LAKELAND, Fla. — Inside the Lakeland Antique Mall, you never know what you might find. Finding those hidden treasures makes it fun.
That was the draw for long-time antique hunter and manager Phil Evans.
“We literally get thousands of new items every single week so you never know what you’ll find when you come into the store,” he said.
Evans loved antiquing when he was a kid, and his parents took him to antique stores and estate sales.
“We’d go on family vacations and I’d beg them to stop at different antique stores when we saw them, and I’d force them to take me and I was really the one making them take me to places like this,” he said.
The store is over 44,000 square-feet and inside they boast around 175 unique vendors who deal in different antiques and collectibles.
“We’ve had different kinds of Disney rides come in here and furniture that ends up being hundreds of years old, so you really never know what’s going to come through those doors. It’s a surprise every day,” Evans said.
The Lakeland Antique Mall is open seven days a week from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.