One wild ride – Ferris Wheel Antiques in Topeka celebrates 20 years

Move over, Beanie Babies. Hit the road, Hot Wheels. You won’t find either at Ferris Wheel Antiques, a place that owner Michelle Ferris calls one of the only “true antique stores in Topeka.”

It’s a strategy that has worked well for Ferris and her husband Ronnie, who are celebrating their 20th year of operating Ferris Wheel in 2023. The Topeka store, which was built from scratch in 2003, wasn’t exactly some-thing the couple planned, Ferris says. Like so many wonderful life events, “it just happened.”

“It wasn’t something we planned on,” Ferris explains, adding that Ronnie is a buyer and seller of petroliana. “When his buyers didn’t buy as much, we decided we had enough to open a store… We just jumped in with both feet to see what would happen, and it worked.”

The couple decided they wanted to deal exclusively in antiques, opting to stay away from the junk one might find in other stores.
Also joining Ferris and Ronnie as fixtures in the store were their young daughters, ages 5 and 1.

“Somehow I ran a store with a 1-year-old. I don’t know how,” Ferris says, laughing. “Our girls basically grew up in the store, and our clients have seen them. Our girls would drive wagons and pedal cars around the store. It was like Romper Room.”

As their girls grew, so did the store’s physical space (Ferris Wheel began with just one building with 3,200 square feet of space and later would expand to its square footage of more than 6,000). Word-of-mouth promotion of the antique store in town that had lots of petrol-related collectibles spread as well. Visitors would discover a steady inventory of prim-itives, early Americana, and antique books, too.

Ferris says you won’t find any items more recent than the 1960s throughout the store’s shelves.
Over the past two decades, Ferris says she and Ronnie have amassed a following of customers who have become like family. And since they don’t have any hired staff to speak of – the Ferrises are at the cash register six days each week – they’ll be the ones you meet when you come in.

“We’re the fun place to shop,” Ferris says, “and we are the faces of the store. We could not have done any of that without customers, friends, and colleagues. We try to make our store feel like home. These customers we have are extended family. We’ve made friendships that will last a lifetime. My customers know that.”

Those customers, Ferris says, likely would describe her store using the three words “family,” “friends” and “fun,” while Ronnie adds that he believes they would use the words “traditional,” “quality” and “unique.”
Throughout the years, trends in buying antiques have come and gone, and Ferris says one of the biggest keys to her store’s success is that she always tries to follow them closely.

“We’ve seen cycles go up and down, trends come and go,” she notes, adding that younger buyers are increas-ingly repurposing antiques. “The younger generation now isn’t really into investing a lot of money in antiques, but the ones who come in now may have creative ways to use antiques and repurpose them, much more so now than 20 years ago.”