Stainton’s Gallery of Shops

I came in during the off season and walked around watching my wife pick out various clothing items and hats. Worth a star for what she found, however pass on the vinyl…
Normally I don’t buy vinyl records at places like this but I stumbled onto quite a few worth adding to my collection despite the terrible condition of many. Typically these go for $ 0.25 anywhere else, maybe a $ 1 on the high end. All of them were ridiculously over priced at quadruple what they were worth. All seemingly random, $ 5, $ 4, $ 6. We’re not talking about rare gems in mint condition here.
So I gathered almost $ 100 worth thinking they were items looking to be sold by someone trying to make money. I understand the place is a bunch of independent shops in a single store so I wasn’t shocked when I asked the young lady at the register if I could round them off to $ 2 a piece. I was buying so many any sane person would make the offer. She said they weren’t hers and there was nothing we could do about it. So I only bought $ 20 worth.
Whoever is motivated to make sales here does NOT have the vendors interests at heart. It’s plain as day. This place is making money either way, regardless of making vendors money on sales. Enjoy writing checks to a business that has more incentive to sell you a storage locker than making you a dollar. Eventually you’ll realize that a farmers market works because of the farmers, not the market space…

I remember Stainton’s when it was a department store. I hadn’t realized how much it had changed since I last went in there.
I was in search of one of my favorite shops, The Cricket Box, which relocated to Stainton’s after it was flooded during Sandy. I was pleasantly surprised with the overall store.
I don’t live in Ocean City year-​round, but I visit a lot and this store has the type of merchandise that lets me take a little bit of Ocean City home with me. From prints and paintings of the beaches and boardwalk, to handmade signs for the Ocean City businesses, I could spend hours walking around.
You walk in and it’s huge display of several vendors, neatly organized in the main floor area. Every shop has their own area where merchandise is displayed — almost like walking through different sections of a department store. In the case of some shops, like The Cricket Box, there are more than one nooks set up for the merchandise.
As a bonus — not something that appeals to me, but appeals to my boyfriend — there is a horse racing merchandise section. There’s lots of apparel and souvenirs from the Kentucky Derby, Preakness and Belmont races. There’s also a lot of merchandise associated with Secretariat. My boyfriend was fascinated.
Employees are around if you need help, but they don’t follow you around. They can normally be found in the center of the floor with the registers. The actual shop owners aren’t in the store, so you can walk around freely and look at everything. However, if you do have a question that the Stainton’s employees can’t answer, they offer to call the shop vendor for you to ask.
Parking is easy if you’re just heading into Stainton’s. There’s a small lot in the back (off of West St.) that has free, one-​hour parking. If you want to walk around the other shops on Asbury, bring some change for the meters, or park a few blocks over on one of the streets for free and walk over.

I walked into this department store to expect a typical beach department store filled with towels and swim suits. BOY WAS I SURPRISED. This store was amazing! First of all, it was huge! You could walk around freely without employees on your back and the stuff was so cool! The store consists of different tiny shops. No vendors were at the tiny shops. All of the shops were just the store’s merchandise. My family and I enjoyed this store so much! The stores offered things from rings to candy to phone cases to high waisted shorts to furniture! Everything you can imagine! They even had a little snack bar in the back for food and drinks. I didn’t eat there but it sure looked good. Please come check out this wonderful place in Ocean City!