Tucson’s newest antique mall and coffee shop are led by two pairs of best friends

Miriam Silver-Altman and Fiza Rahman were best friends for four months before opening Tucson’s newest antique mall. Taylor Ochoa and Sarina Duckwiler were best friends for two before opening their pop-up coffee shop.

All four women know what it’s like to work under male bosses in environments where they were undervalued in skill but also in pay, where their ideas weren’t heard, where their talents weren’t trusted. 

Now the duos operate businesses of their own — where they hear each other, where they listen, where they’re valued.

One year ago, Taylor and Sarina started coffee cart Pretty Coffee, which recently found its permanent home at Crescent Moon Mercantile, an antique mall at 2801 E. Grant Rd. that Miriam and Fiza opened on July 4.

A line for antiques

When you’re around them, you’d think Miriam and Fiza have known each other their entire lives. They cry when talking about their friendship, they laugh at shared memories, they have matching tattoos.

In actuality, it’s been less than a year since the two met when Miriam, 23, was a vendor at an antique mall where Fiza, 20, worked. They hit it off immediately.

Soon after meeting, the duo became coworkers in estate liquidation. In a job that lasted a mere three weeks, they felt overworked, underpaid and far too underappreciated.

Their next step became clear. They had both talked about opening their own antique mall — and now was the time to do it.

“I like to look at real estate for fun. I used to come (to this building) when it was Safe Shift and it was a huge thing in this community when the building became vacant,” Miriam says of the building where Crescent Moon Mercantile now sits, which was formerly home to an estate sale store called Safe Shift. 

“This is a space people in the thrifting community recognize from when it was Safe Shift,” Miriam says. “I was like, ‘OK, what if we just do something now instead of opening something far into the future?’” 

And the price for the size — 9,000 square feet — was too good to pass up.

“I was super scared — like, ‘What if we’re not ready?’” Fiza says. “And she was like, ‘We’re never going to be ready.’” 

“I would always rather make a decision than have not made it and wondered,” Miriam says. “I was always confident in our ability to figure it out. I knew we could make it happen if we just went all the way.” 

So, they did.

On July 4, they opened the doors — terrified that no one would show up. 

“We carpool because we live three minutes from each other and every morning, I’d get in her car and I’d say, ‘I had another dream,’” Fiza says. “For a good two weeks before opening, the only dream I was having was that everything looked amazing and we opened the doors and no one came. A tumbleweed rolls in. I’d wake up in a cold sweat.”

But that’s the complete opposite of what happened.

The store opened at 10 a.m., but a line started to form at 9 a.m. By 9:30, there were more than 100 people lined along both sides of the building. People parked on neighborhood streets and in a nearby shopping plaza, then made their trek to the store in the thick of summer heat. Even inside the store, people waited as long as an hour and 15 minutes to purchase their treasures. 

“I would ask people why they stayed, ‘Why did you stand in line?’” Fiza says. “And they were like, ‘I didn’t mind. I actually made friends with people in line.’”

A community of vintage

Crescent Moon Mercantile is home to 90 vendors selling their vintage wares. You’ll find clothing, records, trinkets, toys and more items you would never find at a big-box store.

“When people compliment this place, the first thing we say is it’s all thanks to the vendors,” Fiza says.

It’s important to Miriam and Fiza that each vendor is cared for. That includes affordable rates for the retail space, full transparency about contracts and simply knowing the names and stories of each vendor.

“I don’t think you can divorce the business from the people and the community,” Miriam says. “This business is inherently community-based. There are 90 people whose livelihoods depend on us. I think it’s unfair to not prioritize that.”

And each of the vendors care about the space, too. Without being asked, they’ve fixed a speaker, stained a bench, changed light bulbs and supplied coasters and pillows for a communal seating area. 

Just as Miriam and Fiza built a connection through the antiquing community, so have the vendors. While decorating their spaces to prepare for the grand opening, vendors became friends with one another. One pair in particular met through Crescent Moon and now attend estate sales together.

“To have 90 people believe in the same things you do and want to make this work for people, it’s admirable,” Miriam says. “It feels really good.”

“What was amazing about starting this place is our favorite vendors at every antique mall would come in and we were just fangirling,” Fiza says. “There was one vendor, like two years ago I posted, ‘You need to check out this person’ — and now he’s in our mall.”

Of course, Miriam and Fiza also care for every customer who walks through the doors.

“I want the consumer to be super excited about something. I want them to discover the find of the century,” Fiza says. “I love seeing what people collect. I met this one guy and he was so excited about this tiny ceramic frog. … There are people who collect trinket boxes and weird lamps and wooden cats. Especially in this economy, I never want a customer to go home and say, ‘I wish I could’ve gotten something there.’”

The importance of thrifting

While looking through the Humane Society’s thrift store, two wooden busts caught Miriam’s eye. She fell in love with them before picking them up. She fell in love with them before she saw the stickers on the bottom — stickers that marked them as inventory for a museum.

After buying the pair, Miriam learned that the two busts were hand-carved figures representing the Igorot peoples of the Philippines. Through her research, she learned that these types of busts were traditionally created when a couple married, then as long as the two carvings stayed together in the home, the couple would also stay together.

Many of the busts that are found today are not found together — but Miriam’s were. They’re now part of her favorite thrifting story.

Over at Fiza’s home, you’ll find several shelves of wooden cats.

