From Dr Pepper baked beans to Wendy’s spicy chicken Pringles, Papo’s Pop Shop sells anything but ordinary snacks.
Papo’s Pop Shop will hold its second vendor market on July 10 from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. at 808 NW 13th St. In addition to Papo’s exotic snacks, the Snack Attack event will feature a variety of items from 12 local vendors, such as throwback clothing from Beasy Vintage, handmade jewelry from Whole Heart Goods and art from Fillup G.
Other vendors at the Snack Attack event will include Y-Naught Vintage, Shy Bakes, The How Bazar, Germain’s Chicken Sandwiches, Subparartwork, Turbulent Cascade and Smells Like Burnt Plastic clothing brand. Local rapper YNS SOKO is also expected to perform.
Papo’s Pop shop was founded by Jose Rosado, also known as Papo, in the spring of 2021. The business specializes in rare and retro snacks. Importing goods from all over the world, Rosado purchases through wholesalers to sell individual items at pop-up markets around Gainesville.
Rosado has been involved in vintage and antique buying and selling for several years. After attending many different vintage markets, he noticed an element of nostalgia missing from the selection of goods available and decided to start selling exotic snacks to fill the space.
“Food and candy are some of those things that make everybody say, ‘I used to have that when I was a kid,’” Rosado said. “I’m a ‘90s kid, so Sour Powers and Cry Babies are things I’m familiar with.”
The Snack Attack event will take inspiration from Papo’s Pop Shop’s Bodega Takeover Experience, the business’ first market event, which was held on June 26 at the How Bazar, located at 408 W University Ave. For the Bodega Takeover Experience, Rosado said he wanted to imitate his own experiences growing up and shopping at close-knit, high-energy bodegas.
“I grew up in the Midwest, and when you would go to an actual bodega, it's a small space with a lot of stuff, and you have a personal relationship with the storekeeper,” Rosado said.
While ‘80s Astro Pops and ‘90s Fun Dip may separate generations, Papo’s Pop Shop’s events have brought community members of all ages together.
Brett Singleton, founder of Beasy Vintage, sells T-shirts, sweaters, track pants and jerseys from the 1970s to the early 2000s. Singleton was a vendor at the Bodega Takeover Experience and will also be selling clothes at this weekend’s event.
Singleton said vintage clothes and sneakers are a part of his personality.
“I'm a Michael Jordan fanatic and love jerseys and different sports tees,” he wrote in an email. “It’s always been in me to collect, so to go treasure hunting for things that I remember from my childhood is a dream.”
After the Bodega Takeover Experience, Singleton said meeting and networking with other vendors reassured him as a local vintage clothing seller.
“I love to see people in my city having small businesses and doing what they love,” Singleton said. “Vintage clothing has a story behind it, it means something to a person.”
Another vendor, Philip Guiry, is a local artist from Jacksonville based in Gainesville. Guiry started painting in 1999 and makes text-based art pieces with satirical themes. He describes his art as similar to Roger Miller’s musical style.
“He writes all these really nonsensical, fun sounding songs, but if you look at them, they're super bummers,” Guiry said. “A lot of my paintings, you look at them and see all these bright colors and these simple shapes, and it looks like an eight year old did it. And then you're like, ‘Oh, it's actually kind of a bummer.’”
Remembering his days as a college student at UF, Guiry said he’s most looking forward to seeing if the Gainesville art and market scene is still thriving in the college town.
“I'm excited to go and see if there are kids who are doing something because Gainesville has a reputation and a legacy of great bands and great art,” he said.
Papo’s Pop Shop plans to open a brick-and-mortar location in Gainesville this fall, but Rosado said the local market community in Gainesville has helped him as a new business owner.
“The community markets happening all around Gainesville are a great opportunity for developing economic inclusion and building trusted small commerce relationships with our customers.”
Contact Brenna at bsheets@alligator.org. Follow her on Twitter @BrennaMarieShe1.
