Frae Everyday Goods combines the vibes of a corner market with those of a boutique, art gallery, community center, and makerspace. At Fray Everyday Goods or Frae West in Shiloh Commons, and Frae Collective, downtown, owner Tiffany Miller-O’Brien, a fifth generation Montanan, focuses on the origin of things. The name for her business, “frae” means “from” in Scots indicating origin, direction or a starting point in time.
Tiffany came back to where she was from, a ranch community outside of town. She put her knowledge she gained in Seattle from studying fashion design, and from working as a stylist and special events coordinator for companies such as the Bon Marche, Macy’s and Nordstrom to create a space highlighting local creations.
Frae West in Shiloh Commons opened in 2022 with Tiffany opening her second space, Frae Collective in the spring of last year. In starting her new business, she held the inspiration from Maya Angelou: “Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.”
“It started with our household,” Tiffany says, “a big journey with sustainable living and sourcing local. I think if you go into that journey thinking it’s going to be a perfect process, and you’re going to get it right every time, you’re wrong, and you’ll quickly give up.”
In creating Frae Everday Goods, she is providing that option for “doing better” for consumers. With Frae West and Frae Collective, she stocks her coolers and shelves with the basics. A shopper can come in and pick up some milk from Kalispell Kreamery and bread baked by Samurai Sue’s Everyday Goods as well as a frozen pie from Montana Pie Company and macarons from Flours Bakery. Dry goods such as a Montana made puzzle, Big Sky inspired playing cards or eco-friendly bath and body products can also be purchased here.
Frae Everyday Goods, Frae Collective is located downtown on N 29th Avenue across from Brockel’s Chocolates and next to Popover Kitchen Supply. On Thursdays and Fridays, customers can pick up their orders from the Yellowstone Food Hub. Credit Stella Fong.
Before her brick-and-mortar locations, she put her “we launched our website first. It did not have any e-commerce on it. It was more of a landing page, informational, brand story, colors, a vibe. It had pictures of what we thought the shop would feel like and look like and products that we might carry. I then launched our social media without having really a store yet, or any products yet, and just talked about what Frae would be.”
Their concept was picked up by Roots Garden Center, to create a popup shop selling her products during the winter months in the beginning of 2022. “I ordered a cross sample of what we thought we would carry when we had a brick and mortar.” This allowed Frae to “test the waters, see if people were interested in these types of items, if our community would support this.”
Tiffany received enormous support with many encouraging her to establish a physical space. Then a chance encounter led her to create her shop at Shiloh Commons. Two and half years later the Downtown Billings Association approached her to pitch for their Battle of the Plans Business Plan Pitch Competition for expansion concepts. In 2024, Tiffany earned the grand prize of $50,000 which helped her create Frae Collective.
Sip 555
In the back of the retail spot downtown, Serenity Huynh and Victoria Keutla offers Asian inspired teas and coffees. The pair started their business with popups, inspired by what they were seeing on social media. Popups were not “too much of a risk.” At their first popup at the Harvest Festival, they discovered that “we educated a lot of people on what matcha was” along with their other offerings of Thai tea and Vietnamese coffee.
“We are different from other coffee shops because we really value our culture and heritage. We grew up with Asian flavors and we want to share those flavors that we grew up with,” Serenity says.
Other vendors include Slow Burn Designs, Art’s Paper and Paint, Terakedis Fine Art and Jewelry and Black Cloud Bikes. Monthly, Tiffany sets up space for The Listening Lounge when three revolving musicians can showcase their original songs. Other events include monthly yoga and storytelling nights along with sewing workshops.
In the main store, there is a large cooler filled with local foods – greens from Swanky Roots, produce from Stone Soup Garden, cheese from Amaltheia Organic Diary and gut healthy food from Fermented Foods. Savory and fruit pies from Montana Pie Company are found in the freezer along with Flours Bakery Ice Cream.
Flours Bakery
Jacquelynn Beckman, owner of Flours Bakery located in the West End of Billings realized her dream of opening a bakery in the spring of 2023. Bringing experience from her time at the Rosewood Hotel and Resorts in Texas, the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in California and the Heathman Hotel in Oregon, she makes croissants that “takes about three days to make because we make it in the traditional manner. We make our own butter blocks from European butter. We ferment the dough for a day. We shape it. We proof it. What’s special about Flours Bakery is we let the food speak for itself,” Jacquelynn shares.Montana conservation grains also go into the croissants as well as her sourdough breads. Cakes, cookies, breakfast pastries and desserts are also found at the bakery.
At Frae Collective, Jacquelynn sells her ice creams and sorbets that she keeps “super simple.” “It’s fruit, it’s honey, and it’s water. The mango sorbet specifically, it just tastes like you’re literally biting into a frozen mango.”
The macarons she bakes up are found in small gift boxes. “Our macaron flavors are always changing, always seasonal.”
Montana Pie Company
Lura Hale started making pies in 2024. “My mother used to always have a bumper crop of rhubarb every summer, and my dad loved pies, and so we would always make pies and freeze them like we do now,” Lura says. “We’d always had a great pie in the freezer that you just put in the oven, baked it up, and you had fresh pies.”
Lura recruited the help of her friend Michelle Rafter when she embarked on going into the pie business. Michelle had made pies “but I would get frustrated because, I made it harder than it was, and I’d always ruin the pie dough, and I’d get frustrated and throw it in the garbage can, until Lura taught me how to make pie dough, and roll out a pie dough.”
The pair rolled out the pie doughs by hand when they first started their business out of Lura’s kitchen. These days they have a pie press that quickly flattens the dough balls.
“So we do mostly fruit pies, and then we do a couple quiches. One of them is broccoli mushroom and the other is spinach artichoke, and then we do specialty pies throughout the year.”
For the holidays, “we will stick with pumpkin, just because people want it for Thanksgiving, but we are definitely going to be doing a crumble top pie,” Michelle says.
At Flours Bakery, Jacquelynn will be “doing some salted caramel and some pumpkin.”
Frae Everyday Goods and Frey Collective are becoming that corner store and gathering spot embracing local inspirations. Serenity Huynh of Sip 555 says it best. “There’s no place like Frae in Billings, so I think this in itself is really special.”
