On the northeast corner of North 12th Street and Moro Street in Manhattan, residents and visitors alike can stop by a unique, family-owned and operated store called On the Wildside.
Julie Stutheit, owner of On the Wildside, said it is a “cultural gift store … for the open minded.”
Past a glass door with bells and a wall covered in stickers, shoppers can find handcrafted jewelry, incense, crystals, clothes and much more to decorate their homes or dorms.
“We have all different stones, crystals,” Stutheit said. “We have a little bit of Wiccan stuff, [and] of course, incense. I think we have the best incense in town and the biggest variety. … We just try to have a lot of all different kinds of things.”
Farther into the store, a wide table in the far left corner holds hundreds of different beads for customers to make their own bracelets.
“We make macramé,” Stutheit said. “We have some made up, and if somebody wants to come in and pick out beads and pick out what kind of weave they want, we’ll make it for them.”
For those over 18, On the Wildside has a separate room specifically for tobacco products.
“The back room is the most [popular] because we do sell tobacco pipes, and we sell hookah supplies,” Stutheit said.
People of all ages can get henna tattoos from Ann Warren, a local henna artist and Kansas State alumna who sets up a table in On the Wildside every Monday.
“I’m here every Monday from March through October, as long as the weather is really well,” Warren said. “If it starts getting really cold early in October, then I’ll wrap things up. Nobody wants stuff on their skin if they can’t show it off.”
Warren said she appreciates that Stutheit and Megan Springer, Stutheit’s daughter, manager of On the Wildside and K-State alumna, allow her to work in their store.
“These ladies have been more than generous to let me come here and work,” Warren said. “There are some people who would have never known I was here if they weren’t coming here to the store, so I owe them a lot.”
Springer said they like being a local business and try to have something for everyone.
“We have a small amount of a lot of different products to cater to everybody,” Springer said. “We have students, we have a lot of military, we have locals, people we always see a couple times a year. But every time they come to town, they come here because they’re from Hays, or they’re from a smaller town around that has nothing like this at all. We’re the closest unless they want to go to Kansas City.”
On the Wildside is open Monday through Friday from 11 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. and on Saturday from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. They can be found online at OnTheWildSide.net.
