business SPOTlight

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28 | OCTOBER 10 • 2024 J
N

T

here’s a storefront called 
Step & Style at the Lincoln 
Shopping Center in Oak 
Park that’s currently run by three 
friends, offering three different 
types of products. 
All the store owners are busy 
young mothers and would not 
be able to keep up with working 
behind a counter full time. Instead, 
they have a rotation system so that 
they each run the entire store for 
about one and a half days per week. 
“We divide up the hours and 
completely cover for each other; we 
trust each other completely,” said 
Sora Chana Aboud of Southfield. 
 “We were all friends before but 
we’re more like sisters now! There’s 
this vibe of ‘your kids are my kids,’ 
we’re always arranging who’s going 
to be in the store and who’s going 
to be picking up whose kids! I’m 
really lucky; it’s an amazing setup, 
and I couldn’t do it without them.”

On one memorable occasion, 
though, the other women were 
unavailable — one had a wedding, 
another had a funeral — and 
Aboud had a longstanding dentist 
appointment that she couldn’t 
cancel.
“That was the only time we were 
really floundering,” Aboud said. “In 
the end, I asked a friend to come in 
for half an hour to man the store. 
She greeted the customers with, ‘I 
can’t really help you but how can I 
help you?’”
Aboud wasn’t always a store-
owner. She moved here with her 
family from Brooklyn, New York, 
in 2008, and kept hearing other 
mothers complain that local stores 
didn’t offer cute matching clothes 
for their kids. 
“Online shopping wasn’t what it 
is now and, at the time, I thought, 
this is crazy. Detroit’s a growing 
community. We should have 

whatever a person could possibly 
want here!” Aboud said.
She decided to open a clothing 
store for kids in her basement. A 
few times a year, Aboud attends 
shows around the country to 
discover new styles of kids’ clothing 
and brings these outfits to Detroit 
for her customers. 
“I’m always trying to have in 
mind different fits, styles, body 

types, everything,” Aboud added. 
“It’s tricky because you can’t always 
tell how an outfit is going to fit or 
look until you actually try it on, 
but I still try and get good, cost-
effective, stylish, modest clothing 
for the community that I think 
people will like.” 
For years, Aboud sold this 
clothing out of her basement at 
set times in the evenings, but that 
came with some awkwardness, 
such as customers turning up 
outside store hours or feeling 
uncomfortable when her kids came 
out of bed.
Eventually, Aboud connected 
to other friends who also had 
home-based businesses and after 
commiserating with the difficulties 
of maintaining healthy boundaries, 
they decided to pool their resources 
and rent a storefront together. 

THREE (NOW FOUR) 
STORES IN ONE
In 2015, Step & Style opened with 
a combination of three stores in 
one: Aboud’s Fit For a Kid, which 
sells kids’ clothes up until size 
20 as well as yarmulkes, belts 
and other accessories; The Shell 
Shoppe by Sori Loketch, which 
sells long-sleeved undershirts, slips 
and jewelery; and Shoe-B-Doo 
by Shaindy Pollack, which sells 
children’s shoes. In May, Shoe-B-
Doo left Step & Style; another kids’ 
shoe store will be opening there 

Find kids’ clothes 
up to size 20 at 
Fit for a Kid.

Step & Style houses four businesses started 
by busy young moms who share the workload.
Four Shops in One

ROCHEL BURSTYN CONTRIBUTING WRITER

You can find an 
array of home 
goods at Potpourri 
by Chaya Bakst.
 

