The Black Cat Shoppe — Local services in Wilmington

We came to Wilmington from Wisconsin for a nephew's graduation from UNCW and a ghost tour was on the weekend plans. A large group of us did the ghost tour, Kent was our guide. He was awesome! At the end of our tour he told us about the black cat shop and said if we were sight seeing we should stop in the shop and he mentioned there was a coupon on the flyer he handed us if we went there. The following day, which was a Friday, even though it was raining out we walked around downtown Wilmington. I spotted the shop and said we should check it out. At this point I had completely forgotten about the coupon. I picked out a few cute things for the grandkids for stocking stuffers. As she was ringing me up I remembered about the coupon and I asked her about it stating I don't remember the details of the coupon but that we had done the ghost tour the night before. She said the coupon was $5 off $25. I said oh cool, what is my total, she said $24.57. I said oh ok, well let me get something else. The woman said to me well do you have any proof that you did the ghost tour. I said no, I didn't have the actual flyer we got but I could tell her a story that he told us about a dog and a ship captain. The clerk said no, that won't work, I need some kind of proof that you actually did the tour like a receipt or something. I said yeah sorry i don't have any proof and my sister in law who lives in Charlotte had left with the others to sign us up for a tour of a historical home so I couldn't even ask her if she had anything in her purse. I told her that all of the arrangements were made prior to us coming into town. Finally I said, you know what I'll just pay for what I got and i left. However, the more i thought about it I started to think about what bad customer service that was for tourists and decided to leave a review. The shop had some cute things but there was a part of me that was annoyed and wanted to tell her i decided i didn't want to buy anything and walk away. For $5 I think that was bad...

The Black Cat is absolutely delightful. The first time I went, was when my elementary aged son found a brochure for the Wilmington ghost walk, and asked if we could go. I love history and almost anything spooky, so I was super excited that my child wanted to go on a ghost walk. We went to The Black Cat for tickets, and probably spent an hour looking around at all of the funny, unique, and unusual items in the shop. Since then, both The Black Cat and the ghost walk are regular parts of our biennial trip to Wilmington.

It's more than just fun trinkets, though. Last summer, my daughter bought a necklace there that she adored, and a couple of weeks ago, I got a sad text from her that the pendant had fallen off at school, and despite retracing her steps twice, she couldn't find it. I looked online, but the necklace wasn't on the website. I called the shop and described it to the clerk that answered the phone, explaining how it had been lost and that I was hoping to order a replacement. He stayed on the phone with me while he looked, and then texted a photo of an identical necklace. He said he would put it aside and gave me the contact information for the store owner to arrange payment. It arrived days later, carefully wrapped in tissue paper inside the mailer marked "handle with care". It was an inexpensive item, but they handled it as though it was as precious as a cherished souvenir is to a teenager. This shop gives the kind of personal touch and level of customer service that family owned businesses offered when I was small, and that I very much miss dealing with today's impersonal chain and web based retailers.

Thank you for so many...

Really grateful for John and his staff. We treat our Student Apartment Community to a Ghost Walk twice a year during October but 2020 did it's dark magic and I felt haunted by how we could coordinate the event this year. With the help of the Black Cat Shoppe, we were able to have a safe and exciting experience. We've been on many tours now with many guides and never have we left feeling disappointed. David Heck was our most recent guide and he was FANTASTIC. I felt like I was witnessing the 100 year old crimes with my own eyes in some locations because his theatrics and involvement was so keen. His tales were engaging and interesting, I heard new details about classics and plenty of stories I haven't heard before. The banter between locations was worth the tickets alone. Suspicious lights flickering, visits from local wildlife, and shadows of the night made our most recent tour our most memorable, David truly has a connection to the spirit world.

Wearing masks was no big deal, there were lots of places to stop and catch our breath and going on a weekday provided the safest experience I've had, there were almost no cars on the road or loud groups of people to avoid.

Thank you for the incredible experience, David, John, and everyone else at the BCS. We will continue to recommend a Ghost Walk to all the visiting relatives of...