The Possum Emporium

Mentone, Alabama has long attracted people drawn to old things with new stories, and The Possum Emporium fits neatly into that tradition. The antiques and curiosities shop sits at 1774 County Road 642, tucked into the quieter roads that wind through Mentone atop Lookout Mountain, and it has quickly become a stop for visitors who like to dig through vintage furniture, old signage, and one of a kind finds.

The shop is owned by Meg Richardson and her husband Al. Meg is not new to this kind of work. Before opening The Possum Emporium, she ran an art consignment business called The Purple Thistle, LLC, featuring pieces across several artistic mediums along with vintage items. She closed that business in 2020, and the couple later opened The Possum Emporium as a continuation of that same interest in vintage goods and consigned art, this time under a new name and with a broader focus on antiques and curiosities.

Inside, the shop functions as both a straightforward antique store and a consignment space for regional artisans, meaning the inventory changes as pieces sell and new consignors bring in fresh material. That mix of steady antiques and rotating consigned art gives regular visitors a reason to stop back in on repeat trips through Mentone rather than assuming they have already seen everything the shop has to offer.

According to a regional tourism listing for the shop, The Possum Emporium is open Thursday through Sunday from 10 AM to 4 PM, hours that line up with the rhythm of a weekend driven mountain economy where most travelers arrive Thursday or Friday and head back down the mountain by Sunday evening. Shoppers can reach the store directly at 256-634-1295 to ask about current inventory or hours before making the drive out to County Road 642, which sits a bit off the main Highway 117 corridor through town.

The shop’s own materials describe a faith based approach to running the business, with the Richardsons framing the venture around community and service alongside the retail side of things. That approach shows up in how the shop presents itself online, with an emphasis on personal connection rather than a purely transactional pitch. It is a small operation, run by two people rather than a staff of employees, which keeps The Possum Emporium firmly in the category of independent Mentone business rather than anything resembling a chain antique mall.

For visitors already planning to browse Mentone’s small cluster of shops, whether that means a stop at Mentone Market for lunch or a walk through the Log Cabin Craft Village, adding The Possum Emporium to the route makes sense. Antique shopping rewards patience, and a store built on consignment and curiosities is exactly the kind of place where a slow walk through the aisles turns up something unexpected. Given the shop’s location on Lookout Mountain and its roots in Meg Richardson’s earlier consignment work, The Possum Emporium offers a genuinely local alternative to the antique malls found in bigger towns along the base of the mountain.

County Road 642 winds away from the main highway strip through Mentone, past cabins and tree cover, which means finding the shop takes a bit more intention than pulling into a storefront on Highway 117. That out of the way setting fits the character of the business, since Meg and Al built it as a personal project rather than a high traffic tourist stop, and visitors who make the trip tend to be the kind of shoppers who already know they want to spend real time browsing rather than passing through quickly.

Because the shop relies partly on consignment, the people who bring in pieces to sell are themselves part of the local creative community on Lookout Mountain, which means a visit to The Possum Emporium doubles as a small survey of what regional makers and collectors are currently working with. A vintage dresser might sit near a piece of consigned folk art, and a shelf of old glassware might sit beside something a nearby artisan just finished. That layered inventory is part of what separates a shop like this from a big box antique mall, where booths are rented by the month and turnover has little to do with any shared sense of place.