We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Amber Jobe a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Amber , appreciate you joining us today. What’s the backstory behind how you came up with the idea for your business?

My journey in this line of entrepreneurship, began when I was a fresh adult. My aunt by love, called me up and said she had some things she wanted to gift me. When I went to pick them up, they were all of her treasured antiques. She was moving across the country and could not take them with her. The instant amount of responsibility of stewardship for these treasures was palpable! In 2015, after a few years of dragon hoarding some of the trinkets and treasure I had amassed along the way, I started vending my wares at the Beaverton Flea Market. Soon after, I was accepted as an in house vendor for Curiosities Vintage Mall, in Beaverton, Oregon. Selling and curating the space in the antique mall became a passion, and a side hustle. I was still employed in the hospitality industry full time.
When our world changed in 2020, and most of all the hospitality industry was told to stay home, I found myself with no source of income aside from my space inside the vendor mall. It was a leap of faith, a nudge from the universe, and a large amount of antique furniture I had been holding on to, that gave me the courage to start my journey as a business owner.
I had crowd funded some cash through friends and family. I borrowed a small sum, and signed a lease for a small 600 square foot retail location. It was on a very popular SE Portland strip, didn’t have a bathroom, but had all the charm.
I designed an immersive space that made you think you were in a Victorian Haunted Manor full of curiosities collected from around the globe, yet still just a touch spooky. Selling the odd and the macabre was my specialty after all.
I had some success, but found that amidst aa the oddities, we had a lot of individuals come and look around for long periods of time, and then leave. Which really wasn’t paying the bills!
When the lease for that space was up, I took out a loan, enlisted the help of my Partner, Daniel Bepristis, and we together as a team found the perfect location in Downtown. The vision was to enhance the visitor and local experience in Portland. We saw our city struggle with tourism. We decided to expand the shop into a curated museum style experience that showcased Odd historical artifacts and local macabre art.
After months of building walls, painting, and finding the right items, we opened the Skeleton Key Odditorium in the heart of our city.

Amber , before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

When I went to college, I got my degree in English Literature. I have always been incredibly passionate about Shakespearean plays, Victorian Horror stories, and Edwardian novels. When I started collecting antiques it was to enhance my reality with artifacts that were period to the stories I was fascinated with. I frequently LARPed (Live Action Role Play), and full immersion events were my favorite. When we opened the Odditorium, it was incredibly important for me to create a space that was decorated to immerse you into a different time! We provide a self guided museum style experience that aims to be immersive, and educational. Showcasing oddities, why they are considered odd, and artist pieces that tell stories. Alongside the original shop concept, the museum fills a void of weird things to do in a city whose mantra is “Keep Portland Weird”. We are most proud of the courage it took to uproot our business in SE Portland, move to Downtown when downtown was getting a bad reputation, and push forward every day to create a space that all Portlanders and visitors can enjoy. We are focused on not only our own success, but the success of the city that we love.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

Being a small business owner in uncertain times has been scary. The most challenging of times has been in dealing with crime. After the pandemic and in the middle of a recession, with rising houselessness in many cities, crime too has been rising. Targets have been small businesses. Criminals smash and grab what they can, people steal, and vandalism happens daily in our city. There was one particular early morning where I was called by my alarm company. Someone was actively in the shop and triggered the alarm. I checked the camera, and to my horror, saw two men grabbing what they could. I called the police, who got there before I did, When I arrived, they had drilled out our lock, stolen our register, our point of sale machine, and a display case full of antique keys. We have since then has endured shoplifting of local art, museum pieces stolen, vandalism on our windows, and unsafe individuals threating harm inside our establishment. Morale can get really low, because the struggles of our world weigh heavy on everyone. We keep pushing forward, and do our part everyday to help make our community safer, and show up for our city.

How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?

Our museum less than a year old, but the business has been in operation at a brick and mortar since 2020. We have an Instagram account with 6k followers, and our reputation is that we have a great selection of odd antiques to buy, talented local artists that sell with us, and that we are knowledgeable on the things we carry. We foster this reputation with social media! When an item comes in the shop or goes into the museum, we do a lot of research. We try to uncover as much information as possible so that we can pass that information on to our customers! Antiques and oddities have stories, and these stories are what create the intrigue. When guests come in person, engaging them about the items in the shop and museum is also impactful to the reputation that we are knowledgeable.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.skeletonkeyodditorium.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theskeletonkeyodditorium/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheSkeletonKeyOdditorium

Image Credits
Amber Jobe