When she first saw one of PG Social House’s over-the-top milkshakes—nicknamed OGs (a story in itself)—one fan gasped, “Is this even legal?”
It is, if dinner is five healthy scoops of Edy’s ice cream whipped up in a shake slathered with rainbow sprinkles, balancing a slice of five-layer rainbow cake, a giant pinwheel lollypop, a Nerds Rope and a cherry on top.
The abbreviation OG used to stand for “original gangster.” It’s since trickled down into popular culture to mean simply “original.”
Trust us. Everything about PG Social House is OG. Even if you think that means “Oh, gee!”
And in case you thought downtown Punta Gorda has no young people, PG Social House has changed all that, too.
You’ll meet lots of them there. Young parents. Kids of all ages playing games on the courtyard while bouncy reggae pipes out through the trees. Canine kids. Grandparents who feel like kids. All having the time of their lives and the biggest sugar rushes ever.
Meanwhile, Collin and Suzie Smith of Port Charlotte were on a pandemic mission.
From The Bubble Room in Captiva to The Pier and Leroy’s in Punta Gorda, their family is making a point of patronizing, photographing and reviewing as many unique, locally owned and operated businesses as possible.
Add PG Social House to their list. One Saturday, the whole family made a day of it.
Daughters Braelynn, 6, and Gracelynn, 4, and nephew Wyatt McGrain, 2, played and shared OG shakes while the grownups enjoyed adult beverages like the refreshing Frosé wine slushie.
Before they knew it, they’d been there for three hours.
“We all had a great time,” Collin said. “Kids really take to the open space, and adults enjoy the playfulness of the shakes as much as the kids do. I don’t know if the owners realize it, but they’ve done a fantastic job. The wow factor is definitely there. This is something our town needed and will love for a long time.”
And PG Social House is more than ice cream, candy and fun. It’s also a coastal/contemporary furniture store and a bar.
How does that happen?
Furnishing her future
Alicia Scott never really intended to go into retail. She’d been in sales and hospitality because she loved working with people.
In the process of building a home, she stumbled on her future while fruitlessly browsing big-box furniture stores.
“Everything kind of looked the same,” she complained. “Nothing unique or different.”
So she traveled the East Coast, to Georgia and North Carolina, seeking eclectic furnishings that reflected her style. She soon filled her father’s Punta Gorda warehouse to the rafters with pieces that she’d bought.
“Your house isn’t even done, Alicia, and you have all this stuff,” laughed Bill Scott. “You should open a store with all this furniture.”
So she did, and began helping others match the right home furnishings with their own personal styles.
Two and a half years ago, Alicia opened the first Room by Room Furnishings in Port Charlotte’s JC Center Court.
After starting with 3,500 square feet, she bought seven more units and ended up with a wide-open space nearly three times the store’s original size. There was a full kitchen in back, where she planned to open a coffee and wine bar for clients.
“When I got pregnant last year,” she said, “I started selling off units, to slim it back down to the original size and make it more manageable.”
She never did do the coffee and wine bar. Until now.
Building a village within a village
Alicia had always loved the old building near the corner of West Marion Avenue and Cross Street. It had housed many restaurants over the years, so it already had a bar for coffee, beer and wine. It also had a full kitchen, which is where Alicia’s sister Carissa and a dessert menu would come in.
“We’d talked about this concept for years,” said Alicia. A village within a village.
“A PG Social House, one big shopping sector. When Angela’s restaurant left in November, I told Carissa, ‘I’ve found the spot!’”
For two years Carissa Scott had been living and working in New York, most recently managing The Clam Bar at Amagansett.
But the Hamptons are the last place to be during the winter, when everything’s closed. Carissa came home in January to help with her sister’s newborn son. She wasn’t planning to stay, but the pandemic took a hand in her future.
“My sister was moving the furniture store then, we started brainstorming crazy ideas, and I ended up staying,” she said.
Their vision for a mini shopping district began to gel around the corner property with a charming porched cottage, a paved courtyard shaded by gnarled sea hibiscus trees, twinkling string lights and a historic building that had once housed one of Punta Gorda’s first “talkie” movie theaters.
