Windy...scattered thunderstorms this morning, then partly cloudy during the afternoon hours. A few storms may be severe. High 81F. Winds S at 20 to 30 mph. Chance of rain 40%..
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Partly cloudy with late night showers or thunderstorms. Low near 70F. Winds SSE at 15 to 25 mph. Chance of rain 40%.
Whenever Sally Cotter’s mom talked about kids, she called them half-pints — the same nickname the family used for Cotter’s grandmother, who was petite.
When her mom, Sara Jane Carter, died unexpectedly at the end of 2018, it was the starting point for Cotter and her husband, Scott, to finally launch a retail business: Half-Pint Children’s Boutique.
“I unexpectedly lost my mom two days after Christmas, and that’s what helped us pull the trigger,” Sally Cotter said. “Life’s short, so we’re doing it.”
The boutique will open April 1 at 108 W. Oak St., Suite 102, in the previous location of Knee Deep Plumbing. Grand-opening celebrations will run through the first weekend of April, and regular store hours will be 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Wednesday and Thursday, 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Friday and Saturday and noon to 5 p.m. Sunday.
A former fifth-grade teacher, Sally decided to not go back to work after the couple’s first child, Charlie, was born in 2018. She’d always wanted to open a boutique, but as she started shopping for Charlie, she wasn’t seeing the type of store she wanted in Denton.
Co-owner Sally Cotter says Half-Pint Children's Boutique will offer "a combination of things I've loved as a mom, and ... new things I've found."
Jeff Woo/DRC
“Once I had him and started looking for little boy’s clothes that were different from everybody else’s, I had a hard time,” she said. “[The inventory] is a combination of things I’ve loved as a mom, and others are new things I’ve found.”
Half-Pint will now be the only locally owned children’s store in town since Small Fry, which operated in Denton for 44 years, closed last year.
The plan for now is to carry items for newborn to 5T, plus accessories and specialty lines of products like Noodle & Boo, a natural skincare line that isn’t available in other local stores. The price points are similar to shopping at a store like Nordstrom.
Half-Pint Children's Boutique will open next month on the Oak Street side of the Square.
Jeff Woo/DRC
“A lot of people want to spoil their babies, so we’re focusing on newborns to 5-year-olds,” Cotter said. “That’s the age range I think where Mom will be OK with spending $30 or $40 on a dress.”
Picking a storefront on the Square was an obvious choice for the couple, who first met in fourth grade at Wilson Elementary School.
Since it’s their first retail venture, they hope the foot traffic downtown will help fuel their business.
“We have always loved this area, and it was one of those things that was, ‘If we’re going to do it, we’re doing to do it on the Square,’” she said. “I love the vibe on the weekends, the walkability of the area, and I felt like starting out as a brand-new business, it would give us a lot of that walkable traffic and new clients who could stumble upon it.”
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JENNA DUNCAN can be reached at 940-566-6889 and via Twitter at @jennafduncan.
