For just over six months, Vacaville’s Northside Collective has offered a home to small business owners looking for a space to sell their goods. Now, regular workshops and events are helping to bring in new business.

The idea for the collective first came to owner Ivania Lama in January of 2024 from her mother-in-law and co-owner of Mama Lama Sweets.

“We were in a collective in Brentwood and on our way back from stocking our section my mother-in-law was like ‘Hey, is there anything like this in Vacaville?’” said Lama.

At first, she thought it would be too much work, Lama said. “I was like,’I have a full time job, I have three kids, there’s no way.”

“But she definitely planted a seed and I’m a doer,” she said. So, Lama began to do research on the idea and spoke with her close friends and family, all of whom were on board, she says.

Next, she reached out to small business owners and discovered several that were interested in participating, says Lama. So when a brick and mortar space became available in Vacaville, the idea turned into a plan. “Little by little, all the pieces lined up,” she said.

It took just six months from the day Lama first got the idea to open The Northside Collective to the grand opening on Aug. 2. Now, the store is a home to 51 small businesses and there’s plans for more.

“Majority of them are local to Solano County,” she says of her vendors, in addition to more that are from the great Bay Area and a few beyond that in the United States.

“We started with 50 vendors and then each month I was growing,” she says. With many of the six month business leases expiring in January, her numbers dropped slightly in February, but that was to be expected, she says.

Overall, Lama says it has been amazing to see small businesses’ interest, despite the risk. “We’re new, I’ve never owned a brick and mortar so it’s a risk for me but it’s a risk for them too to put their products in store, pay rent, without knowing if the traffic is there.”

January was particularly slow for The Northside Collective, not unusual after December’s holiday season, she says. That’s why weekly events and workshops are important to introduce people to the space.

This weekend, Christy from Craft with Christy is hosting a crafting workshop and next weekend the store hosts Alebrije painting class.

For Lama, hosting artists’ workshops is a win-win. “It was another outlet to bring in income, right? You host a class, we have people come and we make more money,” she said.

Lama hopes to someday hit 80 vendors in the store at once. She also hopes to expand, opening more collectives on the Northside of various towns.

Learn more at thenorthsidecollectivevv.com