“These are really cool also; they glow in the black light. But most people don’t have black lights anymore,” said Paul Wade, owner of Daystar Boutique in Lakewood, as he leaned his face over a wood and glass display case and talked about rocks.
“Do you have any stones that are, like, healing?” a woman asked while a man stood beside her speaking through a medical device.
Wade looked up the top ten healing crystals for the pair.
The woman and her companion leave the store after buying a canvas cap made by local brand Legend, one of Daystar’s recent collaborations.
After they left, Wade moved to his regular stool behind the counter in front of a newspaper clipping of Jerry Garcia and tried to explain how Daystar made it to this point, celebrating 50 years in business.
“I have no idea, a lot of luck,” Wade said. Then the people kept coming in.
Lakewood origins
Back in 1993, Wade worked at the Wilderness Shop on Lakewood’s west end, when North Face was all the rage. He dropped by Daystar Boutique, the record store turned head shop to visit a friend one day and the owner Greg Ilkiw asked if Wade could get him one of those jackets.
“So I did, at my cost,” Wade said.
Ilkiw soon offered Wade a job at Daystar. By that time, Daystar had two locations, in Lakewood and Cleveland. Eventually, Ilkiw suggested Wade buy them both.
“I was working here with him one day, and all the sudden he looked and he goes, ‘Man, you should buy the Cleveland store.’ I was like ‘OK…’ And then he was like, ‘Alright put some numbers together.’ And I was like ‘OK’, so I put some numbers together, gave them to him, like a few days later, and then he came back and he goes, ‘OK!”
“And it was that easy,” he said.
Wade, now in his mid 50’s, has surfer blue eyes, wears a Darth Vader shirt, hiking shorts, and a technicolored flannel cap. He presents as a humble Lebowski-like philosopher, historian and caretaker of this little stretch of Detroit Road.
He is unsure of the whereabouts of Daystar’s original owner prior to Ilkiw, a man he only knows as Alex. Wade knows that some of the initial inventory for the store came from Diane’s Closet, a former head shop, on Lorain Avenue in Cleveland.
Head shops, which surfaced during the 1960s, are known to sell cannabis paraphernalia and hippie-themed merchandise. They once served as hubs for new music, zines and countercultural idea exchange.
“We would still be considered a head shop, lifestyle shop,” Wade said, over the music that never stops inside of what he calls “the cave.”
“We used to sell a lot of records,” Wade said. He pointed to a display case that once held albums and now houses incense boxes, and small gifts and tchotchkes.
“I would almost say that the thing we’ve always been most noted for though, would be incense.” he said.
Supporting artisans
Many early suppliers for Daystar were local artisans. Some got their start while on tour with the band Grateful Dead, whose legacy hangs heavy over Daystar.
“That’s been there forever,” Wade said, referring back to the Garcia clipping which shows the musician holding a makeshift cardboard sign like a ticket scalper at a concert. “When you need a Grateful Dead CD the only place to call is DAYSTAR” the sign reads.
“Almost everybody here got to see Jerry while he was alive,” Wade said. Many of the first customers came to the store solely to buy Grateful Dead shirts. Wade credits the Deadhead community for partially influencing the store’s ethos.
“The sad part is a lot of the people I went with [to the concerts] are no longer with us,” he said.
Wade has four grandchildren now, and remembers a time when neighborhood kids came to Daystar to design their own necklaces.
“We’d have these big bins of beads,” he said.
“You’d get so many kids coming in, and they would dominate your time for a good 30,40 minutes picking out which bead they wanted, have a whole necklace put together – and then look at you and go ‘Oh I don’t have any money I just wanted to put a necklace together,” Wade said laughing.
He recently gave the old beads to his granddaughter. “She said ‘What am I going to do with these?’ I said ‘You’re nine, find something to do with them,” Wade said smiling.
Daystar was always family-friendly – with guardrails. The feng shui is perhaps curated with intent: jewelry, candles, bumper stickers, patches and incense in the front.
Next, the counter, where Wade greets customers from his stool behind the register. Then, the stone collection. He affirms that he preferred minors stop at the stones. He recalls teenagers lingering further toward the back, and pretending to smell the incense.
“They were assuming they were slick,” he joked.
Finally, there is the display case for small cannabis pipes, and shelves with water pipes along the back wall. Age-restriction warnings abound. A Daystar Boutique tapestry hangs over a rear door. And to the right – is that the infamous back room?
“Take a look at the *** back room. There you go,” Wade said, laughing, when this reporter pried about rumors of a covert party room.
The back room is … a microwave and portable phone. Bulk plastic silverware. A utility sink, Windex, a few shelves of backstock glass pipes. The fridge has a $100 bill taped to the door, an old bumper sticker collage including “WE CARD”, and “107.3 FM Cleveland.” Next to that, a clipping of Michelangelo’s “Creation of Adam”- just the scene where God’s finger nearly touches man’s. A damp yellow light, a wooden stool.
“I guess you gotta be doing something right if there’s an urban legend about you,” Wade said about the room.
