YOWIE: A Design Destination Brand in Philadelphia’s South Street Community

One look at Shannon Maldonado and it makes sense that she worked in the fashion industry. She is a natural beauty wearing no makeup, a cool casual outfit, and a sunshine smile.

She was a designer for brands like American Eagle and Ralph Lauren before taking her creativity in a different direction. That’s when she decided to start YOWIE as an online boutique gift shop.  It eventually became a brick-and-mortar in Philadelphia’s Fabric Row, just three blocks west of its current location.

“I was traveling a lot for work and kept acquiring things during my trips, so it was like an idea of creating a souvenir shop – but a souvenir shop through the lens of artists and makers,” explains the FIT grad.

How did she come up with the unique name?

“It’s Australian for bigfoot, but I’m not Australian,” she laughs. “It’s just a name I thought was fun and has an upbeat inflection when most people say it.” The shop opened in 2017, selling home goods, art books, and small artworks. It was like a modern gift shop or museum shop.

Maldonado curated the items and designed the space in such an eye-catching, colorful way that it became a popular stop for locals and tourists. YOWIE was named “Coolest Shop in Philadelphia” by Bon Appetit magazine.

“I had always wanted to expand the brand and have some adjacency to a hotel,” says Maldonado. “I thought I might be hired by a larger hotel brand, like the Ace or the Standard, to help them curate their gift shops.”

But little did she know that the hotel would be her own.

Developing the YOWIE Brand

Maldonado’s creative design skills made her a sought-after design consultant for various nonprofit and for-profit companies like the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Nordstrom and the Deacon Hospitality Group , who she’s worked with for years.

This included designing The Deacon hotel from Philadelphia’s historic First African Baptist Church and the Dye House hotel in Providence, Rhode Island. So it was a no-brainer for them to partner in expanding the YOWIE brand to add a hotel and cafe.

Maldonado is the founder, owner and creative director of the YOWIE brand & shop and co-owner of the hotel and cafe. “My partners are Everette Abitbol, his wife Valerie Abitbol and Bill Vessal,” notes Maldonado.

“I jokingly tell people we’re like a Power Rangers group,” she laughs. “I’m the creative, Everett’s the finance person, Val is operations and Billy is construction, so we each bring a very different approach to the table.”

The design consultant says her fashion career prepared her for this. “Much of what I learned over the years in the fashion industry is logistics and working with others to get the product that you’re dreaming of to the store. Now we’re doing the same thing, but we work with artists and brands to curate and collaborate on things. It’s a lot of logistics, just as much as it is creative work,” she admits.

It took Maldonado and her partners a year to find the perfect spot for the hotel, shop and cafe. They lucked up with two buildings that they were able to turn into one on the relatively quiet Queen Village end of Philadelphia’s famous South Street.

“When we saw this building and the location, also just the architecture with all the bay windows, we felt like it was the perfect space for us – even if it’s on a kind of sleepy block of South Street, we knew there was a lot of potential here,” Maldonado exclaims.

In fact, in August 2023, Maldonado and her team brought the sleepy block alive during YOWIE’S grand opening festivities.

“When we did our grand opening, we closed down the block in front of our space and did a block party,” she shares. “We had a DJs, drinks, a bouncy castle for families, and the cafe was open later hours. It was an open house with hotel tours and we had a really great response, with roughly 400 people,” Maldonado shares.

A Design Destination

The historic look of the exterior architecture with its gorgeous bay windows looking out onto South and 3rd Streets belies the modernly clean and colorful design once you step inside the YOWIE gift shop and WIM Cafe on the first floor and in each of the 13 unique suites on the upper floors.

Maldonado designed each room to have its own unique personality, from the colors to the artwork, the furniture, the mini kitchen and even the bathroom tiles.

“I think of my design for the hotel rooms as a warm minimal design sensibility,” she describes. “Each room is a unique experience and every time you come back, you’ll see something different.”

She continues, “We sourced for the room decor the way we sourced for the shop. We’d get submissions, we go to art shows, we have artists we’ve been working with for years that we’ve invited to come into the [hotel space].”

The boutique hotel has “invisible service,” meaning no front desk, concierge, or on-site staff.

