Austin Fights Back, Sending Famous Furniture Store to LFT

Few months back we mentioned how Austin wasn’t terribly happy with how Dallas had taken over its 2nd Street District. All of the sudden it seemed like downtown Austin was looking like Uptown Dallas — Cru, Taverna, Cantina Laredo, III Forks, Paciugo Gelato, Which Wich, etc. But at least one Cap City retailer’s had enough: Sometime in the next couple of months, reports this morning’s Austin American-Statesman, Mercury Design Studio will open a 2,200-square foot showroom in the Lifestyle Fashion Terminal in Victory Park.

Says the story, the Merc isn’t bringing with it its famous custom furniture. Instead, Dallas will get a shot at some of Steve Shuck’s “eclectic assortment of vintage furniture and accessories,” which is good enough — dude knows his funky furnishings. (After all, one of Mercury’s mottos is, “We believe that vintage is the new modern,” which sounds like a creepy old man’s pick-up line.) Says Shuck, the Dallas store “will definitely have the feel of Mercury [in Austin] but … with a different set-up, as we have almost no walls on which to merchandise. We thought that it was about time that an Austin store opened a location in Dallas versus the other way around.” –Robert Wilonsky