Delaware’s new Pat Catan’s arts and crafts store cut the ribbon on its first store in the Greater Columbus area Thursday morning in a ceremony with local officials.
“Our grand opening was very successful and I think we’re going to do well here,” store manager Jerry McKnight said. “I cannot express enough how excited we are to be here.”
Today, the store will have face-painting, two prize wheels from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., a fire truck from noon to 2 p.m., and some demonstrations.
“Everyone has been really excited about the prize wheel,” McKnight said. “We’ve had a ton of people get involved with that.”
Make-and-takes will also be featured this weekend free of charge. It’s a feature that the store does throughout the year, usually on Saturdays, according to McKnight.
“We do a little craft project for the kids,” McKnight said. “They come to the table and we have staff on hand that will walk them through it. Sometimes we’ll tie-dye shirts.”
The store will offer craft classes – such as art, cake decorating, calligraphy or other creative crafts.
“We haven’t set any classes up yet, but we are in the process of putting some stuff together in the future,” McKnight said. “It’s a good opportunity for us to see what the customer wants to do so that we can form classes around what they’re interested in, so that’s a really good thing.”
The craft store has 31 locations spread across Ohio, West Virginia, Pennsylvania and Michigan. The first store was opened in Cleveland in 1954.
“We really like to have that family-type atmosphere – that community-type atmosphere,” McKnight said. “We’re a family business – we’re family owned and operated for over 60 years. So that is very important to us – those values is what drives our business.”
McKnight said that store openings in Washington Court House, Portsmouth and Norwalk are in the pipeline, among others.
Most of the stores are located in northeast Ohio.
For more information, visit www.patcatans.com or call the store at 740-362-8119.
