It’s all the madcap vision of owner Eric Bowman, who was literally the velcro kid as a teenager.
“Back in high school, I used to rock the velcro shoes from Walmart,” he says. “So I just adopted that name and took it on. Everything from emails to social media, I was able to keep it.”
The cafe-meets-art gallery held its grand opening in early February, inspired by 24-hour vending machine cafes in Japan. Bowman is formerly behind the Mill Street House in Old Town Lewisville. When he was there, it was a creative coworking space. New ownership took over in 2019, turning it into an event venue but keeping the same name.
When Velcrokid came about, Bowman wanted to outsize his initial vision for a permanent creative space.
“I wanted to have a place that was a beacon for the arts,” Bowman says. “And a place for people to connect.”
The First Five Minutes
Bowman’s beacon reached us, and we stopped for a snack and a mini art adventure. The first five minutes of Velcrokid are overwhelming. The first thing you see upon entering is a mini two-shelf library stocked with big hardcover art books, including compilation books from American artist and activist Keith Haring and Austin-based illustrator Tim Doyle.After that, your gaze shifts to the lines of vending machines on the wall, where the first three all contain designer toys, with an array of characters.
As for snacks, Velcrokid offers some treats from local vendors, including Emporium Pies and Purpose Macarons, but we wanted to sample some of the specialty sweets from Japan.
We ordered the UCC Caffe Latte with a Shoeido strawberry roll cake on the side. The coffee was a little sweet for our taste, but we’re not inclined to criticize anything decent with a $2.99 price tag. The Shoeido strawberry cake roll had a delicious flavor, but was a bit dry, perhaps by design or by way of sitting in a cold vending machine all day. Similarly, it was $2.50 for a pretty large dessert.
Of course, it wouldn’t be the full Velcrokid experience without getting a toy on the way out. We didn’t recognize many of the characters, so we bought two “blind boxes” from Designer Toy Unite, which hold a mystery toy chosen from an assortment of different Japanese toy companies. We pulled a variation of the “Su Zombie” character, which, of course, is a zombie version of a sushi roll, and "Lumy," a small mushroom-shaped boy. Japanese toys really know how to do it.
At any rate, checking out a new local establishment while only spending a couple of bucks is always going to be a worthwhile venture, especially when it comes to an establishment with as unique imagination as Velcrokid.
“The two comments that we get are ‘This place is amazing,’ and ‘I can’t believe this is in Lewisville," Bowman says. "That’s always the perpetual lie of the suburbs, it’s where the arts go to die. I don’t believe it’s true.”
