If you’re ever at an area antique store and spy a piece of whimsically painted furniture, don’t be surprised if the name Cheap Trx is scrawled on the backside. For the queer landmark’s beginnings 20-years ago just might surprise you. What would become The Lou’s “alternative shopping experience” opened in the summer of 1990 on Cherokee Street’s Antique Row. Cheap Trx—named for doing artistic tricks to cheap furniture—was born from a trip that longtime-partners Michael Mahler and Frank Neal made to Chicago to visit a friend’s newly decorated apartment. “They were doing all of this crazy stuff with painting old pieces of furniture and doing gold treatment on her walls,” recalled Mahler. “And of course Frank and I looked at each other and said, well, we can do this.” Indeed, launching a kitschy shop was a perfect venture for the creative professionals. Mahler was employed at Design Network doing multimedia displays and Neal had worked in visual display at Famous-Barr for 30-years and was looking for a change. Accordingly, the duo went about adding to their existing collection of pottery, plates and glassware and spent the next six months hitting garage sales and alleyways for camp finds and old furniture they could fancy up with paint treatments and new fabric and opened shop. “About a month and a half into the shop is when I got laid off and so we did everything we could,” said Mahler. “We did mass mailings and had little parties at the shop to bring people in. We were just quirky enough and silly enough that we got lucky and we got some great articles in the Post.” “We were media darlings for a short time,” added Neal. After all— Cheap Trx was unlike anything St. Louis had seen before and there was darn little they couldn’t sell given the right paint, upholstery or design. (Even an old broken brick with an Egyptian paint theme could sell for $5).
Trx of the Trade In 1992 Cheap Trx moved to its present location at 3211 South Grand. The late 1980s and early 1990s had seen a steady migration of LGBT St. Louisans to the diverse neighborhood and Mahler and Neal courted them by flying rainbow flags down the block.