Shopping in Coral Gables

Praised by the Miami New Times as 2010's Best One-Stop Art Depot, Jerry's Artarama is a sprawling 20,000-square-foot artists' oasis with a bounteous inventory of creative supplies. Aisles teem with the store's own proprietary product lines such as SoHo and Creative Mark, alongside imported products from around the world acquired through Jerry's relationships with international manufacturers. The store also stocks specialty and hard-to-find items that are rarely carried by large chain stores, such as specialty brushes for portraitists and extra-wide forks for professional mashed-potato sculptors.

The siren call of allCanes' massive collection of Miami Hurricanes clothing, memorabilia, and accessories entices not only fans to wander its spaces, but also pro athletes of the past and present. Since converting from a sporting goods store to a Hurricanes-only shop in the mid 80's, football greats have brought family and friends to outfit them in green and orange. NFL players, such as Willis McGahee and Ken Dorsey, walked between racks of gear where greats including Warren Sapp, Ray Lewis, and Jessie Armstead once signed autographs.

While big name players may draw crowds, it's allCanes' stock that wins the day. From the front door to the back wall, every inch of wall, shelf, and rack space teems with Hurricanes apparel from brands such as Nike and My U. Hurricanes baseball caps line racks set in between panoramic shots of the stadium and beanies, while racks hold popular fan t-shirts, such as "The U Invented Swagger." In all, around 1,000 UM-related items call the shop home during football season.

At each Big Frog Custom T-Shirts & More location across the United States, professional graphic artists print high-quality, custom designs onto a variety of products including men's and women's T-shirts and sweatshirts, toddlers' onesies, and clothing for canines. Rather than ironing or screenprinting its tees, the team uses a process called direct-to-garment printing, dying images directly into fabric to ensure that the garments won't crack, fade, peel, or develop a sense of self. The staff also eschews harsh chemicals in favor of environmentally friendly ones, such as water-based ink.

The artists price their products at a consistent rate, don't charge setup fees, and won't increase their costs, even if the desired artwork is highly complex, demands hourly compliments, or requires multiple colors. They'll happily print either a customer-created design or one of their own onto one or 300 T-shirts at once, and they turn around most in-stock items in 24 hours.

The friendly sleep specialists at Brickell Mattress help to match slumberers to the mattresses that best meet their individual needs. On arrival at the store, customers can relax in the coffee lounge and read up on all the latest celebrity-mattress news, compliments of the store's free WiFi. Brickell’s knowledgeable, bilingual staff—all of whom have five or more years of mattress-matching experience—then whisk patrons about the showroom, showing off the extensive selection of memory-foam, latex-foam, water, and air mattresses. Additionally, customers enjoy a 30-day comfort guarantee that ensures if a mattress is not satisfactory, it can be exchanged for different model with no questions asked.

The experts at Ocala Art and Frame believe in the beauty of choice. They invite their customers to choose from more than 1,000 frame styles and dozens of mat textures and colors. Browsers can ask the staff’s board-certified framer to help determine if a needlework masterpiece should be outfitted with a mahogany, oak, or pine outline or if a watercolor should be safely ensconced behind UV-protective glass or a clear Jello mold. Those looking to purchase pieces to decorate their walls can peruse the gallery of more than 10,000 prints, lithographs, and posters, as well as original sculptures. The selection of artwork focuses on equine subjects because of Ocala's designation as the Horse Capital of the World.

The archival specialists at Willow Glen Art & Frame have occupied the same Lincoln Avenue storefront for more than 35 years, and their dedication to the craft remains evident in the way they eschew standard gallery framing techniques in favor of fully customized picture frames. Knowing that each unhung canvas that enters their store is someone’s precious heirloom or priceless work of art, the framers take care to consult with customers before suggesting wood, metal, or acrylic styles to best complement the object. Every one-of-a-kind frame comes into being with the assistance of computer-guided mat-cutting technology and glass that protects against harsh UV waves, ensuring that still-life paintings of grapes do not dry into raisins over the years.