bigger crowds only a year in. This delightful local artisan and vendor showcase is more quirky and eccentric than most, featuring a plethora of vendors peddling art, baked goods, jewelry, keepsakes, apparel, toys and food, along with diversions like drag shows and a Goblin Maid Café. The Market has seemingly outgrown their initial digs at Oviedo Mall — they shifted over to the Central Florida Fairgrounds for their recent Pride month edition, which sold out. Goblin Market's liege, the Goblin King, encourages trading between artists for that extra utopian edge.
1st Place: The Mercantile Antiques and Uniques, themercantilefl.com
2nd Place: Orange Tree Antiques Mall, orangetreeantiques.com
3rd Place: Eclectic Interiors and Design, eclectic-interiors-design.com
1st Place: Orange Cycle, orangecycleorlando.com
2nd Place: Retro City Cycles, retrocitycycles.com
3rd Place: Kyle's Bike Shop, kylesbikeshop.net