Streetwise: Uff Da! relocates to Wausau Center

Wausau Daily Herald

Russ Erickson, the owner of Uff Da!, stands in front of a selection of the signs he sells.

WAUSAU - The mall's newest tenant is bringing a little bit of Norwegian culture to downtown.

Uff Da! opened in Wausau Center mall on Saturday, offering up a wide range of signs, as well as hand-crafted wooden home decorations, wool mittens and vintage postcards.

The store is owned by Russ Erickson, himself a descendant of Norwegian immigrants. He settled on "Uff Da!" as the name because he had heard the Norwegian phrase so many times throughout his life, he said, as his family used it to express stress.

Uff Da! opened eight and a half years ago in the Cedar Creek Mall in Rothschild, but Erickson decided to close in March, ahead of a busy summer of travel. He and his wife spend each summer selling signs all over Wisconsin at shows such as the Iola car show. He originally planned to move back into Cedar Creek at the end of the summer but decided to give downtown a try first.

"I stopped by the mall a month ago, stood in the center and looked around, and it's pretty full," Erickson said. "So we thought we'd try this out here."

The store was set to open Nov. 1, but after the success of the soft opening this weekend, Erickson decided to just keep the store open for business.

Uff Da! is now open in the Wausau Center mall.

"It's been good for the days we've been open," he said. "We even had several sales on Monday, which is usually a slow day."

Uff Da! is located across from the Wausau Children's Museum in the mall, a move that Erickson hopes will benefit him as parents drop off their kids to play and look for some shopping to keep them busy.

Erickson plans to add more to the store as the holidays approach, such as locally done chainsaw carvings. Besides the signs, all of the other products the store offers are made locally as well.

"We try to get a local flavor," he said. "We're not a national chain."

Erickson also operates an eBay page, Uffdahhh, on which he sells vintage postcards from across the United States. Another 153,000 of those postcards are also for sale at the River District Antiques Mall at 205 Callon St.

Uff Da! in Wausau Center will remain open through the holiday shopping season, but may close in the spring, Erickson said, so that he and his wife can travel for summer shows again.

For more information about Uff Da! and some old Norwegian jokes, visit www.uffdahhh.com.

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