On Washington Avenue in Prospect Heights, near the corner of Prospect Place, Chris has run Yanatiba since 1993, making the Black family-owned shop one of the longer-standing independent businesses in a Brooklyn neighborhood that has seen enormous change over three decades. The shop’s own social presence puts it plainly: repping BK since 1993, a small but pointed claim to roots in a part of Brooklyn that has gentrified around it while Yanatiba has stayed put.
The inventory reads as a genuinely curated cross-section of decorative and wearable history rather than a generic vintage grab bag. Victorian-era artifacts sit alongside Mid-Century Modern furniture, with jewelry and original art filling in the gaps between larger pieces. Customers describe the effect as a the-more-you-look-the-more-you-see kind of shop, where a quick glance at the window undersells what’s actually inside, and where a slow, attentive browse tends to be rewarded with something unexpected on a return visit. One shopper specifically recalled buying a well-made antique wood coffee table, describing it as carrying its own history and character, the kind of piece that simply cannot be replicated by anything made new.
What consistently comes up in customer feedback is Chris personally, described repeatedly as engaging, friendly, and knowledgeable, with a sharp eye for interesting objects and a willingness to talk at length about where a piece came from or what makes it worth a second look. That kind of direct owner-to-customer relationship is increasingly rare in a retail landscape dominated by chain stores, and it’s clearly part of why regulars describe popping in whenever they happen to be wandering the neighborhood rather than treating a visit as a planned errand.
Yanatiba keeps a compact, late-afternoon-to-evening schedule well suited to browsing after work or on a weekend stroll through Prospect Heights: closed Mondays, then open from 1 p.m. to 7 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday. The shop asks customers to reach out by phone, text, or direct message rather than through Facebook messages, a small but telling detail about how a long-running, personally run business prefers to stay connected with its regulars. Being steps from Prospect Heights’ mix of brownstones, restaurants, and nearby Prospect Park makes Yanatiba an easy stop to build into a longer walk through the neighborhood rather than a standalone destination trip.
For anyone furnishing an apartment with pieces that carry real character, or simply looking for a Brooklyn shop where the owner’s personal taste shapes every item on the shelf, Yanatiba offers exactly that kind of experience. Yanatiba is a Black family-owned vintage furniture, jewelry, and art shop on Washington Avenue in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn, run by owner Chris since 1993 and known for a personally curated mix of Victorian and Mid-Century Modern pieces.
