Walking into Sweet Potato Pie, the clothing store at 20 E. 11th Ave. in downtown Eugene, is like walking into the folk-craft flea markets that once thrived in the parking lots outside Grateful Dead shows. The smell of incense fills the air, reggae plays over the sound system and Deadhead paraphernalia covers the walls.
It’s no surprise, then, that founder and owner Elizabeth Thompson, 35, began selling the handmade patchwork clothing line she called Sweet Potato Pie in those parking lot bazaars.
“It paid for me to see Dead shows through college,” Thompson said.
After traveling with the Dead to Eugene for a show at Autzen Stadium, she fell in love with the
city and decided to move here. At first Thompson started selling her clothing line at the Saturday Market. Then in 1997, she moved into the current location and expanded her business.
Today, Sweet Potato Pie sells much more than Thompson’s clothing line. The store is filled with women’s, men’s and children’s clothing made from hemp and organic cotton. It sells goods made by local craftspeople: jewelry made from bottle caps, handbags and backpacks, even
homespun and dyed hemp yarn. And there are college dorm-room standards like tapestries, posters featuring musicians like Bob Marley, Janis Joplin, the String Cheese Incident and the Grateful Dead, and lots of incense.
The collection of clothing and goods draws on the best of what’s available in the materials customers want — like hemp. Thompson says she carries it because of the damage done to the environment by conventional cotton farms.
“Cotton is the number one crop using pesticides and chemicals,” Thompson said. “If we want to have a clean world for our kids to grow up in, we need to move away from cotton.”
Since the handmade and hemp clothing can be pricey — Sweet Potato Pie’s signature hoodie jacket costs as much as $175 for the flannel-lined button-up version many customers take advantage of the store’s policy of accepting used clothes in exchange for store credit. But Vanessa Youngblood, the store’s self-proclaimed consignment queen, suggests calling before bringing in clothes that might not be appropriate for resale.
The clothing exchange has another benefit, according to Thompson: great values on the used items.
Another part of the store, sectioned off by a rope barrier, is a large gallery of locally made, hand-blown glass pipes and “tubes,” water pipes that many others would call bongs.
But employees enforce strict rules in this part of the store
that prohibit such terms. A sign reads that the products sold are for “tobacco use only,” and staff check to make sure customers are 18
or older. They also warn that any talk of illegal substance use will have its consequence.
“We’ve kicked people out before,” Josie McKenzie, one of the several young women who work at the store, said.
Unlike other head shops, a term that Thompson doesn’t like, Sweet Potato Pie only sells locally made products, and only glass.
“What’s cool about this store is that the glass blowers that she
supports are all local artists,” Kevin Jordan, himself a glass artist,
said. Because of Thompson’s close ties to the art community,
many sell to her at lower prices, and she passes the savings along
to customers.
In homage to her beginnings, Thompson says she has the largest supply of licensed Grateful Dead merchandise and gifts in Eugene, including baby clothes.
“Everybody’s growing up. The original Deadheads are grandparents and my generation all have kids,” she said.
Sweet Potato Pie is open Monday through Saturday from 10 a.m.
to 9 p.m. and Sundays from 12 p.m. to 6 p.m.

Jackson Holtz is a freelance reporter
for the Emerald.