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THIS HUSBAND-WIFE DUO MADE A MARKET ON LOWEST GREENVILLE Story by RENEE UMSTED | Photography by CORRIE AUNE
TWO EAST DALLAS NATIVES who grew up going to the same neighborhood hangouts didn’t meet until after they graduated from Woodrow Wilson High School. Chase Pridavka, who graduated in 2004, lived on Reiger Avenue. Victoria Syer, a 2009 graduate, lived just blocks away on Santa Fe Avenue. Victoria’s dad frequented a pub called The Londoner, which was owned by a man who coached Chase’s soccer team; the coach’s son also went to elementary school with Chase. “We were always so close to each other but our paths never crossed,” Chase says. He and Victoria finally met at Stan’s Blue Note, a popular place for Woodrow alumni, and realized they had known all the same people their whole lives. Eventually they married, and now have a daughter, who was born in early March. When they decided to start their own business venture, decades of neighborhood connections convinced the Pridavkas to do something in East Dallas, for East Dallas residents. Equally as significant was that each of them had soaked up a lifetime of knowledge and experience in the market world from their families.
24 lakewood.advocatemag.com MAY 2022
Victoria’s parents moved to Dallas from London shortly before she was born. Her father sold antique and vintage items at markets there, and he brought his career as a vendor with him across the pond. He and his sister started selling goods at Lone Star Bazaar. “Then they got a shop off of Greenville Avenue, which is Val’s Cheesecakes now,” Victoria says. “And then they moved that to where the new Arboretum parking lot is; the parking garage, that used to be their shop.” From an early age, Victoria — who’s now a teacher at Maple Lawn Elementary — accompanied her father on trips to garage and estate sales, and antique stores. When he started selling at markets, like at Fair Park, she and her cousin went along, sitting under the table playing video games while he ran the business. Chase had similar experiences as a child. While growing up, he had a close relationship with his grandfather, who did silk screen printing on shirts. He would sell creations at markets and festivals and to sports teams, and Chase would go too. When his grandfather was closer to retiring, he took up a family
