New shop Rocks & More allows longtime Steamboat business to expand – Steamboat Pilot & Today

Longtime business owner Bashar Najdawi will expand The Jewelry and Fossil Shop of Steamboat by offering a second location at 601 Lincoln Ave. downtown that will be filled with rare fossils, jewelry and art.

“We’re overstocked over there, and we just cannot expand,” Najdawi said of The Jewelry and Fossil Shop of Steamboat, which was established in Steamboat 25 years ago. “We get a lot of tourists and this (The Jewelry and Fossil Shop) store, and it is like a landmark for everyone. We have a lot of people that come from Denver just to come to see this store.”

But with no room to expand his store at 745 Lincoln Ave, Najdawi has decided to open Steamboat Rocks & More in the Alpen Glow building

“Here, we will have a little bit more of a display for our customers,” Najdawi said. “The layout here may be a little bit nice because the aisles are a little wider.”

Ozzy Yigit Topuz, the manager at the Jewelry and Fossil Shop of Steamboat, agrees that the layout is good and is excited for the store opening, which is expected to be around Thanksgiving. He said the new store will allow him to spread some merchandise out, and allow customers to have a chance to see the unique items the store offer including ammonites, Canadian ammolite, crinoids, trilobites, cephalapods, dinosaur eggs, megaladon teeth and sea urchins.

The store also offers a long list of rocks and minerals including geodes, agates, pyrite, calcite, amethyst, emerald, stalactites, jaspers, petrified wood, and onyx as well as a wide selection of jewelry.

“We’re going to have a lot of jewelry at the new location, too,” Topuz said. “One story is not enough. There’s a lot of traffic during the day, so we would like to spread that traffic out at the two locations so that people can walk around and take in what we offer.”

The jewelry for sale will include gold, silver and diamonds, as well as a selection of rocks and minerals that will be expanded from the first store. There will also be standing art including sculptures that will complement the assortment of rare rocks and fossils. He said the new space will allow the owner to bring in some bigger pieces that the current space can’t accommodate.

“There’s some cool stuff that we think our customers will love,” Topuz said. “We have fossils and geodes, but we also have some handmade big pieces like Transformers (sculptures), and so it’s just like and art museum, where you can walk and see all types of interesting things that you will like.”

Topuz said the geodes, crystals and fossils are imported from all over the world, and he said customers will find things that are amazing and rare.

“Personally my favorite is the petrified mammoth tusk,” Topuz said as he points to the item in the front of the store. “Everyone is just one of a kind …They are just really amazing, and come from Siberia.”

The store’s regular hours will be from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. seven days a week, according to Topuz who is looking forward to opening just in time for the start of the winter season. He has spent the past several months moving the space which was formerly Give Tees a Chance, and previously All That. Topuz said that the inventory at Rocks & More is heavy and hard to move so getting to an opening date has taken some time, but he is confident the store’s doors will open in the next few weeks.

“It’s just new energy and we love new energy,” Topuz said “We love giving people what they need, we get to feed our customers eyes, and it’s not just all about making transactions and selling what we have. It’s about making people interested in these fossils and educating them about these crystals and geodes — That’s the fun part for me.”

To reach John F. Russell, call 970-871-4209, email [email protected] or follow him on Twitter @Framp1966.