Fans of the History Channel hit "American Pickers" may notice a familiar face around town: the show's lone lady, Danielle Colby.
The 37-year-old opened up her own shop, 4 Miles 2 Memphis, in Wicker Park just over a week ago. Running the store with her husband, according to Patch, Colby has packed the store with Americana-influenced goods, handmade apparel and the kinds of rare finds that have made "American Pickers" a must-watch among the deal hunting and collector crowd.
(Scroll down for photos of 4 Miles 2 Memphis.)
Before opening 4 Miles 2 Memphis, Colby had a hand in running the Antique Archaeology shop featured on "American Pickers." Colby spent time in the LaClaire, Iowa shop (the other is in Nashville), but Patch reports her reality television-fueled recognizability in the small town was not without troubles.
"Le Claire was very nice, we loved Le Claire, but it was very small," said Colby's husband and 4 Miles 2 Memphis co-owner Alex De Meyer. "So we had a lot of people who found our house and we had issues sometimes. People tried to come inside the house. The last month we lived in Le Claire, three nights (in a row) there were people who tried to break into the house. It was kind of scary. We didn't feel very safe with the kids. We always wanted to come back to Chicago, so we decided it was a good opportunity."
A Windy City resident as of last year, Colby still returns to Le Claire for several days a week when "Pickers" is filming.
In Chicago, Colby will have more recognizable faces in her space. The 1734 W. North Ave boutique is next-door-neighbors with Broken Cherry, the equally eclectic shop favorited by the Windy City Rollers and owned by Colby's friend, Remey Rozin. According to DNAinfo, shop owner Rozin actually closed an extension of her shop to make room for Colby's new store.
An open door connects the two shops, and Rozin told DNAinfo the two will "back each other as a team and prop up each other's successes as female independent shop owners."
In the immediate future, the two plan to have a grand opening for the newly-joined shops; with Colby next door, Rozin has dubbed the strip "Cherry Pickers Row."
4 Miles 2 Memphis is located at 1734 W. North Ave.