“The Daystar smell” and legalization
In 2023, Ohio law changed to allow for the legalization of marijuana for recreational use for adults over the age of 21. However, the recent legal relaxation has made a negligible impact on Daystar’s business. “How many people didn’t smoke weed because it was illegal?” Wade asked.
If anything, Daystar saw a small uptick in smoking accessory sales from the retirement community who he believes felt safer purchasing cannabis legally. “A lot of those guys are like ‘Oh I just want a pack of papers.’ And I’m like- “You haven’t rolled a joint in how many years?” Wade said, smiling.
Turn the corner of Bonnieview, you smell it, but what is that “Daystar smell”? It’s not cannabis.
“Just all the incense stuck in here for so many years,” Wade said.
During the recent move of the Cleveland location, regulars worried if the smell would be the same. “It’s only been five months and people are walking in going ‘Wow man, it’s really starting to smell like it again’.”
The energy of Lakewood, Daystar
An adult group from the Lakewood YMCA crossed the intersection together. Regulars, they wandered inside Daystar, browsing the candles, figurines and touching a hunk of crystal. “Did you guys have good Easters?” Wade said, and addressed them by their first names. “Is that a dollar?” one woman asked, pointing at bracelets. “Yep, one dollar.” Wade said.
Outside, a man wearing plaid flannel pants used a long squeegee to wash the front windows.
His name is William and he has cleaned the windows at Daystar for 21 years, along with other Lakewood retail staples.
“Here, the antique store right here, Geiger’s down there,” William said, pointing out all the places he works at.
He said that his dad was classmates with local T-shirt icon Daffy Dan, and he thinks that small stores in Lakewood like Daystar survive because “They would treat people like gold.” William finished his windows, and then hung around inside.
More than a smoke shop
A March 27th article by Cleveland.com investigated the city of Cleveland’s recent efforts to thwart the proliferation of the modern iteration of smoke shops – the ones that focus primarily on selling CBD, THC, and Delta 8 products.
But Daystar offers more than smoke. Many call it a hive for locally-sourced products, a place where community is fostered, and all are welcome to shop or hang out, share a story, perhaps work for a steady wage, or just be heard.
Payton Mackie lives in the apartment above Daystar. She is also the owner of Get Yourself Together Hair Salon, located on Bonnieview, beside longtime florist Vase To Vase. She stands outside and gestures towards her friend’s bleached dreadlocks, mentioning that she put them in.
Payton first came into Daystar in 8th grade. She credits her mother, who recently passed away, for first taking her to the store. “My mom brought me in here. She always had a pull toward spiritual energy,” Payton said.
Lakewood, she affirmed, is an incubator for small retail.
“Because it’s an accepting place – you can be anyone here, and people come here [Lakewood] because they want to be accepted,” Payton said.
She said that Wade has been a great neighbor and she now hopes to replicate the spirit and success of Daystar.
On the washed storefront windows, white decals spell out what literally can be found inside of Daystar: “Candles, incense, T-shirts, body jewelry, nick-knacks, stones, pipes”
Some stones are sold for as little as $2: bumble bee jasper, opalized fluorite.
There are windchimes, Tibetan prayer flags.
Love beads tower on bracelet racks.
Payton and her friends gravitated towards body jewelry. Then she’s off, around the corner, to give a tour of her shop.
Inside of the salon: a small aquarium of nearly 20 fish, all varied sizes and vibrancy of color. She recites the names of each of the little fish- “Zachary, Habibi, Picasso.”
A half century and beyond
Back at Daystar, Wade pays William for his services.
A block away, two women in black athleisure tidy up the river rock near a pathway in front of the former St. James Rectory – the new home to Sacred Hour spa. The city keeps changing. Daystar opened its doors in 1976, when the adjacent Catholic school campus still existed, before its 2005 closure.
Paul remembers the early 90’s, playing hacky sack while St. James students walked down this strip of retail into stores like the old Hobby Shop and Create-a-Cake.
“Her red velvet cake with chocolate ganache was the greatest thing in the world,” he said. “And at times when it was slow, we’d sit out front and just play. I don’t even think my knees bend that way now,” he said, laughing.
Lakewood now has a multitude of smoke shops, including a vape store in that former pastry shop.
Despite the challenges and competition of brick-and-mortar retail, Wade remains invigorated by his loyal employees and the ability to feature new products made by local artisans and small-batch entrepreneurs.
He’s trying Grubhub for deliveries, working with Akron-based brand Frthr, and West Side Dyes – tees made by a Cleveland school teacher.
He credits younger customers for embracing the artisanal side of the business, purchasing items such as rings and body jewelry. Their support has helped Daystar to continue to exist as a nexus between generations in Lakewood. “That kind of stuff is what keeps us going,” Wade said.
One of a kind
Wade drifts back toward the rocks. “He [Ilkiw] taught me a lot about it,” Wade said, referring to his appreciation of stones. After a quiet moment Wade peers again over the fragrance oil and into the stone case, and points to one.
“Moldavite” he says, recalling the origin story. “The way it’s formed,”
“A meteorite has to hit sand. When it hits the sand, it turns the sand almost into a glass. That sand, is then moldavite-”
“So, think about how rare it is, to find a piece of moldavite”
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