Shopping in Glen Allen

Keeping the business in the family for more than 50 years, the sons of Conte's Bicycle & Fitness’s founder Charles R. Conte run the collection of cycle-centric shops with attention to personal service and a constant stock of top-notch bikes and equipment. Conte's technicians specialize in Body Geometry fittings, in which they observe how skeletons work in tandem with cycling movements and demonstrate how to avoid typical discomforts. Holding true to an individualized focus, the team also understands how to fit bikes for women and provides detailed guides that help cyclists choose the right set of wheels. A full-service center, the shop also provides cardio and fitness equipment and executes services such as bike tune-ups, drivetrain overhauls, and brake adjustments that ensure riders can stop on a dime, pick it up, and buy a Chiclet without ever dismounting.

Bed sets, sofas, and barstools populate the showroom at Decor Furniture & Mattress Showplace, set up in arrangements of household rooms. In addition to carrying luxury furniture for living rooms, dining rooms, kitchens, and personal aircraft carriers, Decor Furniture & Mattress Showplace specializes in building custom pieces to accommodate room measurements and the creative visions of clients. With more than 300 fabric, color, and leather options, customers can match existing room decor or draw attention away from evidence left from hosting a weekly food-fight club.

Miniature humans are stylishly outfitted with bedding, transportation, and accessories at weebsworld, a boutique store specializing in "hip gear for cool babies." Friendly staff members offer numerous services, performing complimentary baby-gear consultations that help parents pick out baby bags, blankets, and high chairs. Technicians certified in child-passenger safety supply customers with weighted, life-size baby dolls to try out strollers and car seats, and a storewide stroller track lets them test baby chariots or train for upcoming carriage-pushing marathons. The staff will also assemble strollers purchased in-store or online free of charge, allowing parents and their pride and joy to wheel out of weebsworld in their stylish new ride.

Play It Again Sports overhauls lockers with high-quality gear and rescues gently used athletic equipment from untimely retirement. Products from brands such as Nike, Adidas, and Wilson make up an all-star lineup across each store's shelves, which are replenished daily with goods for a wide selection of sports that ranges from baseball and football to snowboarding and lacrosse. Treadmills and exercise bikes equip bodies with muscular suits of armor, and pintsize and adolescent equipment arms youngsters with protective padding until they eat enough bologna to grow muscles of their own. To ensure its stock remains robust, Play It Again Sports encourages athletes to collect their lightly used gear—including bicycles—and bring it into a local store to either sell or trade.

All visitors to Colesville Nursery scrutinize a list of plants and a map upon their arrival, as if gearing up for a scavenger hunt. The preparation makes sense, considering that guests are unleashed onto the sprawling grounds, where they walk or drive through more than 50 packed acres of plants. The vast plant selection includes azaleas, roses, ornamental grasses, and even topiaries, whereas the garden shop supplies green thumbs with gardening tools and organic fertilizers.

Once customers hone in on their ideal plants, staff members carefully help load the leafy bounty into cars without damaging blossoms or rousting sleepy garden gnomes. If the flora is too big to fit in your vehicle, the nursery happily delivers to locales within a 100-mile radius.

Recently recognized by Richmond Bride magazine for its elegant bridal section, It’s Chic Again! Upscale Consignment is owned by 25-year retail veteran Debbie Ooi, who handpicks the shop’s inventory of designer clothing, shoes, handbags, and accessories. Names such as Chanel, Michael Kors, and Jimmy Choo make frequent appearances in the spacious store, rubbing elbows and shoulder pads with labels from Coach, bebe, and Ann Taylor. Each item is typically marked at 50–60 percent off its retail price, and the staff carefully inspects and interrogates each item to make sure no knockoffs or fakes weasel their way inside.

Because style has no size limits, the inventory typically includes plus-size items as well as smaller choices starting at size 0. Local artisans keep the shop stocked with one-of-a-kind jewelry that can fit all shapes and tastes, and high-end consignment jewelry may include precious metals snuggling in the trademark turquoise bags of Tiffany & Co. or antique mood rings that change from black to white.