For nearly 30 years–in Adams Morgan, in a much larger space on 14th Street, and now, since April, back in Adams Morgan—Miss Pixie’s vintage and furniture store has been a mainstay of the local shopping scene, and owner Pixie Windsor a beloved presence. These days, Windsor—who lives five doors down from the new location—walks almost daily to the shop, which sells everything from midcentury barware to quirky artwork to retro lamps, chairs, and tables, often for Washingtonians’ first apartments. Here she reflects on what it’s like to serve a clientele that has spanned decades. “The sweetest story I’ve heard from a customer was in our original Adams Morgan store: Her seven-year-old daughter liked to play ‘Miss Pixie’s’ on rainy days: She would move dishes and knickknacks, art, pillows, and household items around and do little vignettes in the kitchen and living room and sit at the counter and pretend it was her store. Her mother would choose items to be wrapped and rung up, to her daughter’s delight. I was so flattered, it brought a tear to my eye that I was inspiring a young entrepreneur—or a great actress! “She loved coming in with her mom—I guess people don’t always deal with shop owners, so she thought it was really cool that a lady had her own store. It made me feel good that I was probably one of her mother’s stops around the neighborhood. I feel like that’s as much a part of the community as you can be, where you’re someone’s weekly stop. “A lot of times, I’ll see little kids come in—and [then] I’m like, ‘Oh my God, you’re in college now.’ I remember going into shops with my mother and having that same exchange where they’re like, ‘You’re all grown up!’ “I delivered a piece of furniture to a woman one morning, and we got there and she wasn’t home and I was like, ‘I can’t believe she stood me up.’ Well, the woman was at the hospital [giving birth]. When I got in touch with her later, we had a big laugh about it. Then one day [years later], this young woman comes in and goes, ‘Hi, my mom and I used to come into your store all the time. I’m the reason she missed her sofa delivery.’ “I don’t have any kids of my own . . . but to see everybody grow up and bring their friends and come shop for college, things like that—it’s a very special part of what I do. There are a lot of college kids in town, and they bring their mom to Miss Pixie’s to see where they bought this and that. Sometimes I get calls from mothers in other states who are like, ‘I’m buying this lamp for my son—he’ll be picking it up. I saw it on Instagram.’ “I get to know families I otherwise absolutely would not get to know. That’s the really rewarding part for me.” —As told to Amy Moeller RelatedMiss Pixie’s Own Home Is Filled With Her Signature Pink This article appears in the November 2024 issue of Washingtonian.The post Miss Pixie’s Owner on Building Community Through the Decades first appeared on Washingtonian.