“I have a very massive love for cats,” Fiza says. “Some would say it borders on insane, but I love my cats.”

Her collection started with one tiny wooden cat, which then grew to two, then three. Now every time she finds a wooden feline, she knows it’s coming home with her. 

Amid the sea of wooden cats, though, is a single glass cat, gifted to her by a vendor she met at her previous job. The glass cat was made in Italy, etched and signed by the original artist. 

“It’s a testament to the vendors,” Fiza says. “It’s nice that it’s something the vendor thought of.” 

But for Miriam and Fiza, thrifting is a lot more than the finds. It’s the sustainability, it’s the history, it’s the individuality. It’s the conscious decision to reduce overconsumption.

“There are a lot of reasons this matters. I am cosmically disturbed by the amount of crap we have created,” Miriam says. “I also appreciate the history — I think it’s important to preserve evidence, especially as we move into a world where it all gets buried by the ‘new’ constantly.”

“There’s so much stuff that people leave behind — good quality stuff that we simply shouldn’t leave behind,” Fiza says. “It’s so amazing when vendors bring something in and they tell me the story behind it. You learn a lot and it’s even better seeing the stuff that’s made by hand or made one at a time. You can see the care the artist put in, even in a small wallet or keychain — the person put so much care and creativity into it.” 

Miriam remembers going to a thrift store as a kid, buying secondhand when it wasn’t exactly socially acceptable but because it was cost effective to her family who didn’t have an expendable income. She remembers the retired school teachers who owned the store and all the people who volunteered to make it run smoothly.

“Those incredibly kind people were volunteering their time so someone else could have a bit of an easier time. That’s something that’s always mattered to me — making things easier for people who aren’t yourself,” Miriam says. “I think it’s hard to distill why thrifting matters except that it does and that should be enough. It’s a drop in a bucket from an objective standpoint — us opening this store and selling stuff isn’t going to change any of the systems, but it might make somebody’s life a little better. You’re never going to be able to realistically achieve and change all the things we need to, but eventually, the drops do better in collective action. We have the ability to do something. If you can, you should. Because the people who can’t, can’t — so somebody has to.”

“We’re not saving the world, but we are changing the lives of 90 people and that matters,” Fiza says. “And it’s that human connection — we live in such a horrible time and in all the ups and downs I’ve had in my life, I’ve never been upset to connect with another person.”

Adding coffee to the mix

When Taylor and Sarina started to dream up Pretty Coffee, the plan was to bring the coffee cart to weekend estate sales. They later parked the cart at artisan markets, gift shops and gyms — and then came Crescent Moon Mercantile.

“My mom works for an estate sale company and some of her coworkers were getting booths here, so my mom was like, ‘Let’s go pop in. I just want to see it,’” Taylor says. 

Taylor started chatting with Miriam and the two clicked instantly. During their conversation, Taylor mentioned Pretty Coffee, having no clue that Miriam and Fiza had been searching for a coffee vendor.

“It’s kind of a stereotype culturally — when you go thrifting with your friends, you get an iced coffee,” Miriam says. “In an environment like this, people do hang out. It’s not just about the retail experience, it’s an activity. People spend hours and hours in places like this.” 

Just one week before Crescent Moon opened, Pretty Coffee moved in. Looking at the space, you’d have no idea it was put together in a handful of days.

Pretty Coffee will still be available for catering gigs, but it’s easier to find them now that they’re at Crescent Moon near daily.

“It feels so good to have a home for Pretty Coffee. All of our tears, working in 100-degree heat, carrying a 70-pound espresso machine,” Taylor says. “We cried so many tears, good and bad, but all of it was so necessary.”

Beyond the coffee, Pretty Coffee offers cookies during the week and even more pastries, baked by Sarina, on the weekends. (Side note: I’ve only heard the best things about Sarina’s chocolate chip cookies.)

“That was one thing I was excited about. We’ve always done pastries, but outside, the cinnamon rolls were sweating in the sun,” Sarina says. “I feel like this is the first time I can really showcase the pastries and let them shine.”

Taylor and Sarina were coworkers elsewhere before starting Pretty Coffee last year. Working together was easy — just as they both cared about the same things, they both shared the same struggles. Their friendship is palpable.

The two had thought about starting cafes on their own individually, but needed a confidence boost to do it — they found that confidence boost in each other.

“The name Pretty Coffee, yes it represents the drinks and how they visually look, but we wanted to embrace the fact that this is a women-owned coffee shop,” Taylor says. “I have 15 years of experience in this industry and she has 10 years. I’m not going to dim my light as a woman to make everyone else feel comfortable. I think there’s a creative energy of working with women. This is an adaptation of not having our power or our ideas heard.”

Because of Pretty Coffee, Crescent Moon feels like a third space. It’s where you can shop for the antiques you’ll love forever, but it’s also where you can sit and enjoy a coffee with a friend. It’s where vendors are befriending vendors, sitting in the cafe area as they add price tags to items. 

“This is the union of what we’re doing,” Miriam says. “They’re best friends. We’re best friends. We’re fucking doing it.” 

🕰️ Crescent Moon Mercantile and Pretty Coffee are located at 2801 E. Grant Rd. Crescent Moon is open 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesday-Sunday. Pretty Coffee is open 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Tuesday-Sunday with an expanded pastry menu on weekends. For more information, visit Crescent Moon’s website and Instagram, or Pretty Coffee’s Instagram. ☕️