After 57 years, Coconut Grove’s oldest continually operating retailer is one of the last holdouts from the village’s hippy days.
The year 1968 saw the opening of “You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown” at the Coconut Grove Playhouse, construction of the Mutiny Hotel and an impromptu concert by The Lovin’ Spoonful at a Grand Avenue bar called The Gaslight.
It was also the year that Guatemala-born sisters Sylvia and Vivian Jordan opened Maya Hatcha, an eclectic boutique selling exotic clothing, jewelry and artwork and which today is the Grove’s oldest continually operating store.
Monthly rent for a 600-square-foot former kitchen in 1968 near the corner of Grand Avenue and Main Highway: $100.
Today, Vivian Jordan is the sole owner and operator of Maya Hatcha, which has moved twice since 2018, most recently to a smaller storefront at 3606 Grand Avenue in the West Grove, where Jordan shares space with Fookem’s Fabulous Key Lime Pies.
“My rent doubled when new owners purchased the building,” Jordan says of the store’s original location, where she kept shop for 50 years. “Not only that, but they demanded I pay $40,000 in back property taxes – which was never my responsibility.”
It’s a common refrain. As rents increase in Center Grove, high-end national brands are replacing smaller operators, and independently owned retailers are a dying breed. Truist Bank now occupies the former Maya Hatcha space.
“You cannot imagine how much fun the Grove was,” says Sylvia Jordan, who left the store in 1971 to become executive director of Coconut Grove Cares, a non-profit organization. “The ambiance here was so different. People were trusting. Gentrification has taken over and we’re suffering the consequences.”
In the early years Vivian often left the front door unlocked and on occasion allowed the village’s itinerant hippies a place to sleep. She recalls a barefoot Dustin Hoffman wandering in whenever he was in town.
The late Bob Marley’s wife Rita was also a frequent customer, favoring the shop’s colorful clothing and essential oils from Morocco. During the 80s, Miami Vice actor Philip Michael Thomas frequently visited the store.
“The 80s were good years for Maya Hatcha,” reminisces Vivian. “Decorators from The Mutiny were constantly in the store buying art for the hotel rooms, each of which had a different theme. Things began to change in the 90s when the Grove started becoming more commercial and less artistic. Today, developers think offices are the thing we need in the Grove. I really don’t see that.”
Maya Hatcha still retains a rabidly faithful clientele who shopped via the store’s website during the pandemic but never lost touch with Vivian.
“Everyone shops online these days and people no longer want to feel the fabric or try something on before purchasing. But we still have those customers, thankfully,” she says.
Grove painter and muralist Mette Tommerup has been a regular for 25 years.
“Vivian’s store is a magical portal to other worlds because every piece tells a story from another place, another culture,” she says. “She epitomizes the old Grove soul and I was jubilant when I heard she had moved. I’m a fan of everything she sells.”
There is barely room to navigate through the 400-square-foot shop; every available space reveals treasures from Vivian’s buying sprees. The ever-popular delicately embroidered Mexican wedding dresses, water buffalo leather sandals from India, fine linen clothing from France and Italy, carved masks from Africa and Guatemala, handmade jewelry, Patchouli oil from India and Indonesia and, of course, incense.
For long-time customers and other visitors, the unmistakable aroma of Maya Hatcha, even in its nascent new home, is a nostalgic link to another era
“We’ve always sold incense and my customers joke that the store’s scent never changes over the years,” Vivian says with a smile. “In fact, one man bought his wife a birthday gift and had to hide it in a sealed plastic bag so she wouldn’t smell it and know immediately that he’d been shopping for her at Maya Hatcha.”
Retired non-profit executive Doreen LoCicero remembers visiting the Grove in 1973 for the first time where she met Vivian and bought one of her popular colorful Indian bedspreads.
“When I’m around Vivian, it’s an ethereal, fun-loving time filled with laughter,” she says. “The items she sells really resonate with me… many with natural fibers that are handmade by indigenous peoples. It’s the perfect combination of old Grove and old-world charm. It’s a nurturing place for me.”
Maya Hatcha is located at 3606 Grand Avenue and is open Saturdays from 12-6 p.m. and Sundays from 12-4 p.m. Weekdays by appointment.