Sunshine Shop

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OPEN NOW - Closes at 5:00pm

A Little Something About Us

The greatest thing about our shop is our history.  The Sunshine Shop is one of the oldest businesses still in operation in Nashville, TN.  Always family owned and operated, The Sunshine Shop has seen three generations of gift makers.  Since 1954, we’ve created our baskets with the taste and style of the time.  That’s 56 years of design ideas for your baskets; enough experience to be the premiere place for your gift giving needs. It all started in 1944 when a local fruit and vegetable wholesaler named Lon Tanksley decided to make fruit baskets for his friends and employees at Christmas time.  He enlisted the help of his daughter, Mary Ann Papuchis, and her best friend, Aileen Rogers.  Mrs. Rogers developed our first fruit basket design for Mr. Tanksley that year.  It was so popular among their recipients that Mr. Tanksley began to sell fruit baskets as a side business out of his wholesale produce warehouse, creating the first gift basket shop in Nashville, TN.  After closing down the wholesale business, Mr Tanksley opened The Sunshine Shop, supplying Mary Ann and Aileen with new and exciting items for their gift baskets.  When Lon Tanksley retired in 1954, he left his shop to Mary Ann and Aileen.  In 1962 they settled upon an old house in midtown Nashville, located at 1912 Church St., where the shop remains to this day. When Mary Ann retired in 2002, Aileen’s daughter, Janet Stewart, bought into the business. Janet has revitalized The Sunshine Shop with new and creative gift ideas from her extensive retail experience.  Aileen can still be found at the shop on occasion, giving a final thumbs-up on our products and sharing her vast knowledge of design experience with the new generation of employees: her grandchildren and their friends.  Come by and see why The Sunshine Shop is Nashville’s leader in gift giving for over 56 years!