By Catherine Gonzalez and Mickie Santos

The front gate of Rooster’s Relics in Santa Clarita.

Rita Hood started Rooster’s Relics as a small booth in Littlerock, California with the dream of opening her own antique shop. A short time later, it became three booths and, eventually, she expanded her store to the Santa Clarita community. 

While her day job of accounting involves a lot of stress, Hood believes in the sole purpose of keeping her passion alive by selling antiques. The antique shop isn’t her only source of income, but Hood still makes time to travel all over the country for some of these classic gems.

“We do get things from the 1800s. We also have quite a bit of items from the ’20s and ’30s,” Hood said. “Also from the ’60s and ’70s, because (of) the people who are aging now that are downsizing. We have quite a bit from those eras.”

While the pandemic hit and caused an abrupt stop to local businesses, Hood found creative ways to keep her shop open. Since only essential workers were needed throughout COVID-19, she had to figure out how to keep her shop open to pay its rent. 

“During the pandemic, we were closed. We did start selling outdoor pottery to landscapers and they are considered essential workers,” Hood said. “So because of that, we were able to stay open on weekends for the pottery out front.”

In addition to selling pottery to landscapers, Hood had other opportunities to keep her shop open. She was able to provide set props for Hollywood films and TV shows. 

“One of our giant dinosaur statues was actually recently featured on the set of CSI,” Hood said. “Some of our other items have also been used in movies and the store has also been used to film certain scenes.”

The dinosaur from the shop used in a CSI show. Photo by Catherine Gonzalez

Rooster’s Relics has been open for five years now and Hood will continue to pursue her hobby of collecting and selling antiques. Although the future of the shop is uncertain, she continues to find joy making sure every customer leaves her store satisfied and each antique goes to a good home. 

“Great, great store with such a wide variety of antiques,” said Reader Roz, a Rooster’s Relics customer, for a review on Google. “It’s like going to the movies because you just know almost every piece there tells a story.”

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