“There were so many awesome elements of this property that we wanted to combine, so we brainstormed them all together, trying to think of the best way to utilize all our spaces around one conjoined courtyard,” Carissa said.
“We didn’t want to be a bar. There are already plenty of bars here, and we didn’t want to compete with them. We were really aiming for family fun. Our sisters and brother, our entire family, our friends all have kids. And there aren’t that many places in town where families can go out together at night and have fun.
“The courtyard lends itself to being a beer garden. But instead of doing a restaurant, we decided on desserts tied in with a candy store.”
Their parents, Bill and Denise Scott—entrepreneurs and once out-of-state restaurateurs themselves—were completely on board with the girls’ plan.
“Our parents have worked so hard and are super supportive,” said Alicia. “Saturday, my dad was in the back making cotton candy with the little kids. He came up with the name Room by Room Furnishings. Now we’ve created a brand with it, and we’re building even more brands.”
PG Social House, at first named for the property’s little cottage, became an umbrella title for both sisters’ businesses. Room by Room Furnishings is Alicia’s. The Candy Bar and desserts are Carissa’s. They oversee PG Social House together. And their mom helps with the books!
Their crisp tagline is “Eat. Drink. Shop.”
Eat! Drink!
Alicia renovated the main building as a beachy furniture, accessories and home goods store, filled with the quirky contents of Room by Room Furnishings.
A restaurant bar remains in the back, serving shoppers wine, beer, soda, hot-drip coffee and cold brew on tap from the brand-new Narrative Coffee Roasters of Naples. Not to mention “candy cocktails” like the Wait a Prosecco, topped with a blue fluff of house-made cotton candy.
The property’s cottage now houses a jauntily named sweet shop, The Candy Bar, where customers scoop bagfuls of treats from old-fashioned glass jars, enjoy nostalgic treats like Lucky Strikes candy cigarettes and wax lips, and pose for photos—once, somehow, a whole family of 12—under a neon-pink “Give Me Some Sugar” sign.
There’s plenty of sugar there.
“A penny candy store was really our mom’s idea,” Carissa explained. “The Social House and beer garden parts are more my forte. I lived in Tampa/St. Pete for eight years, so I got used to outdoor beer gardens and cool little shops. And there were crazy milkshakes all over New York.”
Outside, they’ve set up their own “park and rec” on the garden patio. Kids’ games include giant UNO cards and Connect 4, a hopscotch board, sidewalk chalk and cornhole, interspersed with seating for grownups to enjoy beer and wine, and water bowls for dogs.
Out of the main building’s kitchen Carissa is dishing outrageous desserts like Super Day Express cheesecake and chocolate ganache cake, Mike’s Pies from Tampa, and goodie-loaded OG shakes big enough for three to share. In the future, the girls plan to add special shakes-of-the-month. As of this writing, rumor had it that the first might involve Abbe’s Donuts.
“We want to do all we can to support local businesses,” said Alicia.
Room by Room Furnishings is now a 4,000-square-foot, boutique-style store filled with the sort of unique, affordable pieces you can’t find in any big box.
“We don’t want the same pieces of furniture all over PGI,” said Alicia. “I shop a lot, so there are always new pieces coming in. I try to be open minded when looking for things, because everyone’s taste is different.
“I staged homes for builders and Realtors in the beginning, but it was very time consuming and it took me out of the store, away from what I really love—being here, helping customers embody their style in the design of a space.”
Clients can come in, have a glass of wine and page through catalogs and swatches while their spouse has a beverage at the bar or on the courtyard with the kids.
“We wanted to be different,” said Alicia. “There are shopping experiences like this in Asheville and Atlanta, where they’re perfectly normal.”
But put a bar inside a furniture store in a small town like Punta Gorda, and people’s heads explode. At least at first.
Now people are flocking to the new place that’s become a destination for visitors from as far away as Bradenton.
“To see it all come together is, like, wow!” said Alicia, who can hardly believe their success. “I even have a full bar all week in the furniture store.”
Carissa added, “They say, ‘Build it and they will come,’ but this is even beyond what we envisioned. It’s so good to see everybody out on the patio, happy in the type of environment we wanted to create.
“It’s a big ray of positivity in a pandemic.”
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