“So when you get your reservation, you get an email and a texted code to get into the building and into your room, kind of similar to Airbnb,” Maldonado explains. “But we have three people who are a phone call or text away any time you need to reach us or get anything in your room.”

The Did You Forget Something drawer is a cool complement at the end of the hallway that is stocked with items guests may need or have forgotten to pack, such as aspirin, toothpaste, toothbrushes, coffee, tea bags, ear plugs and cell phone chargers.

During a typical stay, you could have a good night’s sleep in your suite, have your coffee or tea sitting at a bay window looking out at the action on South Street, then prepare brunch in your mini kitchen, or go downstairs to WIM Cafe and have an egg sandwich or house-made pastry. “WIM was based on the idea of dropping by on a whim, but I wanted to spell it like the German name for William,” Molanado discloses.

Then start your shopping next door at the YOWIE gift shop for a look at books, ceramic art, clothing, shoes, candles, coffee mugs, towels, sunglasses and more. If you like anything in your room, you can buy it or order it at the shop.  Just flip through the YOWIE Guest Book and Catalog in your suite.  By the way, there’s a gorgeous fashion-esque photo of Maldonado in the catalog.

“If it’s something small like a mug or a book, most of that stuff is downstairs in the shop and you can buy it and take it with you once you checkout,” Maldonado notes. “But if it’s something larger like a sofa or a piece of artwork, we can either connect you to the artist or we can order it for you through our shop.”

Later, you can continue strolling down South Street for more shopping and restaurants. In fact, Maldonado curated her favorite places to eat, drink and shop in her YOWIE Guide to the City.  For example, getting a famous cheesesteak at Ishkabibble’s is just a three-minute walk from YOWIE.

Maldonado calls YOWIE a “design destination.” “We’re one of the only places in Philly that carries a lot of brands that are based in New York or LA, so it is a destination,” she states.

“We’re also one of the few modern-leaning brands in Philadelphia, as far as how much we use color and the assortment of objects. So over the years, we’ve become like a destination for design, objects and artwork.”

Community Engagement

YOWIE is also a community destination. “We’re very happy to be in an actual neighborhood of Philadelphia versus Center City or the downtown area, which are more commercial,” Maldonado emphasizes.

She continues, “The biggest compliment is that people in the neighborhood are glad to see us here because this building had been empty for a while. They like coming to sit and have a coffee, or have a meeting or meet with a friend.”

Maldonado has loved South Street since her teen years of hanging out on the popular thoroughfare. Further committing to the community, she’s joined the South Street Headhouse District board .

“It’s something that I thought about for a while, and then the timing kind of felt right as a new stakeholder in the neighborhood,” she explains. “It’s definitely challenging. I would say the neighborhood is very eclectic in terms of what people’s hopes and dreams are for South Street…But it’s giving me a better understanding of how a neighborhood functions and what’s working and what we hope to do better.”

Named one of The 150 Most Influential Philadelphians by Philadelphia Magazine for the third year in a row, Maldonado is working on making YOWIE a community anchor.

“We recently did an event with New Balance and a magazine called Hypebeast where we did a one-day activation with three different parts,” she notes. “So the morning part was a crochet workshop with a nonprofit group of young people, [the afternoon] we had a zine-making workshop where people could come in and make their own miniature magazine…and in the evening we had a celebration and selected the D.J., the caterer, and had an activation app where people were live printing tote bags for all guests.”

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In the future, she plans to host more events like their Happy Spring Happy Hour with wine, snacks and discounts at the shop, along with their upcoming Paint a Mug workshop, as well as special dinners.

“Now other brands are coming to us to ask us to do the same for them. Retail is a very fickle business, so we have to find diverse ways to diversify our revenue and that’s one of them that’s been really great for us,” Maldonado admits.

She adds that she’s looking forward to YOWIE becoming THE community hub on South Street. “We wouldn’t have done this YOWIE project here if we didn’t believe in this neighborhood,” she says passionately. “We believe that South Street is one of the most special blocks in the city.”

For more information on YOWIE hotel & shop and WIM cafe, visit the website , Facebook and Instagram pages.

This story originally appeared in Cuisine Noir Magazine