Tom Thompson and Ricardo Quirarte are hosting a giant sale with discounts between 20 and 75 percent on all of their inventory to mark the 30th anniversary of their Ajijic consignment business, Barbara’s Bazaar.
In addition, customers receive a raffle ticket for each 1,000 pesos spent at the store. Those tickets go into drawings that award daily winners 2,000 pesos in store gift certificates.
While Barbara’s Bazaar has been an Ajijic institution for 30 years, namesake Barbara Weston has been living the Florida style of retirement for nearly 20 years. A pioneer Ajijic resident and entrepreneur, Weston conceived and opened Barbara’s Bazaar in 1985. Not only did she have the area’s only consignment store, she had a corner on common north-of-the-border household goods that were unavailable at lakeside in those days. Many of the items were expensive and hard to find, even in Guadalajara where Plaza del Sol was about the only mall and there were no big-box stores.
Weston did a booming business selling used toasters, cassette tape players, mattress covers and the furniture of deceased residents or those who were moving from the area.
Collectors of Mexican folklore in those days loved Barbara’s. She stocked antique and new pottery, textiles, paintings, clay sculptures and other hand-made items. However, she didn’t like any of it, so the price tags looked like they were from the bargain basement.
By 1993 Weston was newly widowed and ready to move to Florida. New on the Ajijic scene were Tom Thompson and his two-year-old daughter Miki. They’d just moved inland from the Jalisco coastal village of Yelapa. In a former life Thompson owned a San Diego antiques and art deco store, The Prop Shop. That experience made him perfectly suited to be the “new Barbara.”
Although Thompson turned out to be the right choice, for a while it looked as if the first-in-line buyers, Judy King and her late husband Phil Larson, would take over the business. “I’m so thankful that immigration was being difficult and sitting on our work permit applications,” King says. “They refused to allow us to operate a retail store. That was a blessing in disguise.”
Adds Thompson: “Because I was the father of a Mexican child, I had extra benefits under the law, even with immigration. Weston and I signed the sales contract on September 15, 1993.”
At that time Barbara’s was approximately one-quarter the size of the current store, and the additional warehouse and storage areas didn’t exist. Weston hired just one employee, a woman who cleaned the little shop. Today, Thompson and his business partner and husband Quirarte have 13 employees.
In addition to the large volume of local sales, much of Barbara’s business is done via eBay and 1st Dibs, another online company that operates with a focus on high-end merchandise. Thompson and Quirarte frequently visit the United States and Canada to attend special estate sales and deliver special merchandise. It was on a 2006 trip north that the couple took advantage of early-bird same-sex marriage laws and got married in Vancouver.
The store will be open every day until the sale ends at the close of business on Tuesday, September 15. The hours are Monday to Friday, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. and 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. The store is on Saturday from 10 a.m. until 4 p.m. and Sunday from 11 a.m. until 3 p.m. Call (376) 766-3636 or email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. for more information.