Meet Lauren: 

She’s the doer and the visionary. If you see her in the store she's probably working on a project and you might get her talking for a minute, but then she's back at it! Lauren comes from 20 years of retail management experience. Her retail experience began as a low level manager at Walgreens because that was the quickest way to make decent money at that time. Running with those skills, she worked her way up to store manager of the busiest Goodwill in Illinois. With 60 employees, 300 donations and 500 transactions a day, Lauren was busy and had to be strategic to stay on top. Today, she uses these skills daily for the mission of having the coolest and best vintage shop in DuPage County! Now fast forward to multiple years of running a successful vintage shop that continues to grow year after year, and here we are! You'll still find her filling and changing things in our store, but is also finding ways to expand through creating events and participating every way she can with the community that surrounds our store.

Meet James:

James is the sweetest man, and would bend over backwards for any and all customers. He takes pride in making costumers have an amazing experience and strives for this daily. James has been playing instruments and has been in bands for 30+ years. Music is in his DNA, and he envelopes all facets of it. He has sold and worked on used instruments for 15+ years for various businesses and himself through online platforms. He's very experienced with a wide variety of instruments, specializing in guitars and percussion. Because of this, he's a huge asset to younger generations exploring the creation of music and helping their search for places to experience live music. You can often find James working on instruments or chatting with customers just sharing stories. James also handles all of the social media, a large part of the store’s drive towards success in growing our brand access and visibility.

Team JL:

When James and Lauren started dating, not only did they share a love of music and rock and roll, but they also had a mutual love of vintage too. They realized that they equally loved finding, learning, and buying all things vintage since vintage is better for many reasons including the fun of the hunt for good product. Even though their vintage loves are slightly different, as Lauren specializes in vinyl, clothing and accessories and James understand instruments and toys, their foresight into the future was similar. They both had visions of their own vintage shop, but also knew that they couldn't do it alone. So when they discovered this about each other, it seemed natural to combine forces and open a shop together. Since their vintage loves are different, it makes the store even better. The name is JL Vintage because it is what “J”ames and “L”auren bring to the table, and only they could make it what it has become today. They need each other in business and in life, and are blessed that the universe has placed them on the same path together!