Eilisha’s Shoppe

Strolling into Eilisha’s Shoppe is like walking into a room where my Grandmother has laid out the entire contents of her pantry. It is a minefield of old china tea cups and dining sets. It certainly has a charming feel to it, but tuck all flailing limbs and shopping bags away because there is potential for serious breakage action in this cramped space.
Considering it’s deemed to be an antique store, there’s not a great deal of furniture inside Eilisha’s Shoppe. There are some unrestored pieces out the back but what’s on display is predominately jewellery, dining wares and random bits and pieces like old war medals (creepy porcelain dolls included). It’s the bric-​à-​brac and the higgelty-​piggelty feel to the shop that makes it a quaint and cute place to wander through.
Shopping for vintage or antique pieces is always a fun expedition. Eilisha’s is certainly not the most amazing of second-​hand stores in Brisbane, but if there’s some sort of adorable vintage piece you are looking for, it’s well worth a browse.

I’ve done my fair share of antique and vintage stalking, but Eilisha’s Shoppe has never cropped up on my radar. I only happened to fall across it parking along James Street one day, and I’m very glad I did. Yes, all the other antique centres I’ve fallen across/​stalked down have been wondrous and oh so gorgeous and otherworldly, but Eilisha’s place is a little different. The antiques here seem more accessible and within your grasp somehow, while still carrying with them that intrigue and curiosity that comes with looking at wares meant for another time.
Eilisha’s has the traditional tea sets and intricately fashioned jewellery you associate with antique centres, but she also has some things I haven’t seen such as postcards that I know my mother would absolutely die for, which makes it seem like the history here isn’t so far beyond my reach.
Eilisha’s has furniture and bric-​à-​brac, jewellery and mirrors, toys and gifts; it’s a really lovely little place that is both suited to and incongruent with affluent James Street simultaneously. But this is a place you simply must visit if you love your vintage and antiques. She’s been there for 36 years with no indication of quitting it yet.
You can call and email her on 0423 830 515 and
respectively.