In a lot of ways, Vancouver’s oldest neighbourhood is still a frontier town. Gastown is where luxury goods, tourist chachkas, and some of the city’s more colourful characters all collide on cobblestone streets. In recent years, an old-timey aesthetic has spread down Water Street, and it seems like no business is complete without an “& co.” suffix in its name or a quaint “est. 2014” handpainted on a shop’s reclaimed wooden signage. Gastown even has its own general stores.

One such throwback is Old Faithful Shop (320 West Cordova Street). In the inviting space with exposed-brick walls and rustic wooden floors, you’ll find affable staff and an Instagram-friendly French bulldog named Jean-Pierre, who has his own resting area built into one of the displays.

“You have the character of the original Vancouver down here with an idea that would have been in Gastown not that long ago,” explains store manager Donny Lambrou. “Walter Manning, one of Old Faithful’s owners, his grandfather owned a general store, and it was somewhere the community went to purchase things.”

No, you won’t find saddles, spittoons, gunpowder, and that oh-so-necessary rope for tying a damsel to the train tracks in this carefully curated shop. However, you will find other necessities like Chemex pour-over coffeemakers (starting at $42.95), Mast Brothers chocolate bars ($11.95), Short Stack Editions zine-style cookbooks ($16.95), and the ever-important Greff felt-and-canvas growler carrier ($79) for fastening a 64-ounce bottle of beer to your bike this summer.

For those looking to make their own craft liquor but not wanting to set up a still or go blind, another popular item on the shelves is the Homemade Gin Kit ($65.95). It won’t turn water into wine, but transmogrifying rotgut vodka into drinkable gin is the next-best thing.

On another side of Gastown, past all the stores selling perpetually discounted moose-pun shirts and jade carvings of polar bears, is Litchfield (38 Water Street). More inspired by Japanese concept shops than by ye olde general store, its wall-to-wall concrete is loftlike, and it feels like you’re stepping into the home of owner-operator Jonathon Litchfield.

“The store doesn’t focus on a category, it fits into a lifestyle,” Litchfield explains. “There’s so much variety out there, and it’s intimidating and overwhelming to sift through it all. So it’s nice if you can go to a place that has already done that sifting for you.”

Much as with Old Faithful Shop, it would be futile to rattle off all the kitchenware, apothecary products, pantry items, and coffee-table reads on offer. However, it’s safe to say Litchfield is the only store in Vancouver where you can purchase a copy of Kinfolk magazine (about $21), a deadly-looking Japanese kitchen knife (starting at $125), a cozy bison-hide rug ($2,400), and three different scents of Beardbrand beard oil ($29.95) under the same roof. (It makes your beard less itchy and smell nice.)

With all this talk of beard oils and gin kits, you might be raising your eyebrow suspiciously and thinking this general-store thing is merely another hipster fad. But both shopkeepers say that’s simply not so.

“I have everything from businessmen and lawyers who want something beautiful and unique to moms to rock stars to everyday joes. It’s not a narrow type. It’s anybody that appreciates quality and interesting design,” Litchfield says.

You can judge for yourself this week when a ritual that’s as old as Gastown takes place: guzzling free wine out of plastic cups while shopping, also known as the Gastown Shop Hop (Thursday [April 16]). Old Faithful Shop, Litchfield, and 40-plus more stores will be participating this year. And unlike on shop hops in the 1800s, you won’t have to worry about hearing obnoxious stories or catching syphilis from a mouthy, drunken bartender like John “Gassy Jack” Deighton.