Midwest Shores finds home for second store in bustling downtown Rochester

Written by Renee Berg

Shannon Kanack is fascinated with rocks. So she’s in the right business.

She has a rock and crystal gift shop in downtown Rochester, which she owns with her sister Samantha Pechauer of Milwaukee. The two launched their business – called Midwest Shores –? on Etsy in 2021 and grew to a brick-and-mortar shop in Milwaukee, which opened fall of 2022.

Their second location opened in Rochester in June of 2023 within The Kahler Grand Hotel, next to Tea Time and Qdoba. Kanack appreciates the walk-in traffic from neighboring Mayo Clinic, she said, and she definitely notices that patients return to Midwest Shores when they come back to Mayo for their follow-up appointments and procedures.

Pechauer manages the Milwaukee shop, and Kanack the Rochester shop.

When her husband took a job at Mayo and they relocated their family – mom and dad and kids now ages 13, 11, 6 and 4 years old — from Milwaukee to Rochester, her sister suggested they open a second Midwest Shores location here as she’s a “go big or go home person,” Kanack said. “She said, ‘If you’re going to be there, maybe we should have another location.’” She agreed.

However, if she and her sister hadn’t found this perfect spot for Midwest Shores in Rochester, they might not have opened their second store. They were sold on two elements of the store: its location downtown near Mayo, and a spacious back room where Kanack’s kids could hang out.

“It’s different traffic I guess you could say,” Kanack said. “Here in Rochester we have people coming to Mayo Clinic who find us. In Milwaukee, there are more big events that happen there.”

“We didn’t want to spend a lot on advertising for people to find us,” she said. “The foot traffic from Mayo Clinic is pretty steady and that is something we were looking for.”

What she loves most about her work is the rocks themselves, she said.

“I like to tumble and polish them and look at them,” Kanack said. “There are some pretty amazing things that can be found. I will never stop being in awe of that.”

The shop’s wares can be found at midwestshoresco.com and on Instagram and Facebook at midwestshoresco. On TikTok they’re at midwestshores.

Or stop into the downtown store from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday.