Cary businesses host pop-up market after Painted Tree shutdown

Downtown Cary spent Sunday trying to blunt the impact of a retail collapse that left small vendors with inventory in limbo and no immediate place to sell it. More than 20 sellers set up a pop-up market and block-party-style event at Meridian East Chatham, drawing shoppers to the corner of Hunter Street and East Chatham Street after Painted Tree Boutiques abruptly closed all of its stores nationwide.

The shutdown hit Wake County especially hard because Painted Tree operated locations in Cary and Raleigh, along with stores in Gastonia and Matthews. The Cary site had been listed at 240 Crossroads Blvd., while the Raleigh store was at 7444 Creedmoor Rd. Vendors said the closure landed with almost no runway: some were told they had about 10 days to clear out merchandise after the company notified them it was ceasing operations.

For sellers like Lexi Irwin of Lulu’s Boutique, the closure felt like “a chapter” ending too soon. That sentiment was shared by vendors who had paid for booth space, stocked shelves, and built customer traffic through the marketplace model Painted Tree used across its stores. When the chain shut down, many were left trying to recover stranded inventory, lost income and, in some cases, non-refundable deposits.

The Cary event offered a short-term lifeline. Held Sunday, May 17, from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m., it used both indoor and outdoor vendor space at the Meridian clubhouse at 255 E. Chatham Street. Shoppers found apparel, art, baked goods, jewelry, books, vintage items and stationery, while local businesses helped create enough foot traffic to give displaced sellers a chance to reconnect with customers.

The response also showed how quickly downtown Cary businesses can mobilize when retail trouble spills into the community. Refreshery, the local pressed-juice cafe, partnered with Meridian East Chatham to help vendors move merchandise and keep cash flowing while they mapped out next steps. Jessica McNulty, who helped organize the effort, said vendors were looking forward to more pop-up events as they transition.

Meridian East Chatham, completed in 2025, has become part of Cary’s changing downtown landscape, with about 220 luxury residential units, roughly 8,000 square feet of retail and a 348-space parking deck. That made it a practical landing spot for the relief market, but the deeper story was the vulnerability exposed by Painted Tree’s collapse. A model built on independent vendors can give small businesses exposure fast. It can also leave them exposed when a chain shuts its doors overnight.