Despite the early morning chill, a small group gathered outside on Lake Street Thursday morning to watch a new business get inducted into Niles.

A ribbon cutting ceremony was hosted at 9 a.m. Thursday to welcome the recently opened Lake Street Market, 1549 Lake St., into the Niles business community.

“We are very, very excited about this,” said Roni Albert, co-owner of the Lake Street Market, of the ribbon cutting event. “We are glad to be welcomed into Niles.”

Albert and her business partner, Marty Barabas, opened Lake Street Market in late September. The store sells consignment antiques, which Albert calls “resale upscale.”

The market also sells space to different local craftsmen to sell their handmade products, ranging from soaps to crocheted shawls to bird houses. The store currently has 10 vendors using the space, with space for five more.

An estate sale representative, Albert got the idea to start the market through her current line of work.

“I have a lot of estate sale clients that have really nice items that they don’t want to just give to Goodwill, so we were storing them,” she said. “So, I got this idea to get this space to have people bring those things in.”

At one point, Albert had a similar store in Berrien Center, but her building was closed. Having been looking for a replacement store ever since, Albert said she was grateful to have found the space on Lake Street and to have brought on Barabas as her partner.

“You know, this is a really great space,” Albert said. “We’re off the beaten trail, because everyone and every store is downtown. It’s nice to offer something to the community outside of downtown.”

Customers have been steadily trickling in since the September opening, telling Albert that they are glad to have a store to shop in that is closer to the Lake Street neighborhood and outside of downtown, she said.

With the ribbon cutting ceremony and the new grand opening sign that came with it, Albert hopes that her clientele will continue to grow.

“We really hope this will grow and we are excited to see where it will go,” Albert said. “We have some big plans for this space.”

Some of those big plans include hosting an indoor farm market, having a small coffee/snack shop in the store and hosting estate sales in the building.

“We really haven’t gotten very far [with future plans for the store]. We are still in phase one right now, but there is a phase two coming,” Albert said. “This building is really great. I’ve got a real opportunity to grow here.”

“We offer a warm and friendly atmosphere. We believe we are offering a unique service in Niles,” Albert said. “We’ve gotten a warm welcome from Niles, and we really appreciate that. I hope people will become as excited about [Lake Street Market] as we are.”